Webinar Renew Your Eeman Revive Your Spirit.

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salam ala rasulillah. While he was suffering, here's Mary galatic. Lucky Welcome to who so shallow wanted to go ahead and pretty much just jump right into the topic. And talk a little bit today about renewing every month. It's a, you know, this this time of the year, generally speaking, folks are focusing on you know, everywhere you look for myself, personally, one of my, I guess you could say, vices or indulgences is sports, to some extent. So, at this time of the year, people are, you know, talking about how the entire year went, it's basically a recap or an analysis of the entire year, the year in review, so folks are looking back at 2012,

whether it be in terms of their personal development, in terms of their finances, the news, stories, sports, whatever it may be, this is a time of the year when folks are kind of recapping the entire year. And at the same time, folks going forward are also thinking about the year that lies ahead, and trying to make sure that the mistakes that were made in this past year are not repeated. Folks are trying to set goals and, you know, targets for themselves for the coming year. There's a very popular concept that we're all aware of people call them New Year's resolutions, where they try to set goals and objectives for themselves for the coming year. Well, as believers as people of faith

as Muslims, we obviously also have the concern of our emaan and our Deen and our Islamic man, we also want to make sure that we want to reassess be able to look back at 2012 and see how, you know, we managed and took care of our emaan, what was the state and the condition of our a month, and then going forward at the same time, we want to be able to set goals and be able to maintain our eemaan. So first thing I wanted to talk about, generally speaking was

you know, a lot of times there are folks who

generally speaking, you know, have the goal, the ambition for wanting to make sure that 2013 is a lot better of a year in terms of our eemaan. So the first thing that I wanted to state was, we can learn a little something from everyone and from everything. And when we look at this idea of setting goals and having resolutions for the new year, one of the key pieces of advice that is given is you want to be specific. And it's no different for us in terms of our eemaan that yes, generally speaking, we want to be better Muslims in 2013. And while that holds true and firm, at the same time, we need to learn to be a little bit more specific in terms of what that exactly means

maintaining our EMA and we need to be a little bit more specific in that regard. And I wanted to share a couple of stories with you to kind of start things off,

and then go forward with our conversation from there and maybe talk about some tangible practical items.

I met.

I met two individuals, I probably met them about 10 years ago. And at the time when I met them 10 years ago, they were both past the age of 60. So these were two gentlemen who were 60 plus years old. A little bit of detail about these two individuals was that both of these gentlemen, they were professors, they were basically had recently both retired from their teaching positions at their universities. And they were the heads of their department. One was the head of the language and literature department. And the other was the head of the mathematics and statistics department. So they suffice to say they were brilliant men and very, very intelligent, accomplished individuals.

When I met them, what stood out about them what was remarkable about them is that I had the opportunity and the blessing to participate and attend a gathering and celebration where they were celebrating basically, both of them completing the memorization of the Quran, memorization of the entire put on the book of Allah subhanaw taala. They're both finished, they were hopping on.

And their story was really remarkable. Just in and of itself, somebody passed the age of 60 completing their memorization, and you can imagine it's really enlightening and motivating and inspiring. But their story was really remarkable. They basically said that when they both started teaching, they started teaching together at this university at the same time. And they were both you know, young and up and coming academics and professors and they had both been appointed to teaching positions at this university and they were good friends, but they also Mashallah were, you know, good practicing Muslims and they had a concern for while they progressed in their personal

with their families and raising their kids, and their careers and their academic ambitions, they were also progressing in terms of their Islam in their mind and their, their, their relationship with the law. And one of the tangible goals that they have set for themselves was that we wanted to memorize the Quran, we realized that we had spent our entire lives up to this point, achieving and accomplishing, you know, great feats academically, and all these other areas of knowledge. But we sat down and we thought about our relationship with the Quran, and our accomplishments in terms of the Quran. So we decided that we needed to kind of step things up in that regard. So they said they

set a goal for themselves, we need to memorize the Quran. And they said, this was about 30 years ago, and 30 years later, they were now completing the memorization of the Quran and having this great celebration. So obviously, you know, it's a really remarkable story. So I sat down with them to talk to them about some of their, you know, how they went about in achieving that, because that's a very common thing. I'm myself, I remember when I was really young, and I was able to do it in a very short amount of time. But I feel I personally feel that it's even more remarkable to do it later on in life with other responsibilities that these individuals had and to be able to sustain a

goal over 30 years, and never lose sight of that goal. You know, I was I was doing a lot of readings on leading up to this particular session, specifically, and in general, it's something that, you know, I constantly read about, whether it be from the aspect of psychology or just personal development. And so, you know, the statistics are out there for everyone to see. You know, most people

give up their resolutions that they've made at the New Year. They give them up within the first couple of weeks, and I was reading somewhere that by mid February, the vast overwhelming majority of people have completely lost any type of touch, or, you know, track of the goals, or the resolutions that they had made. And so if people are giving up their resolutions in their goals in six weeks, what is it that allow these individuals to maintain their goal in their objective for 30 years, and based on some of the feedback I got from them, and along with, you know, the Quran, the Sierra, the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu sallam,

and just in general, you know, an observation of people and folks in my own experiences, I had a few specific points I wanted to kind of touch on in terms of maintaining these goals and being diligent in terms of

continuing to, you know, work towards the achievement of our goals that we might have. The first and foremost thing is that you have to make some goals. And this is basically what is called in the Quran and the Sunnah, has Amelia, having an intention, the issue of the intention, the Nia is one that is very deep, very profound. It has legal meaning sits ramifications, that at the same time, it is deeply spiritual, pesky therapy, a related implications as well. So the first thing is that the Prophet of Allah, Allah tells us, of course, in them and yet that actions are based on their intentions. And what's very interesting about this particular Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu

Sallam

is that the Prophet Alayhi Salaam uses the letter but there are a lot of you know, the word outline and the word and the the word actions or word Nguyet are oftentimes the focus of this of a conversation revolving around this particular Hadith. But what we miss out on the fact is that little bot, which is a preposition in the Arabic language, a heartful job is probably the most remarkable part of this hideous generation. The letter BA in the Arabic language has a dozen different meanings and implications and the prophets, a lot of them intended all of them. But the one that I feel is a couple of them rather, that are probably the most insightful in regards to this

conversation is number one, that the bar is used for the meaning of suburbia, which basically means that whatever is stated after the bar is the outcome, the consequence of what is stated before the bar, or excuse me, the other way around what is stated after the bar is the cause. And what is stated before the bar is the consequence in the outcome. So the profit or loss of all the services our actions, meaning our achievements, and our accomplishments, are a direct result and outcome of our intentions. So based on the intention will be the outcome and the consequence, meaning we cannot have any type of an outcome unless and until we have some type of an intention in place. And the

second implication of that I wanted to talk about here is by is also using the meaning of that Luciana which means the bar of assistance or help, meaning that what is stated before the bar is aided by is helped by what is stated after the vote. So the intention is the aid and the

In the helper to the actual accomplishments, that a lot of times we see as, you know, intentions being juxtaposed or being, you know, opposing or being the problem here that I had this intention, but I was not able to achieve the outcome or the goal. But in reality, we need to look at it this way that our intentions will actually help us achieve our goals, and help us actually achieve anything at all. Because if we don't have an intention, you have nowhere to begin. So the first thing is that there has to be goals, there has to be ambitions, there has to be some type of intention in place as to what you want to achieve and what you want to accomplish. And I'll say two

things about that.

Number one, is the Prophet of Allah loves him and another had eaten narration says me, it's an element of comedy, that the intention of the believer is better than his action. Meaning that the first thing is that, then we can, the first thing is that our intention can a lot of times be a lot greater than maybe what our circumstances might tell us that we're able to achieve and accomplish. And we should not let that restrict us. But we should have very lofty goals and ambitions. That's the first thing I want to say. Even though practical advices, a lot of times given opposite to this. And I will be basically, to a certain extent contradicting myself a little bit down the road, but

not really a contradiction. I'd rather want to propose a, a compromise. So the first thing is we have to have lofty goals and ambitions. So you have to aim high, you have to set goals for yourself that require you to push yourself, you know, one particular thing that I dealt with over the last couple of years, that I can kind of use as an example for this is in terms of achieving better health. You know, a lot of times people call it losing weight, but it's much more than that. It's, it's it's having, it's basically wanting to improve your health, your physical health, which has a direct impact on your emotional, psychological and spiritual well being. So you first have to set a

goal that is going to challenge you, at least in the Leishman these two individuals they decided to memorize or put on, even though, you know, you're sitting there might say, No, no, no, that's too much. I'm gonna memorize the 30th years, no, but they decided they were going to memorize the entire quarter. And so the first thing is, you have to have an intention and strive for a lofty goal, and a lofty intention. But at the same time, while we're talking about intentions, what we then need to do is you need to set down markers, milestones, mile markers, you need to sit down some type of steps that will lead to the achievement of your eventual goals will have an eventual goal at the end of

the road, at the end of the day, but then have specific milestones or markers that you will try to reach and you will mark and you will achieve and you will celebrate on the way to the achievement of your eventual goal. So let's just say you started off by saying that you want to establish five times daily Salah within your life, we'll start off somewhere with something maybe start off with one daily prayer.

And and celebrate that occasion, when you reach there, recognize and appreciate a lost battle with Allah for allowing you to reach that accomplishment, but then move right on to the next goal. So you need to have a long term intention, but you need to have short term goals that will lead you to the achievement and the fulfillment of your long term ambitions. inshallah. So that's the first thing. The second thing in regards to intentions, though, is one very particular issue. That I think, like I said about losing weight, when people want to lose weight, a lot of times the goal is solely to lose weight, it's very easy to lose your motivation in regards to that simply because, you know,

there can be many excuses. I was reading, I was doing some reading about a psychological theory that that is called the stages of change. And one of the stages of change that it talked about was it talks about different elements of change, that there is a readiness and a willingness to change that then you have to identify the barriers to change. And then you have to expect a certain amount of relapse, that you will start to kind of stumble along the way and one of the things was pre contemplation, that a lot of times before people even start to make any grounds in the fulfillment of their goals and their objectives. They have denial, ignorance of the problem. And even beyond

that people then move on to contemplation, which is ambivalence or conflicted emotions, they start to weigh the pros and the cons, they start to kind of, you know, falsely pacify themselves and start to make, you know, make themselves feel good about their current situation and why why or how I don't need to change is not necessary for me to change.

So in regards to that, there's also an Islamic remedy that as soon as you set out in terms of achieving something, you set goals for yourself and you want to start to make some grounds, you start to want to take some steps. So bond will come in your nuts will come to your environment around you. The enticement

A lot of ricotta is placed all around us. There's a Hadith of the prophets a lot. So this is footage similar to Bill Makati, the paradise has been surrounded with hardship with difficulty. And so no pain, no gain, nothing comes easy. And so a little bit of sacrifice that others could be took this it wouldn't my handy ulladulla the ability to route there are so many different Arabic references to this issue as well in wisdom and dusky and Saudi Arabia, that basically state that, you know, there will be some hardships along the way and associate on the hardships, the elements around you, your own knifes and your own own inner desires will start to derail you from the achievement of your

goals. And so one of the things that we have to keep in mind about fulfilling intentions is you have to focus on even more often Allah talks about this in terms of teskey, he says you have to think of you have to focus on who you are doing this, or why you are doing this. So let's keep it more general, you have to keep in mind why you are doing this, and for whom you're doing this, instead of exactly what you are doing. Because you see what you are doing is a means to an end, what you are doing is a means to an end. So if you talk about you know, I want to sit down for 15 minutes every day and recite some

then again that's in shape on and all those other things that we talked about, we'll step into the way and basically start to say, Why do you have to sit down for 15 minutes in a corner and hold them most often recite the Quran? Why could you not just simply

Why could you not just simply listen to the audio in your car.

So the first thing that happened, right there was you were derailed from what you were achieving and accomplishing the goal is to increase not to decrease. And so what happens now, you were making 15 minutes a day to actually sit down with the court or on reads and translation. And now it said not to worry about it. They got all these, you know mp3 online that you can download to your phone. They got apps on your phone where you can plug your phone in and you just drive and then you're listening. And the reads are going on in your reads the translation of that ayah to you and you're getting two things done at the same time. And you're saving that 15 minutes. Initially, they'll tell

you you're saving that 15 minutes to do something else. You're going to read a book, you're going to do something else productive. Eventually what you realize is, what are you doing with that extra 15 minutes, you're watching a football game and you're reading ESPN, you're on your you're on Facebook, you're talking on the phone, you're watching television, you're watching YouTube, you're doing something else for that 15 minutes, that's not so productive anymore. So right away, you would detract it from your goal, or at least the achievement of your goal because it was about what you were doing. Okay, you want to listen to the fraud. Why can't you want to recycle put on you want to

spend some time with a friend? Why can't you do it while you drive a car. So right away, you made a compromise? What will happen a couple of weeks down the road, you'll be listening to the Quran in your car. And then one day, there's something very fascinating coming on the radio. And then I'll talk about this from a personal perspective. Again, sports seems to be kind of my personal poison. So what will happen is, I'll say, well, there was a there's a really big cowboys game coming up this weekend. That's football for for all my sisters out there. So I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. May Allah forgive me. So I'll be I'll see there's a really big cowboys game coming up this weekend. So let me

let me see what they're talking about on ESPN. Let me see what they're talking about on Sports Radio, about the big game coming up this weekend. And now I'm going to start listening to the radio about five minutes in. I say no, no, no, I gotta listen, Michael and I switch back over to peran a couple of more weeks down the road. Now it's 10 minutes of radio five minutes up on before I know it there's no put on at all whatsoever. Not that app Mashallah is sitting there on my phone, in all of its, you know, iPhone glory, and I'm doing absolutely nothing with it. That's how we get distracted. So the very important thing about intentions is, I have to remind myself, and this is why the

scholars of the past used to talk about renewing one's intention. Now that's kind of vague and ambiguous, renewing one's intention. What does that mean? It means that you literally first write down your intention. you revisit that intention, you remind yourself, not just what you have to do, but why you're doing it, in our case as Muslims, who are we doing it for? We're doing it for Allah.

And we have to remind ourselves of Allah. There's a beautiful Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam were this were the prophets, a lot of them told the Sahaba Viola Han Han, Jed de de Monaco, which is basically the theme of this entire webinar, Jed de Monaco renew your faith and your emaan and the Sahaba of your loved one whom being the amazing students that they were may Allah be pleased with them. That the ask and profits a lot he said on location, do imana nyatoh Sula, la how do we refresh and renew our faith in the Amano messenger

Allah and the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said oxy lumen holding a Mullah.

Increase and frequent, you're remembering from the last panel with me so frequently say that line a lot. One of my teachers explained to me about this that this is this doesn't just simply mean to just only say that you have a lot, that's obviously a part of it. But that's not all of it. It means to think about a lot to talk about a lot to reflect on a lot to remind yourself of how important it is for you to have a lot in your life, to talk about that factor, write it down on a piece of paper, to remind yourself of it. And the Sahaba Viola and there's a hadith in Sahih Bukhari where it talks about delivering a great companion of the Prophet peace be upon him who used to come to the mercy of

the Prophet peace be upon him and he would find for how about all the love on him? And he would tell them, he deliberately not shot and why don't you sit with me for a minute and let us sit together and refresh our face. And now we're emaan. And so they would have conversations, they would talk about this, basically think of them as support groups, support groups. So just like, I know that a lot of people on Facebook will have you know, weight loss groups, where every day, everyone's got to check in and talk about, you know, what they ate today, and how many parents they lost today, and how much it worked out today, and things like that. So they would have support groups about keeping

each other on track, I was just talking to a young man yesterday, one of my students, who basically said he has a solid buddy, he has a friend of follow buddy, who they take turns, texting one another at the time, when it's time for Salah to remind each other that no matter what you're doing right now, stop whatever it is that you're up to right now, and go pray, go pray. And so renewing and refreshing, our intention is very important. So first of all, set goals for yourself. And then make sure you have a long term goal. And never lose sight of the long term goal, write it down on your wall somewhere. And, you know, take it, write it down on a big old board or a piece of paper and

nail it, tape it to your wall. So you never lose sight of what your eventual goal is, just like those brothers wrote down the goal, we're going to memorize operon, even if this takes 30 years, and it took 30 years and beaded memorizable common law, and they can today, thank Allah subhanaw taala for making them amongst 100,000 on the Day of Judgment insha Allah, even though nothing will be raised amongst the ranks of the forefathers.

And then secondly, within your long term goal, make sure that you have small little smaller goals or short term goals or achievements, accomplishments, mile markers, that you will continue to note down and jot down and continue to get past. Secondly, keep in mind, remind yourself of the why, why you're doing what you're doing what you hope to achieve in terms of what you're doing. So that's the number one thing I wanted to talk about. Number two is maintaining focus. Because it seems like whether we're talking about New Year's resolutions, or we're talking about spiritual ambitions and goals, spiritual development, it seems to be that folks lose, you know, focus after a while. And

this is one of the reasons when I was doing some research about New Year's resolutions, some of the psychologists were talking about pick just one resolution.

I, I would agree, but not completely agree. I do think that's in focus is very important. So you do want to narrow your focus onto one particular thing at one time. But if we look at our Deen, we have to pray five times a day, we have to maintain some learning of the Koran, we have to fast in the month of Ramadan, we have to maintain our relationship with our family, we've got to be spiritually physically, emotionally healthy, all of those things are there. So there are multiple things that we have to maintain. But still, we do have to narrow down our focus just a little bit. So be specific in terms of your goal. Maybe initially, you just focus on praying five times of day and achieve and

accomplish that.

Maybe you are praying five times a day but you want to increase your knowledge of your religion, then don't try to study a different things at the same time because you won't achieve anything at all. So quality over quantity. So start small, start with something specific and do one thing at a time. So I have a certain amount of focus. But again, that's the practical side. On the spiritual side. There are things that we can do to maintain focus that have spiritual implications as well. They're important within our Deen and recommended from a spiritual aspect as well.

For instance number one, sola is something that helps us retain our focus because it's the goal at the end of the day is a lot than praying five times a day and making the Vicodin the remembrance of Allah is a big part of achieving and accomplishing that goal. One of the practical ways to achieve that they could end the constant remembrance of Allah subhanho wa Taala is, you know a lot of times we have a very

we have kind of a very ritualistic formal idea of what remembrance of Allah take care of

It is, but it's a lot more practical than we make it out to be.

One of the things that profits a lot from todoist is the daily supplications. What you might be familiar with that little book that's called official Muslim, the fortress of the Muslim. Some of my students have developed an app that you can download onto an iPhone or Android devices called my dua. And it basically has all those license applications in there. In fact, the next seminar, you know, and this is part of the reason, the two primary seminars that I've traveled around the country with, or the, the main seminar I've traveled around the country with is called meaningful prayer. Because without Salah it's really hard to achieve anything else within our lives, from a spiritual

perspective, and even from, you know, a personal perspective as well.

And then, so make sure that you have quality within your prayer. The second seminar very, you know, coincidentally, I guess you could say that I'm working on is called accepted supplication, which again, focuses on the daily supplication. So if we remember to say the name of Allah make dua to Allah when we wake up. As somebody that in

America, we lay in your shoe, we see the name of a god, before we go into a restaurant, when we come out of the restaurant, we should dismantle before we eat Alhamdulillah, after we're done eating, we save the name of a lot when we leave our homes, when we enter back into our homes, when we get in our cars, whatever it is that we're doing, the profits will have some Thomas's short draw, that takes literally 15 seconds to read at that time, if we read that, and we understand what that means. And we think about it that and we reflect on that. It helps us maintain cognizance, awareness of a law throughout our entire day. And that's very important. The third thing is from a practical

standpoint is very important as well is called Marhaba. muhabba is reassessing what you've done up to this point. So whether we're talking about 2012 as a year, or whether we're talking about the date up till this point, is 6pm. So reassess your day, how was your day? What did you do today? What kind of decisions and choices did you make today. And thirdly, or fourthly, rather, I should say it's called maraca is reflection and contemplation, and a part of that is continuing to think how you can make the rest of your day or the coming year productive for yourself. So think about it. Okay, I go, I need to go to sleep by 10 o'clock. Set your goals. So what is in between me and 10pm?

right now. So I have selected a shot at a pm. So let me make sure that I made some up in a shot at that time. Let me make sure that at my dinner before selecting a shot, because that's healthy and good and productive, let me not put put it off too late. Okay, what am I going to do with that two hours? So from now till selecting a shot, I'm going to eat food and prepare for silica and pretty much on time, what am I going to do after the show? I have about an hour and a half, two hours of time? Am I just going to sit on my phone and fiddle around with my phone and just waste my time on Facebook liking statuses, right, but what am I going to do? So set some type of goals and targets

Okay, I need to call my mom, I haven't talked to her all day today, I need to. For me personally, I know that I need to spend time with my kids. That's the time that I can basically give my kids a bath, I can change them into close to going to sleep, I can sit with them. I can recite a suit of art and I can tell them a story from the life of the prophets, a lot of them and then put them to bed. That's a quality usage of my time. So let me reflect on my time and think forward. So making sure that we're on top of our daily prayers, making sure that we have a constant connection to a lot throughout our day to a very practical means of the daily supplications. Number three, let me

reassess what I've done up till this point and let him Let me sit down and reflect on how I can make the rest of my time productive. So that is the issue of focus.

Number three is be resourceful. It's very important to be resourceful. And I wanted to talk about something very specific. There are a lot of things in our lives that we can identify as distractions, there can be indulgences, you know that such as friends, acquaintances.

One of the biggest distractions for us today is a lot of times our electronic devices, our phones, and our computers and our iPads, and all these different electronics that we have are a huge distraction or waste of time for us.

How can I turn a distraction into a resource for productivity? So my friends can also be a means of me staying on top of my goals, sit down with a couple of friends and maybe who understand exactly what my issues are what I'm trying to achieve and accomplish and let me share my goals with them and ask them to keep me on top of my goals.

And you know, family and friends. That same device that that iPhone, that is become you know the biggest distraction in your life and has completely destroyed all semblance of productivity within your life. You can

actually turn that into a pretty powerful resource. Believe it or not that phone that has YouTube and Facebook and Twitter on it. That phone also has notifications, it has reminders, it has a calendar as a to do list, and an app that you can also utilize to your benefit. set reminders, set goals, set alarms for yourself. I just talked about the Facebook groups. You know, Facebook is a huge distraction for a lot of people. But you can maybe find a Facebook group for Salah for prayer recitation of the Quran. I just this past weekend in California, I met a gentleman individual who developed a website for unweaving. And the goal and the idea is to create groups and reminders and,

you know, goals and

different, you know, markers of achievement, so that you can track your relationship and your

journey throughout the book of a lost power tell us a lot tougher on. So be resourceful. Identify so many different things that are in your life, to be able to help you achieve these goals and these ambitions that you have. And at the same time, learn to kind of be your own personal disciplinary and realize and understand that sometimes you do not have the willpower that you may be think that you have, just be honest with yourself. I know that's the issue for me. So when I decided to start losing weight, I realized I could not resist myself. So what did what did I end up doing? what I ended up doing was basically discarding, getting rid of everything that was there that there was to

eat or drink in my house that was not a part of my diet, I got rid of it, and I stopped buying it, I don't need to have it, it has some repercussions. Now when guests come over to my house, they don't he's as happy as they used to. Because they don't get as much sugar as they may be used to. But you know what, tough luck. I let them know, like sorry about it. Sorry, I'm serving you basically, you know, horse food, that, uh, this is what I got to do, in order to to stay healthy. And so there should be times during the day, if identify what your issue Your problem is, if your phone is your problem. There are some times throughout the day, when you put your phone on airplane mode. I know

it's called airplane mode, but it's not only for airplanes, all right, put your phone into airplane mode. And or maybe go and lock your phone up somewhere. I know there are times or situations like this is one of the advices that I got from my dad leaving your phone in the car when you go to the machine. I know there can be emergencies and things like that and they allow you to protect us all but identify whatever your issue may be. And you know, take steps in order to achieve that shut down your computer, maybe go and lock your computer in a different room and do not access that room do not go there. Whatever it takes, but make sure that there are your you are resourceful and you're

taking into account you know different resources that are available to you in order to help you achieve your goals.

Another Thing number four is develop a support system and this is kind of already been talked about but I wanted to talk about this specifically. She got good company and in the Quran and Sunnah to Toba, Allah subhanaw taala, where he talks a lot about community and society. A lot of retana says, Yeah, you will live in LA with whom I asked for the opinion. Or you believe developed a couple of the last panel is Allah, which is our eventual goal for all of us. But Allah says, we'll put them outside the company with good people with truthful people, honest people, people have a good relationship with Allah. So she comes to the company, people who motivate you inspire you and help

you achieve your goals. So a lot of times, it can be a little demoralizing. You know, when I remember,

I probably the best, you know, health or the physical shape of my life that I was in, was right out of high school, the first couple years of high school, I was in really, really good physical health.

And I actually used to work out and, you know, diet and things like that, with a couple of brothers, who, you know, it was very intimidating actually working out with them. Because these guys were literally at the level of professional athletes. And I was nowhere near them. But what I did at the same time was I didn't look at that as a deterrent. I use them to motivate me and inspire me. And I kept the company with them. And I would work out with them. And I would actually go to eat with them.

And I would see what they eat and I would eat what they would eat and I would try to keep up with them when working out. And it was the best thing that I was ever in. Even recently in the last couple of years when I decided to kind of get my health back in order as exactly the same thing I did again

What I latched on to a couple of people who Mashallah were very, very productive, and kept very good, you know, kept, kept, stayed in good shape and kept themselves in good health and made good choices. And again, initially, it was a little intimidating, it was a little tough to keep up with them, actually, just last night. So I guess a little bit of personal information about myself.

Aside from, you know, when I try to work out three, four times a week, once a week, I play basketball. But I don't want playing basketball to just be like a social outlet, or to be something fun, I want for it to be a good productive physical activity for me. So I basically played basketball with a bunch of 18 year olds. And I'll tell you, I've been limping around all day today.

I'm tired, and my ankle is hurting. But you know what, I played basketball for about two hours yesterday with after selected Asia with a bunch of like 18 1920 year olds, and these kids are fast, and they have so much energy that they're not even tired after two hours. I'm barely standing after two hours. But what it does is a little exhausting. It's a little intimidating. But what it does is it keeps me healthy. And it keeps me on my toes and keeps me going in terms of achieving my goals. So have a strong support system and support network, keep company and latch on to people who inspire you and motivate you and try to keep up with them. And you'll really be able to push yourself. And

of course, the sixth. And the final thing that I wanted to mention here was make dua make tons of you know, understand two things, that there are three things I want you to make dua for number one, I want you to understand that change is a progress, you know, whatever your goals and ambitions are, it is a journey, it is a process. And so,

ask it last time after a very important thing, which we in English called consistency, but in the Arabic language is called karma to greatest reward that Allah has stated in the Quran. And so number 41 is for people who not only believed in Allah but then had consistency in the last column in the last semester. When the last panel was Ana, talked about when the last panel with Allah addressed the Prophet sallallahu sallam, he told him first step in commitment. Don't just do what I told you to do, or open up a messenger but be steadfast on what I told you to do. So steadfastness and consistency is a very key thing. ask Allah for years to come. That's why the Prophet of Allah

Salafi, some is narrated behati that the Prophet of Allah loves him used to make dua. Yama some because a bit alvia Allah Dini Yama, sorry for sorry for the alveolar partic. The od solidify of hearts solidify my heart upon your religion and your deen. So Ramananda to superluminova is a data all after you've guided us. Don't let our hearts go astray. Our hearts will want to go astray. There are many forces in this world that will try to lead our hearts astray. But Oh Allah, don't take our hearts astray. So ask Allah for consistency and steadfastness the prophets, a lot of them said that haters are muddy, I don't know when the best actions are the ones that are done with consistency,

even if they be very little.

So don't underestimate the importance of consistency. So ask alumnado hobby turns into our number one for consistency, number two. Number two, understand that you will falter and stumble along the way. But realize that those little cuts and bruises

are only there to make you stronger, and keep getting back up. So you know what times as human beings, we might lack, we might lack the strength to get back up on our feet, but allows turn over to another mercy and His greatness and his ability has no restrictions. no limitations, rely on the ability and the power of a loss of wisdom and the mercy of the law as a law to get you back. Ask the Lord to pick you back up. And so ask Allah subhanaw taala for the strength that you need. And so the second thing you need to ask for is ask Allah subhanaw taala to pick you back up, and to keep you going through difficulty and through adversity. That's what the prophets A lot of us and we do have

a journey of thought is where the prophets A lot of you send them those people did not accept Islam at that moment, the whole city of five did not become Muslim. And in fact, they attacked the prophets, a lot of them and they stoned him until he bled from his entire body or did the profits of lunch and do allow us to take a Doctor Who was he looking at

me, he said Oh Allah, I complained to you of my weakness. And I complained to you of my lack of resources. I complained to you of my lack of, you know, position in the eyes of these people. But all along, I asked you to pick me back up and I asked you to still help me achieve my goal. And that is for these people to believe in the people who did eventually believe. So realize that depend on the last panel.

Put your trust in Allah. And we do have a lot to pick you back up whenever it is that you stumble or fall. And the third thing is make dua and ask Allah subhana wa tada

to,

to renew your email to strengthen you in your email, one of the biggest things is that there's again, a balance over here, we have to be very cognizant, you know, we have to have strong intentions and work hard and be motivated and be driven and be ambitious. But at the same time, we cannot become completely solely Reliant and dependent upon ourselves. We have also dependent trust on the last panel wattana. But if we only put our trust in a lot, then that is called wishful thinking. And that is a behavior of foolish people, there needs to be a balance there, avoid previous mistakes. That's what that will have is, look at the mistakes that you've made, be

cognizant of those mistakes and work forward. But at the same time, realize that you will need to help the last panel with honor and ask Allah subhanaw taala for his help, and ask Allah subhanaw taala to give you steadfastness, consistency, and shower you with His mercy, and with his help and keep you going and continue to revisit your goals, state them to yourselves, remind yourself of your goals, no matter how painful it may be, to look at what you have to achieve or what you haven't achieved, but continue to remind yourself of your goal and a chala eventually, one day, we will be able to achieve even the long term goals that we've set for ourselves. So it's like those two

brothers that I have done that beautiful day in the masjid in the house of Allah, when they had both completed their memorization of the Quran. And one of the last issues that I I should mention here is never be afraid to, you know,

maybe take a change in strategy. Consult with people, ask people for advice. You know, go to people and ask people for advice, tell them what your goal is, what you've achieved, what you accomplished, what was your process and, and then how maybe you are not moving forward anymore, and then be open to advice and changing and shifting your strategy. And being be willing to, you know, maybe take a little bit of a different game plan.

I remember meeting this young brother who,

you know, had the golden the ambition that he basically, again, wanted to memorize up on it's a similar story. He wanted to memorize the Quran. And he said, He's basically set out in terms of memorizing the Quran. And somewhere along the way, he got derailed and distracted and he came to talk to me. And I basically asked him how he was going about memorizing the Quran. And he told me and I told him, I felt that that was not the best way possible to go about this. And I gave him some other advice. This brother basically implemented that advice. And I ended up meeting him a couple of years later, and found out that he had completed the memorization of the Quran. And he was saying

that he realized that it was because he needed a shift in strategy. And he wasn't going about memorizing the Quran in the optimal way possible. So be open to a little bit of feedback and advice. And from time to time consultants, people talk to people, and you never know, unless Portela could send somebody your way or some advice your way that could be exactly what you need at that particular point, to keep you going in terms of achieving and accomplishing your goals. And may Allah subhanaw taala, you know, allow us to learn from the mistakes that we've made of the past.

You know, may Allah subhanaw taala make the coming year and the coming moments of our life, you know, whether it be the next couple of hours and extra days and extra weeks and you know, the rest of our lives, extremely productive and allow us to be people of any mind and be steadfast on our mind and allow us to be raised under the judgment amongst the people even

inshallah, and one of the things kind of going back to where we started about intention that I will tell you is when you make a strong intention, never delay, start living and fulfilling your intention to date right now right here, immediately. You know, even this idea of New Year's resolutions, a lot of times people are thinking about it right now. But they they look at the calendar and they have 12 days till January starts. So for 12 days, I'm basically gonna, you know, do whatever it is that I want to do, I'm going to stuff my face, and I'm going to do whatever I want to eat and then from January the first I'm going to get started on my goals. And on my resolution.

No, that's not how a believer handled it. But a believer does is you start right here right now today and get started immediately today in sha Allah and start working towards your goals and May Allah subhanahu wa that allow us to achieve what we're capable of and even beyond in sha Allah, what maybe, you know we might be capable of but realize that Allah Spano itself has no restrictions and limitations.

Even though he sounded different from a lock on, pretty and i hope i like it and saw the ability to practice everything that was said to her and that will last final telomeres and the benefits all of us

telecare, she got the message for that beneficial advice. I hope the other sisters benefited just as much as I did.

I really appreciate that you not only covered, you know how to achieve, like dunya related goals, but also how to renew your email at the same time. And that's exactly what our topic was about. Just, you know, wholesome advice on how to renew your spirit and, you know, keep a focus on your goals. But at the same time, when you your email and get in touch with the dean, again, think about a lot going out Allah so sokola care, I really appreciate it.

I'm gonna start the q&a, and I advise everybody to send in their questions. You can email them to us at Habibi, [email protected], for whatever you are attending on the webpage. If you just scroll down a little bit, there's a question box. And you can just put in your name, email and send in the question, and I'm going to be addressing these questions.

So while you do that, let me get started with the first question. Chief, our first question is, what advice do you have for people? And I know you kind of mentioned this in your lecture, but what advice do you have for people who kind of get lazy when it comes to achieving their goals, and they're all gung ho, and they write it down and make intention and, you know, it's all set in stone and, but when it comes to actually doing it, they get lazy about it and never end up getting to it, it just remains like a long thing to do list or take a long goal list on paper. And the primary reason is kind of like laziness or just get uninterested in, you know, achieving their goals. What

advice do you have for those people?

Well, folks have to understand that there are, you know, different types of people and different people respond to different things and different strategies and tactics.

And this is spiritually relevant as well. That, you know, some people are very self driven, self motivated, and work very well with,

you know, just in terms of self accountability, some folks, it's very helpful for them, if they have, you know, little tools or resources, like, like I talked about a to do list the to do app, I know personally like a to do app, or a list or things like that don't really work too much. For me, personally, that's just the way it is. And it just ends up being an app on my phone, that's really all it ends up doing for me.

But at the same time, there are some folks who require,

you know, accountability, or like a group system, a support system. And that's something we shouldn't shy away from. And that, you know, it doesn't make you any less motivated doesn't make you any less of a go getter, or any, you know, less accomplished or anything like that, but there's nothing like that at all. So just understand that that's just a different type of person with a different mindset. And, you know, a lot of times, having a couple of people, you know, in the process with you, somebody else to kind of check on you and ask you and talk to you and hold you accountable is extremely helpful, it is very, very helpful. And if you're that type of person, that

may be exactly, that's what you need. So somebody who's maybe struggled with that, in the past kind of wrote things down and made a list. And that's pretty much all it ended up being, maybe you need to explore a little bit more of the human element. Maybe you have a friend or a family member, kind of stay on top of you and help you along the way. Like that's something that personally is very, very helpful to me. And if we look within the farm as well, there's an acknowledgement of the fact and that's why there is the Amazon there is prayer in, in congregation in a group, you know, fasting in Ramadan is easier because everyone is fasting together every the whole family which offers a home

together and does it start together. So don't be ashamed or don't be afraid to basically rely upon other people and kind of network with other people in terms of trying to achieve and accomplish your goals. Because that's just something that's just something that some of us need and require. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. In the least bit.

Okay, just thought that I chair makes a lot of sense, Michelle.

So next question is that we have had, like, you know, so many people like pointing in with a question. And one of the questions that's repeating very often is that they want to know what strategy you mentioned to the brother for memorizing the Quran. And there's a lot of related question.

to prime memorization, I'll just pull them out. Now there's somebody else asked me, which is better to study the fear while memorizing or first memorize and then study disappear.

And again, there's somebody else asking when is the best claim to study to memorize the Quran and how to stay focused. So if you can just give us a general overview of

my personal my personal advice to the brother was,

that for first and foremost, I know, this is a situation with a lot of our college students and working professionals, and, you know, families and mothers and things like that, that a lot of times we try to be, you know, play, like we'd like to, you know, listen to us who are played in our car, kind of maybe, you know, played on the stereo at home or whatever it may be or, and, and just kind of listen to it and try to memorize it. That's how this brother was going about it. But it seemed like he wasn't able to gain a lot of traction, he would memorize a little bit and kind of struggle with it, and he wasn't making as much progress as he had hoped to. So one of the things I advised

him was to take our time to kind of sit down and also look at the Quran like read, you know, visual, visually look at the Quran and read the Quran when trying to memorize it because memorization is something that is trying to preserve something and all the different outlets, all the different faculties in the senses are very resourceful and helpful in that regard. From what you from not only listening to the Quran helps in terms of memorizing it, but looking at it also helps to visually retain what you are memorizing and learning. reading out loud is also helpful because now you're also verbalizing it, which will also help in retention, and even the hand in the touch. The physical

sense also helps. That's why our teachers when they when we used to memorize the Quran, they used to tell us to kind of follow along with our fingers, you know, following along with your finger when you read the Quran is usually something that we think is for kids, or people who are starting off or reading the Quran, but it's something that's very, very helpful in terms of just kind of reading for the purpose of memorization, so I totally take our time and just kind of physically engaged with all the different senses and faculties in terms of memorizing the Quran. One of the, you know, questions was also about

what is the best time to memorize,

definitely, without any exception, you know, early in the morning is a very good productive time to get anything done. And memorizing the Quran is no exception. This is just because of the human condition in reality, but there's also a spiritual significance as well, a lot of our current speech about foreign fudger in the Quran, itself, and the profits along with him as a part of his regimen in his daily routine to recycle on in the morning before fudger. And after so often pleasure at the same time. Another question was,

specifically in regards to what was the third question that was actually very interesting question.

Sorry, the question was the strategy for memorizing the graph, like should they study that the fear before memorizing or

studies

itself good stuff, okay. So one of the other things I wanted to talk about a timing of the right hand, upper arm, and this is very relevant to our situations, a little tip a little trick for for all of the sisters here, in terms of kind of memorizing, you know, something on a daily basis.

The last thing that you look at, and you read, and you internalize, before you go to sleep, is something that kind of, I guess, you know, remains in your consciousness from your subconsciousness. And it will be fresh with you in the morning. So, this is something I kind of discovered, by chance when I was, you know, a young student memorizing the Quran myself.

The lot, I would basically whatever it is I was trying to memorize for that day, it would be the last thing that I would read a couple of times over before I went to sleep at night, and I would immediately go to bed, after having looked at that, after having read that, that those couple of pages. And when I would wake up the next morning, it's like, I knew them, they were very fresh in my, in my mind and in my heart in my head. And this is something that's very important for us because I talked a little bit about the, you know, phones and tablets and all these devices that we have. And it's become a very, very bad habit, that before we go to bed at night, we fiddle with our

phones until we fall asleep. So we check our Facebook feed. You know, again, talking about a personal problem I have, I'll be checking ESPN to see you know what games were played that night and who won and who lost and things like that. So the last thing before we go to bed is we play around with old phones.

Instead of that, put the phone away, put the tablet away and resize them for under

You go to bed and you'll know that I'm very well in the morning in sha Allah.

And then the other thing was in terms of prioritization. Now because there are many different facets, studying the Quran from century to recitation, to memorization, to translation to the fear, so what should be the priority in regards to that? Generally speaking, the general advice is have a little bit of everything going on. And I understand that sounds kind of productive, but understand that the Quran is a book of a law, and the Quran needs to be approached holistically for us to be able to benefit from it, you know, completely.

And, and you know, on it, honestly, a lot of times, folks can become very unbalanced in their relationship with the Quran, which has spiritual ramifications. I've known brothers, some of you know that I've been teaching the weekly cheer class in my machine for about 12 years now, under law, there's a brother who's been attending lightsheer class for 12 years. And what he does is actually the week leading up to the class, he reads the translation and will study the layout on his own in a couple of different of shear books leading up to that particular session. And then, you know, you'll be in the class and, you know, you'll get the maximum benefit out of the class, you'll ask the best

questions in the class really great. So you could not pray or ask for better students at the same time,

because his brother comes to this machine. And I knew that his brothers Mashallah very diligent student, I requested his brother to kind of lead the prayer. If I ever had to go to an MSA or another meeting or another program in another machine, I asked his brother to lead the prayer in my absence. And he was very shy and very hesitant to do so. And I asked him why that was exactly did he need maybe a couple of days read sessions or something. And in my conversation with the brother, not only did he need some work on this country, this pronunciation of the Quran properly, but I also ended up realizing he barely had half a dozen pseudos memorize, I'm talking about the small little

schools. And I asked him why that was. And he said, You know, he spent so much time reading for sharing settings here, that he never really got around to memorizing any of the Quran and I told him, we have to fix that. So at the same time, you probably know a lot of people who recite the Quran for hours and hours, or who have memorized a lot of the Quran, even all of the Quran, not only do they not know what the Quran means any of the translation the meaning that the children, but they don't care, to learn what it means and that's problematic, that's extremely problematic. So what I what I basically tell people is we need to have a balance. And the way you can do that you can

regimen yourself, you can definitely regimen yourself. So maybe have two days a week that you three days a week that you sit down to memorize, you know, a couple of lines or half a page or whatever it may be, and then maybe latch on to a weekly touchier halaqa that that's where you go to kind of get your decir portion of the Quran and then maybe attend a weekly pitch week class where you go to continuously improve your recitation of the Quran but try to approach the Quran as holistically as possible but I think that's possible because maybe you might have to shift your prioritization from time to time so maybe you decide for the first six months you will improve your country then the

next six months you will try to memorize a June and for the next six months after that you will learn the translation the meaning and that the sheer veges and that's okay if you have to kind of structure yourself in that regard. That's perfectly fine and okay based on the resources available to you, but nevertheless I have to still stress and emphasize having a holistic approach to the problem and having a complete as much as possible relationship with the book of alone trying to benefit from the Quran across the board and across the spectrum.

Okay to back electronic shake thank you so much Mashallah, we have questions coming in not only the quantity of the questions but sisters are you know, filling in where they're sending the questions from and their sister from India Hyderabad, you know, sister some London us, even though the time there is like butter time or like 2am but Mashallah, people are tuning in. And I was just gonna ask you, do you think we have time for a couple of questions? I can probably take a couple of more questions based on the ones that I really want to to answer your question possible. And

the first one is, there's just a simple thing

that the phone call there's a sister who's asking if you try your best to stay steadfast, but in the beginning and weakness, is there still hope and forgiveness?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. See, and this is why I want I specifically mentioned that Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam Nia to say to me, I'm really that the

The intention of the believer is better than his or her actions. And I said that specifically because

if we have intentions to do something for the sake of Allah we are we are sincere in those intentions, and we make the best effort possible to carry through with that intention.

What ends up really happening at the end of the day, is something that is in the hands of the last kind of wattana. And it's not something that

you know, we

have to bear any guilt in regards to or, or be demoralized by the least bit. But what we need to understand what we need to be able to

internalize, is that that's in the hands of Allah, we make a sincere intention, we work as hard as we can for the pleasure of Allah, and then leave the rest of the loss.

Okay, does alkali care? And one last question, you know, where, like, there's a lot of sister audiences, webinars to sisters. So there's a question coming in from a lot of sisters. And they're asking, you know, when I get married, my life changes all of a sudden, or there's a sister saying she had a baby. And for a new mother, you know, her schedules are completely changed. What advice would you give for women for sisters who get married or have children? And you know, like I said, they have no structure in their life at the moment, what advice would you give to them to accomplish their goal?

Well,

I,

pretty much personally speaking, honestly, I really don't have any advice to give to them. And I'll tell you why. Mothers, generally speaking, especially mothers who have small, you know, babies and small children are pretty, I mean, as far as the way I feel about them, I think they're superheroes. They are the most remarkable people in our communities. And they they're an inspiration. You know, when I teach a mean for prayer class, which is about for sure, it's about getting quality in our prayers, I used to think I used to think that people who are in a professional work setting, you know, like, I'm from Dallas. So we have a lot of corporations and, you know, corporate work settings

here and a lot of the Muslim community, a lot of brothers work in corporate settings. So based on their feedback, I used to think that salon which ruined salon was the most challenging for those brothers. until I started talking to sisters, when I would travel on tissue scratch and even looked at my own wife, I realized that no mothers who are at home with small children, crucial is the most difficult thing for them. Because kids do not take a break. kids do not give you a second. Actually today, interestingly, I pretty much was taking care of the kids the whole time, my wife had some errands to run and

doctor's appointment to go to and things like that. So I pretty much was responsible for the kids the entire day. And man Subhanallah it's, it's, you can't even get five minutes

to yourself. They do the constant needs. And I mean, there's nothing bad about the kids. It's just the needs of a child. And so it's really difficult.

But from talking to my own wife, and my own mother and my sister also has a baby My niece is about a year and a half old. May Allah protect all of our beautiful children and, and from talking to other sisters as well. What I've kind of come to realize and understand is two things. Number one is that and I mean this in all sincerity, I'm not trying to patronize or you know, just kind of give them some type of you know, a non sensical answer. I mean, this very honestly and sincerely, that sisters have to understand and have to reconcile the fact that when when when you have a child, and you are basically serving that child, you know, taking care of that child nurturing that child, that is a

great remarkable form of Riba and worship, and also shares all love to hear that because they know why a weaving, you know, sold short and why are we not receiving the privilege of being able to, you know, go to the machine and do the bother and do the community service and the activism that the brothers are doing? Why is this?

very honestly, I know it sounds hypocritical coming from me because I'm a man. But I'm trying to give you this answer from the perspective of the women in my life who have a great amounts of respect for and that they are my motivation and my inspiration. I often tell people I learned mom from my mother. I learned how to believe from my mom. My mom is demo

Amazing believer I've ever witnessed in my entire life.

That I will tell you one thing that taking care of your children is a remarkable act of worship ibadah and one of the greatest forms of contribution to the moment that you can make, that is exactly why that is exactly why love the profits a lot he sentences in 120 that are the profits of licenses and unauthentic narration. So he was saying that when the Prophet said son wanted to find anything, to compare it to the love and the mercy that allows for us, he compared it to the love and the mercy of a mother. That is why the prophets, Allah is in talks about how, you know, raising good daughters, raising good daughters

guarantees paradise in general.

That is why there's such a lofty reward, and such so much great respect for the mother within our religion, because it is the greatest services, greatest service in our being that any human being any greatest contribution anyone can make. But on top of that, that doesn't mean that a sister should completely give up her pursuits. Some of the most remarkable women again, that I know, were women who not only raised amazing children, but were also doing amazing things on this side. And we're memorizing quota on and we're serving the community and we're educators in their community, and leading community service projects. My younger brother when he was a year old,

he was a year old. He's a lot younger than I am. But he was a year old at the time. So we had a baby in the house. We received a couple of 100.

You know, refugee families, Muslim families from Kurdistan, they came to our area, our exact city, and my younger brother was a year old. He was a baby. My mom was one of the main sisters at that time, who was going around, meeting with the sisters buying them groceries, getting them set up enrolling their children at school, buying them the book bags and the clothes that they needed to go to school. My mom and a couple of her friends were the main sisters who were doing that. They did that. They made that sacrifice and they were achieving such great things. There are so many hundreds of stories that I've witnessed in front of my own eyes, that are so amazing and so remarkable about

what women were able to achieve my own mom, and I'm talking about my mom a lot. It's not to brag, it's just because that's how much she inspires me when I was myself was young, and my younger sister is four years younger than I am. So when my sister was, you know, a baby and I was a kid, I was four or five years old. My mom was basically the sister that you would call if a sister passed away the entire Dallas Fort Worth metroplex area, is any Muslim sister passed away. My mom was the sister that they would call and my mom would go out there. And she would give Listen, because at that time, we didn't have a real community in place. Normally, you know, a funeral home for Muslims or

something like that is out of the question. We barely had one machine at the time, my mom would go out there, she would give Wilson

a lot of times in the home of that same family. That's That's how ragtag this situation was. Or they would basically have to rent out the funeral home. You know, from from the economical some funeral home, my mom would give a listen to the body, she would take try to take some of the women from the family and instruct them on how to basically do it, my mom herself before she would leave the house would cut the cover of the shroud for the burial. That's why being like five, six years old, this might seem kind of scary to a lot of our sisters. And our five, six years old, my mom is just cutting the humongous white sheets in the living room. And I even asked her so what are you doing?

And initially, she just said to worry about it does have a seat. And later on, she would explain to me exactly what she was doing.

And so she used to do that even though we were young. So it's not to say that sisters cannot achieve anything or do anything. So of course not. They can do great things. But they will have to be structured, they will have to rely upon, you know, my dad would a lot of times take care of us while my mom was gone to take care of the the washing and the routing and the sister when my mom was out taking care of all these refugee families I was I was 13 years old at the time. But I had to kind of step up and we would go there to one of these families homes. And I would sit in the living room and I would kind of babysit You know, my younger brother and take care of him at that time.

And so you'll have to develop a system and a structure and sisters can help one another. rely upon family, try to see how family can help you on that regard. But at the end of the day, I have to go back to my first point. Understand what you are doing at that time is the greatest thing that you can achieve and accomplish. You know, I promise this will be the last time I bring up my parents but

you know, my parents made a lot of sacrifices in order to raise us properly and spend time with us and made sure that we had everything that we needed not just financially but more importantly

emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, they were there for us to spend time with us. And maybe they have to put some of their own goals on the backburner a little bit. So my mom always wanted to learn Arabic. I was on my mom's goals. She wanted to learn Arabic, for shoes, too busy making sure that I was able to memorize to put on, and my sister was able to learn Arabic, and my younger brother could memorize a Koran. And then both me and my younger brother could study Arabic, and then I could go overseas and study Islam for you know, 810 years.

She was too busy making sure that all of that could happen.

And the reality of it is today,

just the other day, my mom asked me for some help with her homework. Now, you can imagine how that sounds, I was kind of like, what kind of homework do you have?

And so she shows me her homework. And she's doing grammatical analysis of is of support on this call.

It's when you studied enough grammar to where you go in that you do grammatical analysis and so on. I was my job was on the floor. I was like, What are you doing? Doing it? For under I miss something here? Like when did you start doing this stuff. And she said, I've been attending my Arabic class for two years, three times a week, non stop. And on the Altai, where she gets together with her classmates, her class buddies, and she, you know, reviews her her lesson. So almost every single day, she studied Arabic. And over after two years, she's gotten to the point where she can grammatically analyze the Koran.

And, you know, she was able to achieve this loss powers, Allah will put Baraka in your time and Allah will make things later on in life. Because you dedicate your yourself to the task at hand, to raising the right type of children to building the oma, that's what you're doing. You're fostering the next generation of the oma and the leadership of the oma, that Allah will make greater things possible for you, my dad a couple of years ago when he finally retired, when we finally forced him into retirement is what I should say. He started memorizing the Quran and and he probably spends about five to six hours a day, memorizing the Quran and Mashallah, he's done to a point where I

think last time I checked, had memorized about 12 years ago.

And so, you know, the task at hand is something that's a remarkable task and realize this task will pay itself off later on. They know what, even if, even if my parents were not able to memorize or learn or understand the Quran for themselves in this lifetime, because of the investment that they made into us and shall be our last panel which Allah will give them a rank and status that will be way beyond ours on the day of judgment because they invested themselves into making sure that we will restart from you we were able to urine a little bit about our religion

does not like to shake up the laughter even for your stories old lessons, Mashallah. Thank you so much sokola hair for taking the time to do this for us, for the Sisters of Habibi, Hello girls in the audience of Muslim matters.

I really, sincerely pray to Allah to face Baraka and your time efforts health, and, you know, bless you, you and your entire family parents to do hirings in Ghana. I mean, I really appreciate it. Sisters, I

really wanted to I wanted to make one last little picture at the end if I can, yes, please go ahead. So, you know, Mashallah, everyone benefited here today, please understand,

you know, I'm just, you know, I'm just a mouthpiece, I'm just the one talking here. And if you were to talk to, you know, my family members, they would basically tell you, that's not really a problem for me, it kind of comes naturally talking a lot. So that's not too difficult for me to do. But understand and realize there are a lot of brothers and sisters, especially sisters, who put in a lot of hard work to make all of these amazing programs and these resources available to you also, I know obviously everyone on the webinar webinars probably already done this but make sure that you so if you yourself, are already benefiting and you've already done this, to make sure you share this

resource with other people. Make sure you spread the word tell people to go to Facebook and like habibie Holocaust page and so that they're able to benefit from these programs and next time they come around and of course, Muslim matters, who was also a part of this particular program and project as well. You know yourself go and subscribing you know, check out Muslim matters. There's a lot of beneficial content on there. A lot of our brothers and especially like I said, the sisters putting a lot of hard work in making sure that there's always stuff on there for us to benefit from and then also spread the word to your family, to your family and friends and get the word out make

sure that as many people as possible find out about Muslim matters and Habibi because then they're able to inshallah benefit from the program is much more located on that'll be

For me, again, you know, may Allah accept from all of us, and I appreciate all the drives keeps me and especially the family. I know this is a sister's Hanukkah. So of course, not only do I have a mother and a sister and a wife, but I also have a beautiful niece and I have two daughters that are the light of my life's muddiman Ayesha, so please make lots and lots of them and prefer them and they're less fun to work on the guide all of us and except from all of us, which is located on a ceremony

and the wife. But I also have a beautiful niece and I have two daughters that are the light of my life. muddiman Ayesha, so please, make lots of blocks for them and pray for them and they allow us to work on a guide all of us and except from all of us, which is located on Santa Monica.