Abdullah Hakeem – Hidden Gems
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the hidden gems behind people's deeds, including the reality of people's deeds and the use of sadaqahs to showcase them. They emphasize the importance of showing deeds in public settings and warning of consequences of giving them in secret. The speaker also discusses the success of the Prophet's deeds, including his story of the greatest man to walk the face of Earth, and the importance of setting boundaries and avoiding sharing personal information. They suggest ways to make it happen, including praying for a person or an organization, sharing a secret, visiting sick people in the hospital, reciting verses of the Quran, and setting boundaries.
AI: Summary ©
My dear brothers and sisters,
We begin by praising Allah
We praise him,
we seek His help, and we ask for
His forgiveness.
We should all praise and thank Allah
For once again, allowing us all to be
gathered here today
in this beautiful masjid.
We have just performed the salatul 'Aisha together
in jama'ah.
This
itself is a great blessing, it's a great
niyama from Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. And now we are here
I mean, I know today, what a day.
SubhanAllah.
India versus Pakistan happening today. One of the
greatest matches, I believe.
But, Alhamdulillah, Allah Ta'ala has chosen you to
be here,
to learn
from the knowledge that has been passed down
to us
by the beloved Prophet Muhammad
So, for that,
I ask Allah
to bless each and every one of us,
and I ask Allah
to gather us like we we are gathered
here,
but
in As you know,
today's topic
is called
the hidden gems.
And there's so many things that we can
talk about
when it comes to the hidden gems.
Now, I want to, at the moment,
before we go into the actual point of
the talk,
I want you to focus and imagine
the gems of this world.
If you look at the diamonds,
the rubies,
the sapphires, the emeralds,
even the gold,
If you look at all of these
Gems that Allah Ta'ala has created, where do
you find them?
You find them deep underground.
And you see governments,
you see companies
spending 1,000,000, if not 1,000,000,000 of dollars
to mine
them.
And they are worth a lot of money.
I mean, look at the pearls.
The pearls, you'll have to go to the
deep oceans to find those oysters
that have the pearls inside.
They cost a lot of money, subhanAllah.
They say the most expensive
stone,
the most expensive gem
is called the blue diamond,
and it is worth
3.93
is that what? 3.93
$1,000,000 per carat.
Imagine 200 milligrams
of the blue diamond is worth
$3,930,000
because it's very rare.
And you have to dig dig very, very
deep underground
to find these types of diamonds and pearls.
And of course, the sapphires.
Just looking at
the crown of Queen Elizabeth,
just having a look at
what is in that crown or around that
crown,
It says that the crown is made of
gold
and
there are approximately
2,000
868 diamonds,
17
sapphires,
11 emeralds,
269 pearls,
and 4 rubies.
I'm sure all of you have seen pictures
or videos
of the crown that she used to wear.
And the estimated cost
of that crown
is £3
to £5,000,000,000.
3 to £5,000,000,000.
And this shows you
that those who are wealthy, those who are
rich,
they are the ones who put a lot
of worth
to these type of gems in the world.
And you'll notice that those who wear these
gems,
those jewelries that you find these gems and
these stones,
you will notice those who
company them are those who are also very
wealthy from those class.
Because they look at the other person as
someone from the upper or the high class.
Because for them, these gems and these rubies,
they mean a lot.
Now think
about the true gems
and how much they mean to Allah
These stones don't mean anything to Allah.
These stones and gems that you see on
the crowns or on the jewelries,
they don't mean anything to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. But when we see it, it's a
wow factor.
For Allah ta'ala,
the true gem
is your amal.
Your deeds,
They are the true gems and
the best of those gems are the hidden
ones.
The deeds that you do in secret.
The deeds that are hidden. Why?
Because that shows
the true
sincerity to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Now, we know
We just performed the salatul 'Aisha.
We are in front of everybody.
And of course, that's legislated in Islam.
A lot of our deeds that we do
is in public.
And of course, there are legislations in Islam,
and that's absolutely fine. And there's a lot
of hasanat and reward for that.
But if you look at
the deeds that are done in secret,
they are the deeds that are done that
shows the true sincerity
of that individual to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And the reason why I want you to
talk about this today
is because we live
in a society
where everything is now publicized.
Everything is publicized.
A person wakes up in the morning and
doesn't feel good, takes a picture of himself
or herself, posts it online,
telling people, oh, I'm not having a good
day today.
No one needs to know that. But it's
publicized
and people like it and people tick it
and people share it.
You go out to the restaurants. You have
a nice meal with your family,
you take a picture of it, and you
post it online
for everyone to see, even those who probably
couldn't afford the food that you're eating, even
they are looking at it. And why is
this happening?
Because everything is publicized today. It's become the
norm
in the society.
And it's not just with the youngsters,
it's also
creeping up and getting
the elders as well.
Because it's becoming normal. I mean, if he's
doing it, if she's doing it, then why
can't I do it? Why can't I show
the people, the world what I do?
And it's not just everyday things.
It's also the good deeds that we are
now publicizing.
And I'm not saying
that everything that we publicize is haram. That's
not what I'm saying.
Because of course, sometimes we publicize deeds
to encourage others to do it and that's
fine.
That's absolutely fine.
But think about it.
Do we really do that for that intention?
That's something that we need to really focus
on.
I remember
that
we were once myself and a friend of
mine, we were going up the escalator.
And there were 2 elderly ladies
were in front of us.
And what happened was they were carrying their
suitcases
and they were going up the escalator,
and they already found it quite difficult to
go up that escalator.
But as they were going up, what happened
was
one of the bags
came off her hand and it started rolling
down.
And just because that happened, in a split
second, she tried to grab the bag.
And she was a she was grabbing the
bag, she missed and she started tumbling down.
And what happened was the other lady who
was at the front tried to grab her
and she also started tumbling down.
And
at the back, my friend and I, we
were able to stop the bags and stop
the ladies from
hurting themselves even more.
The reason why I'm saying this is because
later on,
the person who was with me,
he posted up something online. This was many
years ago.
That today this happened, I was with this
person, and there were 2 ladies who fell,
and then we helped them and they praised
us a lot and it felt really good.
Now maybe the intention was Allahu Alem. Maybe
the intention was
that,
you know, we want to promote good deeds.
But at the end of the day, the
question I asked because I know this person
quite well, the question I asked, was it
really a true intention?
Or was it to show off the deeds
that we have done?
This is the reality of today.
You know some people go and give sadaqah
to a poor person on the street.
And as they are giving it Just hold
on, hold on, sir. Take a quick selfie.
As you are giving it and it's posted
online, then you've got a 100 likes, a
1000 likes, and then it's shared.
Look at this person, giving sadaqa to this
man.
You've just put the man's morale even more
down by publicizing
what's happening to him in the world.
But this is the reality of today.
Now again, going back to the intention.
Some people may do it for the right
reasons.
And that's absolutely fine.
And Allah the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
if you look at the first hadith,
when you open up Sahih al Bukhari,
The first hadith is about your intention.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said,
That verily all actions depends upon your intention,
and you will be given that which you
have intended.
So it's absolutely fine if the person is
intending
that I'm giving sadaqa,
and I want to make it known so
that I'm encouraging everybody to give.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, He says in
the Quran,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he tells us
that it is okay
to tell others of your sadaqah that you're
giving,
but the better deed
is when you give in secret.
That's even better.
So it shows that yes, it's okay to
encourage others and give in front of them,
but what's even better than that is when
you keep those deeds hidden.
Because that shows
true sincerity.
Sometimes our intentions
are definitely for the wrong reasons.
We want to show off.
And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam has
clearly warned us about this.
He says in a hadith, and I want
you all to listen to this. It's a
warning for all of us.
He says,
That on the day of judgment,
the first ones to be called out will
be a man,
and he will be a martyr.
He would have died as a martyr.
And Allah
will tell this man,
all the bounties He gave him in this
world, and the man will recognize it.
Allah Ta'ala will ask, and he will be
asked to him,
what have you done with this niyama?
Niyama?
He will say that with the niyama you
have given me, maybe the strength that you
have given me,
I went to battle for your sake, and
I became a martyr for your sake.
It will be said to him, You're a
liar.
You only did this,
you only fought so that people can call
you, Wow! What a brave man he is!
That was your intention.
And then he will be commanded
to drag his face
and throw him into the hellfire.
This will be the first one to be
thrown into the hellfire,
a man who was a martyr.
And then the Prophet
he said,
Then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, A
man will be brought.
This man will have a lot of knowledge.
Lot of knowledge.
And he will be a reciter of Quran.
Imagine this, a man who is a scholar,
a man who is knowledgeable in Quran,
And then, he will be called and Allah
Ta'ala will say to him, or it will
be say said to him,
that all of the bounties
that Allah has given you, He will acknowledge
it.
And then he will be asked, What did
you do with this bounty that I've given
you? He will say, For your sake, You
Allah,
I gained the knowledge, I taught the people,
and I recite the Quran.
Allah ta'ala will say, Gadab, you're a liar.
You only did this so people can call
you an 'alil.
People can call you a Qariq.
That's why you did it. And for that
his face will be dragged and then he'll
be thrown into the hellfire.
And then at the end, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
gives us an example of a person who
gave sadaqa.
He gave a lot of sadaqa,
and he was given a lot of wealth.
He will recognize the and the bounties of
Allah on that day. He will be asked,
what did you do with it?
He said, You Allah, for Your sake, I
gave.
I didn't leave any stone unturned,
but I gave for the sake of Allah
He will say, Gadib,
you are a liar.
You only did that so people can say
to you, Wow, what a generous man.
That's why you did it.
And because of that, his face will be
dragged and he will be thrown into the
hellfire.
So we need to be very careful.
In this publicized world,
we need to make sure that let's keep
some things hidden.
And that is what the point of the
talk is today.
Let's find a deed that we can do,
which is from the sunnah of the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
and let's keep that between you and Allah.
And something that comes into my mind when
I think about this,
is the story of none other but Abu
Bakr radiAllahu an.
This is an amazing story.
You see, Abu Bakr radhiallahu an was the
greatest man
to walk the face of this earth, you
can say, after all of the Ambia and
all the prophets.
From the Sahabas,
he was one of the 10 who was
given glad tidings of paradise.
Why were they so great?
If you look at them,
I'm sure many of us here are more
wealthier than Abu Bakr.
I'm sure a lot of us are probably
doing a lot as well.
But what made them so amazing
is their hearts.
Is things that was in their hearts.
And they did things for the sake of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. More sincerely than us.
Umar radiAllahu when he narrates, he says
that during the time of Abu Bakr, during
his caliphate,
Abu Bakr had a habit when he would
come to the masjid for salatul fajr.
Umar will notice that after salatul fajr, he
would leave the masjid,
and he would go somewhere
outside of in the outskirts of Madinah for
a while, then he would come back a
little bit later. And Umar radiaallahuhan was very
intrigued by it, and he wanted to know
what does Abu Bakr do every morning?
Now, it's not that he was spying. Umar
always wanted to know those who are better
than him so that he could do that.
That's what Umar would want to do and
we know Umar
would consistently
compete with Abu Bakr, and we know who
would come out to the top. It will
always be Abu Bakr
So Umar radiyaallahu an wanted to follow him
one day.
So he said after fajr one day, I
noticed Abu Bakr left, and I was following
him.
I was behind him. I kept a distance.
I made sure Abu Bakr didn't notice I
was there.
And then he said, we went to the
outskirts of Madinah, opposite from where his house
was.
And he said that I noticed there was
this house, very small, like a hut.
And I noticed Abu Bakr went in. He
said I hid
behind some bushes, making sure that Abu Bakr
didn't see me or anyone else.
And then I noticed he went inside that
house.
And Umar
said that he was there for a while
because the sun had risen, it was getting
quite hot. Maybe a couple of hours he
was there.
And then I noticed Abu Bakr come out
and then he went back to his home.
So he said, I was very curious. I
didn't recognize his house. And I went and
I knocked on the door.
And he said that an elderly lady opened
the door. She was blind.
And Umar
greeted her and he asked her, who who
are you?
And she said, well, I'm an elderly lady.
I'm blind. I'm a widow.
And Umar
saw a lot of children in the house,
and he said, and who are they?
And she said, these children are orphans.
Though the scholars say they were probably orphans
she was taking care of or they could
have been her grandchildren
and they were orphans.
She was taking care of them.
And Umar radiAllahu an then asked, who was
the man who just came to your house?
She said, Bah she said, Bah Allah, I
don't know.
I don't know who he is.
He never told me his name.
And then he asked, well, what does he
do?
She said, well, he comes into their house,
he cleans my house,
He washes our clothes,
He grinds the wheat, He bakes the bread,
and He makes us breakfast.
And
Umar said everyday.
She said, by Allah everyday, may Allah reward
him.
And Umar can't fathom this.
He said, do you pay him anything? Maybe
he does this as a job, but do
you do you pay him anything?
She said, don't
pay him anything.
He does it for the sake of Allah.
Now, when he heard that, he started to
cry.
And then he said a very famous line,
he said
He said you have exhausted
the khalifas who will come after you, O
Abu Bakr.
How can a person follow you? He's a
khalifa, he is a leader, he is the
amir of the Muslims.
Yet, what made him so special
in the sight of Allah, are these deeds
that he was doing.
And no one knows about it. If it
wasn't for Umar radhiallahu an, we wouldn't have
known about it.
And Umar probably narrated the hadith after the
death of Abu Bakr
making sure he doesn't know that Umar knows.
SubhanAllah.
Imagine the other deeds Abu Bakr would have
been doing and we don't know about it.
This is what made them special.
This is what makes them different from us.
We like to publicize it. Oh,
today, I gave $1,000 to this charity today.
You know, you're saying Masha'allah, you're saying Subhanallah,
but what's truly in the heart?
Maybe you're showing off.
This is not what the companions of the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam used to do.
Likewise, a very similar example.
Once
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
visited
Bilali bin Raba. Now, who was Bilali bin
Raba Har radiAllahu An?
He was a slave.
A slave.
He was tortured.
You wouldn't think of him in any anything
in this society.
Low class.
A servant.
They say that if you look at the
back of Bilal,
you couldn't put 2 fingers, but there was
a mark on his back because of the
lashing he used to receive.
That's Bilal radiAllahu an. A boulder being on
top of him, pressing him, almost killing him
in the hot sand in the heat of
the desert. That was Bilal radiAllahu an.
But the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam went
to him, and he said to him, You
Bilal,
there is something you are doing that is
special
because I heard your footsteps
in front of me in paradise.
Just think of this statement for a moment.
He said, I heard
your footsteps
in paradise
in front of me.
What is it that you are doing that
is so special?
And Bilal radiAllahu and look at the humbleness
of Bilal. Now he's being asked by the
prophet
so he's telling him. He's like, You Rasulullah,
I don't think I'm doing anything special or
anything different like everybody else.
But the only thing that I can think
of
is after I make wudu,
I pray 2 rakah.
After every wudu, I pray 2 rakah of
nafur.
That's it. And the prophet said,
This is
it. This is it. This is why I'm
hearing your footsteps
in paradise.
SubhanAllah.
Look at the true gems
that Allah Ta'ala recognizes.
That is what Allah recognizes.
That shows sincerity in the heart.
And there's so many more stories that we
can talk about.
But this is something that we need to
think about. What can I do
to
make Allah Ta'ala love that hidden gem?
What can I do? There's so many things
that we can do, inshallah.
One of the things that we can do,
probably something that a lot of us don't
do,
maybe get up for salatul tahajjud.
When everybody is asleep.
Nobody needs to know.
And even if you do wake up your
family, that's okay. Nobody else in the community
needs to know that you are making or
performing tahajjud.
You are alone in your home,
in your room,
and you are pulling your head down in
front of Allah when no one else can
see.
Maybe that could be your hidden gem.
Maybe that could be your hidden gem that
will take you to paradise.
Maybe you can give sadaqa in secret.
Maybe you have someone in your mind that
you're consistently giving sadaqa to, Or an organization
that you have probably,
you know, done direct
deposit to their account? No one else needs
to know about it.
That could be your hidden gem that you
are doing consistently.
You know, Subhan'Allah, there was a brother,
he would tell me, he was a refugee
at the time, he brought his family, and
they had no money. They were living
in a, you know, in a garage of
someone's house.
And if you look at the condition, it
was terrible.
But he said,
every single day,
he said, I would open my mailbox
and I would find an envelope
with a $100 in there.
Every day. He has no idea who gives
it to him.
Can you imagine this? So this one person
who gives that a $100 every day to
this person,
subhanAllah, like, you can't imagine it, That there
are true gems out there. But we don't
know about them, they're hidden.
And only Allah knows and we will see
them right up there in Jannah.
That is a true hidden gem.
Maybe you could visit the sick in the
hospital.
You don't need to tell everyone else about
it.
Something that
I know some people do.
But subhanAllah, so many Muslims who are in
the hospital and you can make it a
thing that maybe once a week, I'm going
to go to the hospital and I'm going
to visit someone who is sick.
Maybe that's something that we can do.
Maybe on a weekly basis, if you like,
go and visit the graveyard, clean it up
a little bit.
And it reminds you of death. It reminds
you of the reality that you're going to
face. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That could probably
be your hidden gem.
It could be something as simple as feeding
the birds.
Maybe you can go to the park every
single day if you like, and you feed
the creatures of Allah Ta'ala.
And you're doing it for the sake of
Allah.
That could be your hidden gem. And we
know that Allah
gave paradise
to the person who was so sinful. But
what did he do? Give water to a
thirsty dog. That's all this person did.
And because of that his sins were completely
forgiven, wiped
off. That could be the hidden gem.
It could be maybe
I'm sure we all love coffee.
You know, you go and buy coffee somewhere,
and all you do is you tell on
the counter, You know what? I'm paying for
2. Give the person who comes next, give
it to him for free. I'll pay for
it. That could be your hidden gem. Doesn't
have to be a Muslim.
Anything that you can think of that is
a good deed that you can do consistently,
that
can be your hidden gem. So choose something
that is between you and Allah, subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
I would like to end it
with a hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
where he says,
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said,
The best deed in the sight of Allah
is the one that is done little,
but it is consistent.
That's the deed that Allah loves the most.
So think of something insha'Allah that you can
do. Simple as tasbih,
in the car that you're driving, no one
else is around. Du'a, a special du'a you're
making for other people.
It could be
certain verses of the Quran that you like
to recite, no one else needs to know
about. Do it consistently.
And you will find that that will sparkle
on the day of judgement
in a huge,
huge good deed, in the sight of Allah,
that will be your hidden gem. I ask
Allah
to bless each and every one of us.
I ask Allah
to bless us all
with hidden gems, and I ask Allah to
make us all gems. And I ask Allah
to grant us all