The Pursuit of Knowledge Lecture Series: Part 3 By Shaykh Abdul Nasir Jangda
Dec 06, 2011
Abdul Nasir Jangda – Pursuit Of Knowledge 03
AI: Summary ©
The importance of finding proper mindset or attitude is crucial for success in achieving knowledge, regardless of age or demographics. The speaker advises students to choose people based on their p salary and emphasizes the importance of balancing work and personal life. The speaker gives advice on prioritizing learning and pursuing interests in the program, emphasizing the need to stay true to class and not take advice into one's own decisions. The importance of prioritizing family and social activities, as well as learning to control oneself, is also emphasized. The speaker gives advice on maintaining a positive relationship with Allah, avoiding a "footway" and not leaving a program to avoid harming family members, and emphasizes the importance of pursuing one's dream and being a good parent to achieve success in school.
AI: Summary ©
You're listening to polam Institute podcast, visit us on the web at Palm institute.org and join us on [email protected] slash column Institut smilla William de la wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah
he was happy ultramarine salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa wabarakatuh.
Okay, inshallah, continuing with our topic on the etiquettes of seeking knowledge. We talked about the we completed yesterday and talked a little bit more about the proper intention or seeking knowledge or proper mindset or attitude in approaching or ailment, knowledge. And we talked about the seven things that are recommended by a leader or the loved one who,
excuse me six things, that knowledge cannot be achieved, knowledge cannot be sought, knowledge cannot be gained,
except through by means of these six crucial critical elements, and qualities that a person has to develop six things a person has to keep in mind.
What I wanted to talk about real quickly is to complete the advice of your loved one who
he says, Well, I'm not SPR o sherek. There's one last component. So after mentioning the six things that you have to keep in mind, which we talked about, he says there's one last thing that he mentioned separately, one is Dr. sherek.
It's part of human nature. It's part of our strength and our weakness as a human being, that we are social creatures, we're social beings, a large part of what Allah has instilled within us the need for companionship at different levels. And one of the most basic forms of that and form of that type of companionship or human interaction that is universal, regardless of gender, regardless of age, regardless of demographic, that is just friends, the people that you keep company with the people that you hang out with the people that you will sit and study with. Alright, and how many of you have been to college?
Okay, most of you. So you understand this dynamic. You know, everybody in the College Library has seen that there's lots of different study groups, but some are actually studying and some are more social circles than they are study circles or study groups. So that's a perfect example of how things work out how things play out, yes, you were in the library. And yes, you were in a study session, right. But what you accomplish there varies based on the people that you were sitting with. And so he ended up being a lot more on who advises the student of knowledge, to be very careful to be very cautious and to be selective about the type of person that you will keep company with. I'll
give you one very, I wouldn't call it extreme, but I will tell you one very strict approach. Again, I've talked to you about sacrifice, the more you invest, the more sacrifice you make. In order to achieve your goal to pursue your dreams to pursue your goals. The more diligent you have to be, the more willing you have to be to hear what's necessary and to do what's necessary. I told you before, we were, you know, I was very young. And there I was amongst a group of, you know, students who were very young, and we had left our homes and we had gone halfway across the world to study or in, it wasn't a joke. And so at that point in time, our teachers, our teachers, their recommendation to us
was, your best friend, while you're studying here will be your book will be your Kitab will be this or on will be that book of Hadith will be that notebook that you put in your notes. And that will be your best friend, you might need to of course, we're human beings. So not to be impractical, you will hang out with somebody, you'll go have lunch with somebody will go, you know, you'll play ball with somebody, sometimes that's a different thing. But when it comes down to it, nobody, you will not spend time with anyone more than you will with your own books. And that's a very strict approach. But again, they were simply giving us advice based on you know, what we had invested. And
so similarly here, the the primary advice, they're all given based off the advice of the loved one who is that nothing comes before your studies.
Nothing comes in from your studies. And that's not a lack of loyalty on your part. That's not a lack of being a good homie on your part. None of that. That's all nonsense. That's garbage talk that's taught that lazy, that's talked that unproductive, people use to guilt other people who are more disciplined and productive. They use that type of talk to guilt them into not taking care of their own responsibilities. You know, and I'll equate that I'll draw a parallel from something that exists unfortunately, in our culture today, and I'm not going to quote it because it's very offensive language. It's inappropriate. But typically these days, whenever there's a group of young men who
are friends who have camaraderie, and when one of them gets married, then when he obviously now has to put his priorities straight, and he's spending time with his wife or he's spending time at home with his family, then he's always guilted into guilted about that by his friends.
His friends make him guilty about that. So you got to put your friends first.
And so that that's a perfect example what there's no truth to that there's no reality to that. That's garbage. That's nonsense. But what's going on here, people who themselves or maybe, and sometimes they'll say friends that are guilting, that buddy of theirs, some, some of them have families of their own, that's the most pathetic part of it. They have families of their own, but what's happening, they themselves are rough, irresponsible, and they're guilting, their friend who is behaving responsibly for being a good person. So you have to understand that when you are here, you are here to study, you're here to accomplish your goals. And that needs to be that must be put
first. But nevertheless, as human beings, you know, I have friends, there are people I hang out with, from my days of studying, I had a couple of very good friends that are my friends still today. And so it's obvious your human being so you will be keeping company with someone and especially when you study, a very important part of studying and I'll be talking more about that with you tomorrow in sha Allah is kind of how to approach him and how to approach studying overall. So maybe tips, if you want to call them study tips, is that you will have to study with other people, meaning you'll have to study in a group and because you feed off of each other's strengths, and you can supplement
each other's weaknesses. So what does he know the loved one, you say? He says, What am I What am I have to show for somebody and you're done? I'll match that. Okay, as far as it goes, seeking out a companion, a partner in your pursuit of their aim, then you should choose someone as much you should choose based on piety.
Choose based on piety.
And so that's very, very important. You don't
want to set somebody who can be good to Allah, never expect that person to be good to you.
It's got nothing to offer, you can't be good to Allah. So first of all piety. Secondly, what what are all right, and then that person's care and caution in regards to how they live their lives. That person is very cautious and careful.
This goes back to that issue of the process of telling us to be careful about the gray area within the dean.
You know, so this person always, you know, airs on the side of caution.
This person always err on the side of caution in regards to their Dean.
And then he says something very interesting. He says, Well, sorry, but who must have been element of fire him. And then choosing out a friend, a companion, a steady partner, who has a tuber It must have been somebody who is very stable, for lack of a better word, somebody who is emotionally stable,
somebody who's emotionally stable, see what sometimes, and this advice is not meant to them. It's not meant to make you insensitive to people and their issues. But when somebody has severe emotional problems, they need a counselor. They don't need you.
All right, and you need to understand that, because we get into a hero complex, right? We get we develop a hero complex, I'm going to save everyone, I'm gonna save the world. I'm going to help this guy, I'm gonna help that guy and I'm going to help him and I'm going to help them. You need to first learn to help yourself.
Alright, so choose somebody who's emotionally stable, who will step in and notify him and somebody who is thoughtful, somebody who understands somebody who applies themselves, somebody who can, who has the ability to understand and is sensible, you can talk to them, you can dialogue with them, you can compare notes with them, you can disagree with them, without it turning into a drama without it turning into a fight. Right, this is in this study, it's going to require that back and forth. And then he says where you fit a room in a castle. And a student of knowledge should be running away from from who allocates land. Someone who's lazy, a student of knowledge should run from lazy
people. All right, one more output. And somebody who puts things off, and we'll get to later. Don't worry about it. Exams on Sunday, or Friday or whenever it is, right. Thursday night, we'll take care of somebody who just puts things off. No, no, no, you don't put things off you get them done right away.
When looked up, and somebody who is over indulgent
somebody who's overindulgent because see there's balance in regards to everything. I mean, there was just just how this was there yesterday, but we had the I had a does yesterday. I had a lesson yesterday, after Southern motive in the Irving machine. And after selected Asia.
I play basketball.
It's not sinful. It's not bad. Nothing wrong with it. You know, this evening, I'll be taking my family out for dinner. It's not bad. It's not nothing wrong with it. But the issue is
overindulgence. And as a student of knowledge, it's very important. Yes, you will need to take a break from your studies. Because if you don't, your brain will literally melt out of your ears. I've been there. All right, I didn't sleep one time for like 36 hours. I didn't even know where I was. Right? So you need to take a break, you'll need to sleep you'll need to eat you'll need to go and get some physical exercise you'll need to hang out with somebody you'll need to have a phone conversation. You'll need to share a laugh with someone. But the issue is overindulgence. And we are today in our culture. And I can talk about this culture because this the only culture I know this
where I'm from. Alright, young American culture. We wrote the book on overindulgence. We wrote the book on overindulgence. Is sports in and of itself bad or evil? No, it's not. But when Sports Center runs constantly on loop five times in a row and you watch it five times in a row, overindulgence
you know, having a laugh with some friends, not a problem.
But when I'll sit there and I'll watch comedy for an hour for two hours for three hours straight overindulgence.
You know, I'll even argue as far as because it's here in the building. But even playing some video games, that might be the way somebody releases somebody, the way somebody kind of cuts loose. takes a break from the study. That's wrong with it. But when you play all night long
overindulgence so I needed your loved one who says a student of knowledge and run from overindulgence.
And then, he said one move said, somebody who's a troublemaker, run away from troublemakers, people who like drama,
people who like to create situations where there is no situation. All right. And that's a very, very common predicament.
You know, I'll give you a little bit of the inside track, a little bit dirty laundry now that you're part of the club, I'll share with you. Alright, students of knowledge are the biggest drama queens in the universe. I don't know what it is, I don't know whether it's being isolated from the rest of society. I don't know whether it's being in a classroom all the time or studying all the time. I don't know what it is.
But to love other instruments of knowledge can be the biggest, the most high maintenance people in the world. So hypersensitive about everything, oh, he looked at me funny.
Or he knows I like to sit there. Or he didn't hold the door open for me. Or he went to go eat lunch with him today. It's I don't understand. But nevertheless, that's something you have to learn to stay away from. And what photography.
And this is an interesting quality photography is to create, like make things difficult for other people as very interesting doesn't necessarily mean you make things difficult for yourself, you just make things difficult for other people. And this is a very interesting, I'll give you part of where this applies. And this was something I personally had to learn. And again, I'm going to share something personal with you. And that was unhandled, either by the blessing of Allah,
learning always came very easily to me, I was always the brightest kid in the class, it always came very easy, never required a whole lot of effort from me.
And early on, in my studies, because of that teacher gave the lesson, I was done in 20 minutes, two hours left of class, what to do now, let's start messing around with somebody, I'm your partner in crime, I need somebody to talk to I need somebody to throw spitballs at I need somebody to play tic tac toe with me on my notebook. It just, it was what it was.
And one of my teachers, early on teachers in this this one of the teachers I was very, very close to is a mentor to me, he sat down with me and he goes, I see where this is going. I am noticing this this pattern of behavior. And he told me he said he was a similar type of student, he was a young kid, like a prodigy genius. And he said, I have the same type of tendencies and habits because that's human nature, you get bored, and what am I going to do. So at that time, you expect other people to indulge up other people to entertain you.
And he said, what you have to understand is that you are now becoming a fit enough for the other student. And you have to abstain from that. If you can control yourself, you can manage. First of all, he told me what should be done. And this is advice that I gave that I always give to students in this type of a class.
And that is if you are one of those students whose a little bit more accelerated than the rest who's a little more advanced than the rest who's a little bit quicker than the rest.
But also understand that you're still gonna have to work just as hard. Why? Because maybe you don't have to work on the actual lesson as hard but you're gonna have to work on your your behavior.
And so you have to put in the equal amount of work that everybody else is and what what should you be doing ideally, when you're done with your lesson in 20 minutes and everybody else is still at it for two hours. What do you do for that hour and a half
You invest your energy, you invest your time into helping other people in the class, become a group leader, become a steady session leader, lend your help to other people, it is one of those things like sadaqa, n does not decrease by sharing increases by sharing, the more you share your end, it doesn't give you you know, and again, we come from a very secular environment. And so it's very competitive, you always got to keep a head up on your opponent, right, you got to keep your competition down. And so we're always trying to stay one, one step ahead of everybody else in the class, not in, in, in religious, Islamic spiritual knowledge. The more you share, the more you lend
your help, the more you benefit, the more your own knowledge increases. And again, I told you about the students who later on are able to benefit a lot more people, again, the secret to how and why is usually found when they were students. And part of that was that because of this advice in this mentoring of our teachers, we literally be when we graduated from our studies, we didn't just graduate as students, we graduated as teachers. Because we'd been teaching while studying the entire time, we were the group leaders, we were the study session leaders, we were the go to people for the weaker students in the class. And that creates empathy.
Empathy, it creates empathy and teaches you to empathize with people. So later on, when you do become a teacher, and when you explain something that you think should be very simple, and out of 60 students, you know, 50 of them got it like that, like you expected and the 10 that are still kind of struggling, they're not typically we see teachers go two routes, one route is frustration, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you getting it? What's wrong? Or it's just, that's their problem live with it? How are they gonna, we're going to move on, and catch up if you can catch up.
And then the second approach is that teacher takes care of those students, because he has empathy empathizes with those students. And that empathy develops very early on as a student yourself.
So lend your help to other students, that's the best thing you can do. And if you can do that, then just learn to control yourself.
Find something that fills your time that takes away your boredom, but doesn't involve somebody else's attention.
That's the least favorite that you can do to your fellow students in the class that's part of respecting the other students, your colleagues, your fellow students. And it's very, very important.
So those are some of the advice is given by a leader the alumni know about how to choose you and the company that you will keep here in the program. Now,
tomorrow, inshallah, I'll be next session, I'll be talking about
the respect of the teacher. And I'll also be talking about the seventh the study tips. What I'd like to talk about today to end the session today inshallah, is prioritizing. I'd like to talk about priorities. And this is the part of the talk, that's a little tough.
Some of you, I see a few familiar faces, a couple of old students here, I have a couple of, fortunately, right, a friend. But um, so there's a few familiar faces. So some of you know me, and some of you will get to know me
that
I don't like dropping the hammer, so to speak, it's not something I enjoy, not something that I'm used to you probably have, if those of you who know me even somewhat probably never heard me do it a whole lot.
With the exception of them, of course, but that's just jabbing back and forth. But
I have to give it to you straight. So this part of it's going to be a little tough. And I apologize if it offends you, I sincerely do apologize. Students of knowledge are people that I have a great deal of respect for. And so I definitely respect you, I respect your sacrifices and the work that you're doing. But I also have to be honest with you.
Prioritizing is very important. I've been talking to you for two days for two sessions about how important it is that you put this in first. This is your number one priority while you're here, the mustard, volunteering and the social services, activities and all of these other things. They'll be still around when you're done in Sharla.
And you'll get plenty of time to invest into that right now. Which you're in that requires your attention. You didn't come here to make best friends with anybody. You didn't come here to start a new club or a new Facebook group. It's a month. All right, you came here to learn. Put that first. All right.
But there are some things that needs to be prioritized ahead of you. And those are two primary things. Number one is a lot. And that sounds weird. Like I thought this and Miss to connect to a lot. It's not always like that for people. So number one is a lot. And number two is family. I'm gonna talk to you about these two things. To put a love first, what does that mean? I told you previously, that even the classical scholar
would say that and there's a hadith in fact that I presented to you that learning Tallinn, that alone learning or in learning knowledge is more rewarding more beneficial, then voluntary acts of worship. So now what do I mean by your relationship with the Lamas confers number one is that intention I talked to you about your intention has to be, has to be to please Allah subhanaw taala.
And it can become departed from Allah, meaning sometimes in one of the greatest
test of
a side effect of knowledge, a very bad side effect of knowledge and this is the dirty little secret of
is that
a person can become very self absorbed, self involved and self infatuated.
It can become about yourself.
Ego comes hand in hand with if a proper relationship with Allah is not maintained. So you have to maintain your relationship with Allah, you know, and sometimes you probably heard the little rhetoric about there's you're in and then there's just information, there's knowledge, information incorrect. The Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi salam tells us there are two types of it's still called they're in,
and people will still treat it as invalid people will still look at it as in, but there are two types of
other invalid natvia knowledge that is beneficial, whether in login and invade or not fear and knowledge which does not benefit which is not beneficial. The profits a lot is used to make a lot of money as a Luca elmen nafion. Allah I asked you for knowledge that is beneficial beneficial knowledge. And then he also used to similarly meet the Dalai Lama in the EU becoming a Min De Anza. And Allah I take refuge with you from knowledge that will not benefit will not benefit.
So it's very important that we understand that. So what is that protecting that relationship with Allah, the most basic part of it is your prayer, your salon,
very straightforward, because we already took the voluntary acts of worship, and we put them into context
and seeking it as an act of worship itself. But the most basic thing is your five times daily prayer Salawat. And some of you might be thinking, that's preposterous.
He comes here to tell us to pray five times a day like, buddy,
I'm the full time Arabic program, like you know, you don't think I pray five times a day.
But you again, this is something you're learning you're going to learn now, is that a lot of things that you just assumed things that you thought were automatic, don't always end up being.
And it becomes a huge test in a huge predicament for the students of knowledge to pray properly on time, five times a day, because there takes up so much of your day, because it requires so much of your attention, your energy, this will be one of the first things that you're willing to compromise. I will print Later, we'll get to it. And we'll take care of it later. It's all good. It's all good. There's time till five o'clock.
Because we're all like fuqaha, you know, experts of the timing of prayer. So I know the horse is all the way to 5pm. So I can pray anytime between there. I checked on it. I googled it.
Right? No, no, the prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi Salaam system was beloved of actions to Allah is a Salah to Allah.
To pray at its first instance, first time, and the exception to that is unless there is a time fixed for the Salah to build Yama. But that's what I recommend. And it doesn't necessarily have to be that you do have to go too much. I know a lot of you literally live walking distance from the machine. And in that case, I would strongly recommend it. But if you're here, you know, then to all of a sudden run downstairs and get in your cars and drive around and drive back and then come back upstairs. No, that's not necessarily required. But what you should absolutely be doing is when the runtime comes in, have the event called stand up in congregation and pray, make it your number one
priority, you drop everything, you're in the middle of a session, disrupt the ethical break.
It's very important, very, very necessary. And that will keep you on top of your relationship with the law. And that's where butter God comes from at the end of the day. That's where blessing and Baraka comes from but again, you're in will come from there. It won't matter how much work you put in. It doesn't matter how smart you are.
It will depend on what type of a relationship you had with the last panel.
Because there's been plenty people before us and even plenty people alive today that think of the most knowledgeable scholar, Muslim scholar of the Quran. There are probably non Muslims more knowledgeable about the Quran than him alive today.
No one is more knowledgeable than at least in shape on nobody. But it didn't benefit because of that lack of relationship with someone. So that needs to be kept in perspective. don't sacrifice anything for that.
Number two is family.
And this is on the list of priorities. This needs this family, let me put it in different words, family cannot be sacrificed for the pursuit of knowledge. It's a travesty. It's a tragedy. It's a huge contradiction. It makes no sense.
That this in the Quran, the Book of Allah and the life of the messengers of alcoholism was sent to us, to enhance us to make us better people.
The Prophet system says the best amongst you is the one that's best to his family. And I'm the best to my family. He says,
during the process of reprimanded, those young men who took oath, I went, I'm never going to sleep at night, I'm going to fast every single day.
I'm never going to get married. When the process and reprimanded them, you know what he started off by saying, he said, I am more knowledgeable than all of you and I have a better relationship with the law than all of you.
And then he laid into them. And then he told him, this is completely incorrect.
So you have to understand that this is a key part, this is from the positive shehryar. This is part of the fundamentals of our Deen. And this is a very basic elementary part of the human experience.
And Dean, Islam, Quran, all of this, and all the knowledge associated with it came to enhance it. So you can't sacrifice it. You can't become you can't neglect your family, if somebody is learning for somebody who's learning Arabic. But at the same time because of learning Quran or Arabic, somebody is neglecting their spouse or neglecting their children. That's a direct contradiction. That person should should take some time, go look in the mirror and realize that their knowledge is not beneficial to them. Their knowledge lacks Baraka and blessing from Allah
cannot.
Absolutely not.
And so I understand that there will be tough spots, there will be spots where you will have to sacrifice one thing for the other. My personal recommendation, my personal record, this program is forever, our longest program is and any type of program, whether it's a year, whether it's six years, or seven years or eight years doesn't matter.
But there's life after that.
And this end was meant to enhance and allow us to live a more meaningful life in existence beyond just our time as students.
So when you come to that tough spot where you gotta sacrifice one for the other,
sacrifice the end for the family. I'm telling you that officially call it a footway, if you want. I don't care. But that's the bottom line.
That's the bottom line. Why? Because you left the program. And you still remained a little weak in your verb conjugations.
I'm again, going to go ahead and let you know this, I
am going to go ahead and say this. But I lost power to Allah, I hope and I pray. And I'm pretty confident that last part, Allah will not hold you accountable for your weakness and verb conjugation onto the agenda,
you'll be okay. You won't be asked about your ability to grammatically dissect an ayah in the grave. I'm letting you know now.
We have nothing in our tradition that tells us that. But when you neglect the rights of people, and when you abuse people, that's abuse when somebody trusts you, and they trust that you will fulfill their rights, and you'll take care of them, whether it be financially or physically or emotionally or psychologically, whatever it is, whatever capacity and they trust you and you betrayed that trust, you have abused that person.
They've abused that person, we again, we separate these concepts, neglecting my wife is one
ignoring my children.
And I will be held accountable for that by a law and to do.
So please understand that, please understand that
this goes back to the very first thing that I said about knowledge is not a commodity. It's not a commodity.
And we need to stop treating it as such, if I'm a little bit weaker in my grammar, but I'm a lot better have a family man. When I leave this program, I was successful.
And if you mastered the Arabic language, by the time you leave this program, you mastered whatever in you came here to learn.
But you destroyed your family. You ruined your marriage. You lost the trust of your children in the process. You are a failure. I'm telling you right now, as somebody who has lived more than half of his life in the procedure into teaching. And as your teacher, I'm letting you know, right now you are a failure. You failed. You did not accomplish what you came here to accomplish. And so I can't stress this enough. I cannot emphasize this enough. It's very, very important. It needs to be understood by us very, very clearly. Because we have this problem. We have this contradiction that we have drawn up lines that did not originally exist.
You know, what, is there a bother what is Dean? we've drawn lines that don't exist. So spending time with my family, that's not a bad idea. That's just personal time. No, no, that's in a bother. The time that I spent with my with my wife isn't a bother to worship. When I play with my children, that's a part of my deeds, and rewarded for that.
I'm rewarded for that. I'm blessed because of that.
And that's a part of the blessing of Allah subhanho wa Taala. And that's me showing a las panatela that I am grateful for this blessing. So that's the two things I want you to remember. Yes, it was your priority while you're here. But after your first two priorities, your relationship with Allah which constitutes your five times daily prayer, no compromises whatsoever. And number two, your family. For the youngins. You do have plenty of time to pick up your phone and call your parents. Don't give me that excuse.
Don't tell your mom Well, you're gonna have to learn how to text message because I'm so busy. I just drop you with text. Don't do that. First of all, because I it's creepy when mom's text Okay.
All right, that's my experience with it. But um,
and secondly, it's disrespectful.
All right, your younger siblings, if you have some, they look up to you, you mean the world to them? I know it doesn't seem like that when they, you know, mess around with your stuff. But you mean the world to them? They look up to you. It will mean everything to them when you make time for them.
All right. For those of you who are married, I can't even begin to talk about it. Very, very important. It's not just a lifelong relationship. That's an eternal relationship.
We're together in the archaea.
How could you sabotage that? So you have to be very careful about that. And for those of you who have children, you're not every single time. Every single time in the Quran. Allah talks about giving children he doesn't use the word at all. Which means to give he doesn't even use the word eat out which means to grant uses the word Heba.
Yeah, bully Manisha Hubbell. And I mean, as far as you know, for heavily melancholia uses the word HIPAA, which means a gift. Children are a gift from Allah need to be treated as such.
And there's no excuses. Doesn't matter what you're doing. There's no valid excuse to neglect them to not treat them properly.
And
I'm going to end by that, I don't think I quite dropped the hammer yet. So I still got some, I still got a little bit of room to maneuver here. Two things that I want to talk about. And again, this is me just being honest, two concerns that I have, based on just a paper survey, I'll admit a survey of the students that have come this year on paper,
two concerns that I have, and I'm sharing them with you, I'm not beating down on you. I'm not criticizing you. I welcome you and I, I really honestly admire and respect you.
And those of you who have families that are making more sacrifices, you have that much more of my respect. All right, but at the same time, I'm also that much more concerned and worried about a couple of things.
Two things, the two concerns, I have number one across the board. One of the main folks, one of the main things to keep in mind about seeking knowledge that the loved one we talked about was to lose money, a long duration of time. Because again, we are very much consumers today.
We live in a consumer mindset, a consumer culture, a consumer society.
A lot of times now, these days, people are developing a consumer attitude towards their intimate knowledge as well. So a lot of people, and that's not your fault. It's just a predicament of the culture, the society we live in. But we have to work on it here. And we have to get it out of the way in the very beginning. A lot of people came here with the mindset of hitting a home run.
I'm just going to show up, I got a year, hit the home run, done, finished move on with my life. That attitude is very unhealthy. Because that means you never became a student of knowledge. You mean you became a participant in a program and then when the program ended, your participation ended, and you went about your life, but you did not become a student of knowledge. You didn't.
So please understand, you are here to get a jumpstart. You are here to get rolling. You are here to get that push in the back. That'll get your wheels turning. But you didn't come here to just hit a home run throw a hail mary. Apologize for all the sports analogies. But you didn't come here to just boom knock it all out at once. That's it. I'm done. I'm finished. No, no. You came here to start your journey. But when
program ends. Your journey is nowhere close to being over your journey just started. You know, I was part of a, I was part of the bulk of my time in terms of studying, I was part of a curriculum, a course, that is eight years long.
When I come when we completed that eight years in our graduation ceremony, our teacher basically said, these eight years have been invested have been spent in preparing you and teaching you on how to study now go learn. I was like, Oh, God, I just got ripped off, right? The American kid in me was like, oh, man, like no money back. Right? But no, no. But that's exactly what it meant. You are now starting your journey. So don't please do not have that mindset of just out the park done, finish go home, done on demand. No, no, no. All right. So this is not a home run. This is a blessing of Allah, that most people, the the, how faster we'll start will start to turn in a year's time, usually will
take people at least two to three years, maybe even more. And that's going to be condensed and provided for you. So if anything, you're just getting that real hard push in the back. All right, but you got to keep going you can't put the brakes on. And the second worry or concern that I have. And this goes back to the family thing.
Many of you,
and probably more so in comparison to previous the previous year, and even even previous programs, there are more of you who have families in terms of not just married but also have children, especially young, young children. All right. That's that's seems to be a very common trend in this year's batch in this year's group. And I have to again, let you know that and I want to let you know that I'm very concerned about a very unhealthy trend developing. And that is,
you know, somebody might have had a long lifelong dream. And most of you probably had a lifelong dream of learning Arabic, understanding the Quran, understanding the book of Allah.
And now that the opportunity presented itself, it was that mindset of by any means necessary. I gotta do this is just a year, we'll manage, we'll figure it out. But it's just got to happen. Now, I got to live out my lifelong dream.
And you're absolutely entitled to do that. And I encourage you to pursue your dreams. But again, we don't have a by any means necessary concept within our deeds. It does not exist. The Quran does not give us that perspective. The Prophet alayhi salatu salam has not given us that idea. And even in within the structure of Sharia, in fact, that is not one of the rules that we operate based on. We do not, when it's all about the means. It's all about how you get there, because you maybe you're not going to get there, it's not in your hands, whether you get there or not.
But it's all about how you handle the means how you handle the journey on the way there.
And so please be very, very cautious and careful about this. Those of you who have children, especially younger children, all right, these are their formative years, these are the most impressionable age that they will go through. And while a year when you're 40 years old, a year is like one out of 40, right? It's not a big deal.
It's not a big deal.
But at that age, a years a huge amount of time. And you can have a very profound effect either positively or negatively on the child. So please keep that in mind. If it's any consolation, you know,
consider us available to help you with anything that you need help with you, you fall a little behind, you need help catching up, consider us available, or at least I can extend the offer for myself, reach out to me I will try my best.
I will try my best to help you as much as I can. Or I will at least recommend somebody else and I will talk to somebody else to help you. And if nothing else, I don't know what this means to you but know that more than anyone else you will be in my door you'll be in our doors. You'll be in our prayers that allows panto blesses your efforts and blesses your work. But please keep your priorities straight. These are your children. Not something to toss around, not something to sacrifice. Be very, very careful about that. Again, I'll go back to the same premise. Being a better parent is a lot better than knowing Arabic. Good.
Mastering Arabic, great, but being a good parent is much more of an accomplishment. And it's a lot more of what we need in society today as debt as desperate as we are for Arabic teachers and people understand that we're on. We are more desperate for good parents today.
And the Prophet alayhi salatu Dr. Angela tells us what kind of Abu Masada when they were good parents, Allah would send prophets and messengers to take care of their children after they were gone.
And the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa
Sam tells us when our human being dies. When he leaves this world, his actions are done, except for three things. And one or the one does three things while I don't solve the one he had a pious, righteous child that continues to make to offer that parent.
So those were a couple of the concerns that I had, please take them into consideration think on them. And may Allah subhanaw taala allow you to be successful in this endeavor, and May Allah grant you the greatest of success here in your studies.
We'll go ahead and end the session here today, inshallah.