Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Imam Al Ghazali Advice on Time Management

Your time is your life and much like ice it is constantly melting

away. Do not let time go to waste.

Know that time should not be without structure.

You must audio day and night organizing your routine of worship

and assigning an activity to each period.

This is a method for constant remembrance of God, a necessary

ingredient in attaining spiritual happiness.

Try to awake from sleep before dawn a noble time and let the

first words in your heart and on your tongue. Be the remembrance of

God. Purify your body and get dressed appropriately with the

intention of obeying God.

Pray in your home, then make your way to the mosque in tranquility

and with remembrance of God. Pray with the congregation which is 27

times better than a prayer alone. Do not fail to complete this

profitable act. For if you are negligent, then what benefit is

there for you in the pursuit of knowledge. After all, the fruit of

knowledge is enacting upon it.

Use your time until sunrise in four types of remembrance,

supplication, glorification, recitation, and reflection.

Reflect upon your mistakes and the nearness of your end and carefully

plan your day with the intention of obeying God.

By the light of day you should strive to occupy yourself with

what benefits you in the hereafter. Use your time in one of

four ways. The first is seeking useful knowledge. This is the best

use of time and highest form of worship. useful knowledge

increases your god consciousness.

If you are unable to acquire useful knowledge, use your time in

extra prayers, or one of the four types of remembrance mentioned.

The third use of time is to act in a way that will bring happiness to

the hearts of believers will make it easier for the righteous to

accomplish good works such as visiting the sick and feeding the

poor. Finally, spending your time earning an honest living to take

care of yourself and your family is also a form of worship.

However, beware of worldly greed for it will ruin your religion.

When the sun turns red, try and spend your time glorifying God,

the sun should set while you are seeking forgiveness.

One must also set aside time for worldly necessities family and

community.

Before you sleep, review your knowledge do not end your day in

entertainment for actions are according to the last of them.

Know that sleep is like death and waking is like resurrection. Be

ready to meet God by sleeping in a state of purity with your we'll

call it your works. And if there was a Muslim psychologists like no

other it's Imam Ghazali. I'll give you one selection, you know from

the United Healthcare from he starts off by speaking about

organizing your day, the hours of your day, he says you should not

have anything that is you should make sure that every moment of

yours is accounted for. And all your activities are monitored and

organized according to your timetable. And you should never

you shouldn't you should never overcome that time and do

something else in that time. You should keep it as particular as

possible. And then he says will be he does horrible Baraka twill o

caught that is how you get Baraka in time. Many of us are struggling

with Baraka in time and blessing in time. Our days, just fly by our

days just pass and we don't get anything accomplished. So he tells

us that if you have your day organized, where you do everything

in its allotted time. And he says this is what he then says he says

don't be like animals who do things as they come gave them a

tough luck. Right as they come along. They do it. So this comes

along. Okay, let me take care of this. Oh, that looks green. Let's

go there that that looks nice and fancy. Let's let's do that. Have a

time for everything. And then after that on another disk. In

another discussion, he says that you should always strive to do to

be doing good and never to be doing bad. Right? So you should

always be a person of benefits and not a person of harm or

inconvenience to others. And then he says in the midst of that

discussion, he says that look, if you can't help it, no, because

there's going to be a lot of people and you know, when you've

dealt with a lot of people, they come in the excuses. You know, I

can't help it. I just can't help talking to him. I kind of talk

into I can't help bothering him. I can't help lying. I can't help you

No cheating. So he says, Look, if you can't help it, if that's what

you say. So he's pre empting your thoughts. That's why I call him a

great psychologist. So he says

is that if you can't help it, then go to sleep?

He says, Why? Because sleep is a neutral state, neither do benefit

and neither will you harm anybody. It's a neutral state. Now,

again, look at where his mind is where his mind is. There's going

to be many people even now thinking man, that's a good fatwa.

Right, I'll go to sleep. So then he suddenly says, he says, but

then sleep is the sister of death. And what good is there in life in

which so much part of it is death, so that he jumps you back to

reality? So essentially, coming back with the argument that the

only way is to be good and not to do anything bad because even sleep

is not a good idea. I just find him that he just talks to your

heart He's just gets right to the bottom of things. He doesn't beat

around the bush he keeps it gives it straight.

Bla Allah