Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Incorporating Health and WellBeing in Your Life
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Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu lillahi Hamden Cathedral on
the uban mobile rockin fee Mubarak and Ali he como yo Hibou Rabona we
are the jeweler jeweler who are salatu salam O Allah so you will
have even most of us Allah Allahu Allah, Allah who either early he
also he Baraka was seldom at the Sleeman Kathira on Eli Yomi. Dean
and my bad
call Allahu Tabata Kota Allah for the Quran emoji they will for
Colonel Hamid war Kulu, wash Prabhu Allah to sifu in the hula,
you have been mostly Fein
or Cortana or your handler homotopy. But what you heard Remo
Allah human hubba? If.
So the Kola who now the brothers and sisters, what I want to speak
about today is about health and fitness.
In Islam, it's to be honest, I'm not sure if in past times, in past
generations, this would have been a topic of discussion, or this
would have been maybe even a topic of a lecture. Because I think
lifestyles in many places were
until, I guess, recent modern time sedentary lifestyles on a lot of
it to do with just desk work, the computer and so on. Well, that's
facilitated many things. But I think in terms of health, it's
created a huge challenge. And especially the more developed the
countries are, they seem to have a greater pose a greater challenge.
I mean, in America, where I lived for at least eight years, I think
that lots of people people are obese, and you actually see it. In
England, people are obese, but it's not as bad as America,
America, everybody's massive, right? It's, it's just really
different. And then you carry on further and you go to places like
India, and so on, you feel you just find mashallah very, very,
extremely slim people, which people in the West paying huge
amounts of money to try to become, right, but they just do it
naturally, they have to be like that they can't be any other way.
Not to say there aren't any obese people in those spaces. I mean,
there's a huge difference between the haves and the have nots. And
generally, if you have more, you seem to just most people can't
handle it. When you have a lot of material wealth, or disposable
wealth, and suddenly you start seeing it on the body. Right? In
some cultures, you start seeing on them in terms of gold and the men
start wearing gold.
Not sure why. But the men start wearing it's almost like a
tradition. I mean, in our communities, you have to get a
ride or watch it used to be for the older generation. And when you
get to a certain level, you get a rather watch. Right? That's not in
the younger generation, they get rather watches. I mean, much
easier. But
anybody got a ride or what? Yeah, they got their accomplishment, you
know,
those big chunky ones, not even the slim ones, those big chunky
Rado watches, right. So I don't know, every community has their
own
culture. So
this wouldn't have been a discussion because people were
eating whatever they could eat, and they were working, you're
walking, you were moving from one place to the other. And in many
places, I guess it was, I mean, even going back 30 years, we
played a lot more on the streets and outside, then we played
inside. Now it's difficult to get the children play football
outside, they have to play FIFA on the computer. That's just more
interesting for some reason. So you sit into it. It's a big
challenge. It's a major challenge. So
there's something that somebody said once, which hit it home for
me, because how does this issue relate to duck the year and the
color of Allah? Because if you eat healthy,
and you exercise, they promise and it's true. It's not untrue. They
promise many, many things. Your muscles get toned, improved
flexibility, enhanced endurance, increasing bone density,
strengthening the heart fighting depression and stress, balancing
blood pressure, reducing the risk of many other diseases, and so on
and so forth. There's huge amounts of benefits.
But there's one thing that drove it home for me from the
perspective that our lifespans are written.
From when we're in our stomach, in the mother of in the stomach's of
our mothers, it's written how long we're going to be in this world
for our death dates are written.
Right?
So if somebody is going to die at the age of 60, or 70, or 80, or
even 90, that's written that's not going to change Allah subhanaw
taala knows that from pre eternity. However, the one thing
that we can make a difference to is the quality of our life for
that lifespan. So if a person
Son is healthy, they eat healthy, they check the right nutrition and
they exercise enough and keep the body toned, then if they're going
to live for 63 years, then hopefully, unless they unless they
are afflicted by some kind of debilitating disease, they're
going to be better off less visits to the doctor, the hospital, and
and so on and so forth. And just the better feeling, feeling of
good health. So the quality of life is what we're speaking about.
Yeah.
I believe we have some control of the quality of life but never the
span of our life, unless we relate that together. But at the end of
the day, if we look at it from the perspective of whatever Allah
subhanaw taala has written as to when we're going to die, that's
going to happen, but at least we should be able to stay at least
healthy. One of the most common doors that I've heard old people
making the older you become
the more frequent this door becomes. Hola, que Sica, montage
and Obernai Allah do not make us dependent on anyone, because
everyone is fearful that they may become bedridden, and then they
are at the mercy of children, daughter in laws, and what have
you and that's not an enjoyable life. That's not something that
anybody wants. That's why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam
has there's a few doors that are mentioned in the Sunnah. One is
Allahumma, inni, wubi, criminal, haram,
the small haram not haram haram. And what that means is very
similar to another wedding Allahumma inni, or obika Min an
aura, the Illa or the little Romel?
O Allah I seek your refuge from evil old age.
I seek your refuge from being returned to the lowest of life,
meaning that state in which you become needy, dependent.
What enjoyment is there, there's some people Subhanallah they,
Allah protect us, they they stay like that for 10 years, 15 years.
You know, and Allah protect us from that. So this is a dua
actually, that you that we should read.
I would only suggest that we have a collection of the US a
comprehensive collection of doors that we read regularly. Because
did you How many of you knew about this store? In particular?
One person, two people, some of their older ma basically nobody
else knows this, da. But isn't that a beautiful door? Wouldn't
you want to make that because if that door is acceptable,
hamdulillah our end of life is inshallah not as bad, evil, old
age is
civility, and the person becomes senile, dependent, loses their
mind maybe loses their functions.
And then he says like, what's the point of living Subhan Allah, may
Allah never allow us to go into that state. And of course, there's
many spiritual things you can do as well to protect against that,
like doors, and staying mentally active learning things. And then
of course, there's physical exercise, physical exercise
supposed to help from dementia. Dementia is one of those things,
is saying just walking this many minutes a day, I don't know, half
an hour, 40 minutes a day, or a few days a week at least causes
pushes that back
has huge amounts of benefits. And I think what's happened is that
many people here
are from communities that used to be farming communities, like
forefathers, right, and some people, maybe they were even to
parts in this in India, or wherever people come from. So the
foods that we were eating, were completely completely appropriate
for that many of the foods that we eat, I mean, this is something
that studies need to be done. And I don't know if there's any
studies, but it's something I've been thinking about
the masalas that we use, the food products that we use, they're not
many of them aren't actually native to the UK, to disclaim it.
They don't even they don't, they're not even produced here.
They imported by I'm not saying stop eating. I'm not saying start
eating fish and chips. Right.
But
a lot of the foods and the diet that we have is actually for a
different climates. We're having in the UK, where it's a totally
different climates. Those foods aren't even produced here. And
Allah subhanaw taala obviously produces different fruits and
vegetables and legumes and
other forms of, you know, food products in different areas that
are appropriate for those areas. So it's something to think about,
right? Enjoy your biryanis and whatever you have to it's
completely fine. But I'm just saying these are some things that
we need to think about. A lot of people they eat but they still
feel lethargic. They
They still feel weak, they still have low and maybe iron deficiency
and other things. And I'm not here trying to prescribe anything. But
what's happened is that the foods, this is just the assessment. The
foods aren't what they used to be about 100 years ago, 200 years
ago, for sure, they weren't as many chemicals and additives. And
these things weren't yet discovered. What we add in foods
for longevity to longer shelf life shortcuts to, for preservatives
and so on, they didn't exist, it was just whatever you found purely
naturally from the earth, organic without being certified organic as
such, it was just there, that's what it was. That's what we were
putting into ourselves that we were, that's what we were being
nourished by.
I mean, if you look at the description of the what the
Prophet sallallahu, alayhi, wasallam, ate, it was all from the
ground, meaning it was all from the trees or the ground, it was
all you could trace it, there was nothing that came from a
laboratory. So now, that was just natural. Now we've introduced a
lot of things. And slowly, slowly research keeps changing. And
margarine was supposed to be very good, better than butter. But now
we've gone back to butter, I guess we always have to go back to
whatever is natural. And now it's spreads, which are made of
different things. And the research keeps changing as to what's good
for you and what's bad for you, because a lot of additives.
So, now we need a whole new medicine system. So our original
historical classical medicine systems like the Ayurvedic system,
which is old Indian Ayurvedic is very similar, actually, based on
humors. Right, very similar to our unity, which is originally
Hellenistic in Greek, but it seems to be only preserved in the Indian
subcontinent through our Hakim's, right. Otherwise, we look at the
names of them, or all the old Greek names of those, many of
those,
those modules and those formulas that they have, they're all Greek
names, because that's where they came from originally, but it was
preserved in the Indian subcontinent.
So you have those two systems, then you have Chinese medicine,
you have a number of medical systems, so medicine systems of
cure numerous ones, you know, along with the others, like
acupuncture, reflexology, and so on.
And they still work, I think they still work. But my theory again,
is just the theory is that I think they're gonna have a hard time
battling against the additives that we have in our foods.
Because our food was natural, these medicines are made of
natural things, right? So they knew exactly how to come back to
one another. And that is what is historical. I mean, the Greek
medical system is
what over 2000 years old, because the Greeks, they were
300 BCE
500 BCE, when Pericles and so on, I mean, go to Athens, Romans took
over after that the Greek civilization pretty much waned.
You know, it's been over 2000 years, approximately around 2000
years or so. That's an old medicine system. The ivy league
system is very, very old. So while I think it definitely has a
benefit, and I've benefited from some of those medicines, but I
think the new allopathic system, and it's a new it's been it's
decades old, now the new, you know, paracetamol, and so on, but
chemical based stuff. I think that's because it cuts the whole
chemical in our food, right? So it probably works faster. That's why
it's based on more science, they say, and it's based on more
observation and trials and tests and so on.
Homeopathic system, I believe, really works very well. I mean,
I've used it successfully. And I think it works very well. And they
say with hardly any side effects.
I don't want to get into the whole vaccine thing right now. But if
you if you find with the vaccine, please go and take it. And if
you're not with it, and don't take it, just don't argue about it.
Just don't argue with one another about it. Unless you definitely
know there's something going on whether good or bad. And you've
got the you've done the test yourself, then go ahead and
convince the whole world but if you haven't, and you just
listening to others, and you've just bought into that, whether NT
or four then just leave it to yourself. Right? That's what I
think about the whole vaccine thing. Right? Allah protect us.
Nobody knows. Nobody knows. But there's definitely a pandemic. You
know, there's definitely a sickness out there. Right, that
many of us have experienced very different from others. Allah knows
best Allah protect us. That's what I can see it sent from Allah, what
do we do? He has wisdom behind what he does and Allah just bring
the good in it for us. So let's go back to the idea is that we have
to talk about quality of life. And what's the benefit of quality?
view of life why good quality of life? Well, well, we don't want to
become a burden on others. We don't want to become a burden on
ourself. We want to enjoy a good life so that we can feel better
with worship. You see, the Prophet sallallahu sallam said in a very
famous Hadith that you must have heard that people are deluded
about, especially two things are Sahar and Ferrara say he means
well being, and ferok means free time. And it's a really
interesting Hadith, it's very profound the way it is. The
Prophet saw some use the word Magoun, which means you've
essentially been swindled,
you've been cheated by these, these ideas that I've got, I've
got health right now. And
so
the health is actually supposed to be used to increase our investment
for the hereafter. But we think we're going to do it later, we're
going to do it later, we're going to do it later. And then you
actually lose your health. Most people, more people than not
actually receding their health, diminishing their health. So that
the trajectory where everybody's around you shows that generally as
you get all over the hill at the age of 4050, for sure. 60 then
there's certain weaknesses, people who have absolutely no weakness
and absolutely healthy bones and teeth and eyes and everything else
after the age of 5060, or fewer people than then then then more
people. So that's what we know from observation. So why not focus
on this? So Okay.
Hopefully, that's gives us some idea. So we'll be able to do
better worship at the end. If you can, people delay, there's some
community Al Hamdulillah. The Gujarati community doesn't have
this problem. They got other problems, but didn't have this
problem. That hedge is what you do when you retire. It's a retirement
activity. So once I was in one of the years that hedge, there's
about a 2930 year old 31 year old maybe guy who says shake, I've got
a question. I thought, okay, it's about hedged properly, and it was
about hedge actually, is that is it okay for me to be in hedge said
would you mean it's okay, video already here now? Right. So, so
Subhanallah was quite confusing, because he says, my family telling
me that I'm not old enough yet.
I'm still a little kid. You know, I'm not old enough for Hajj,
because in that culture, Hajj is when you retire, when you have
done all your Guna.
Right, when you've done all your sins, and you know, you retired
from sins, you've done it now. Now I should become religious and I
should become * sub.
I should become * sub.
So, unfortunately, I mean, there was one group I used to go with
and most of the hajis would be people around 50 over the 45 first
hedge, right.
And you then see the benefit of doing Hajj when you're younger,
you have to be carried around, you have to be pushed around on a
wheelchair. And Hajj is only getting more complicated. Your
five star hotel is only as good as the hotel itself once you come out
of the hotel. In fact, once you come out of your room, those
elevators even in five star hotels will get five star when it's
Namaste. And when it's solid time, Everybody's rushing, but you don't
have any personal elevator for yourself right? And then to get to
the Haram and the XP you know the size is just getting bigger to get
to the Kaaba is not easy anyway, especially you get stuck in the
King Abdullah extension. Wow. SubhanAllah. From that to get to
the Kaaba, well, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. It's
going to accommodate a lot more people but it's going to be
difficult. And then how can you do that walking is difficult so
everybody's here take my stones, and everybody's giving it to
somebody else to go and tell the stone that's not allowed. You
actually supposed to go there will be taken there. It's only under
absolute extreme circumstances when you see a lot of people they
just stoning like keep saying what are you doing? You only supposed
to do seven? I'm doing it for two other people, my mum and dad or my
older brother or whatever. Why? Because they can't do it.
What was like yamasa? Like what's the what's the Messiah of that in
hierarchy? The Hydras for yourself it's a HUD is a spiritual
exercise. That's very personal. The emotion is what's about Hodges
not just writes the way Why would you go around the Kaaba seven
times would you get out of that? If there's no emotion in that,
like okay, I've done I went around seven times I had a bit of an
exercise. That's not the point of it is Allah's house, and we're
going to it where Allah subhanaw taala says, That's my house, and I
want you to do this out of my love. So there shouldn't be an
emotion there.
So you're having to be carried around, wheelchair around scooted
around. That's not enjoyable. Right. So do some hedge before and
then after that, if that is the case, then you know, maybe we can
have some more hedge mail
Allah protect us from that. If you look at all of our worships, they
all include some kind of purification. So Solid
purification and exercise solid is a physical exercise and now
mashallah, I mean, when you look at the books of jurisprudence
in none of our books of jurisprudence Do you have any
massage rulings related to preying on a chair? They're just not there
as though people never had leg never had leg pains or never had
problems with their knees in the past. I'm sure people did. Right.
So why have they not mentioned what an admission Why have they
not mentioned any of the rulings about preying on chairs? And yet
today, you go to Masjid and there's one Masjid I went to in
London Mashallah. It's actually got fixed hole row hole.
You know, two rows of fixed chairs.
Right? So there's no argument who sits where it's just like, it's
their cinema seating. There you go, right.
Never saw this 30 years ago, I remember the first time I heard of
this was in around 90, it started off at 95. Right, and I went to
South Africa and we had to write a fatwa. When I started doing the
Iftar course, about it was just a new thing. And now it's quite
casual. Nobody sits on the floor and grieves, right, as though
nobody can sit on the floor anymore. Like, is this a new
sickness? A new pandemic? Right? Nobody's trying to find a cure for
that. Do you know what I'm saying? It's just where are we going with
all of this? So quality of life, you can't worship Allah subhanaw
taala? In the same way, right? There's going to be an effect on
that. Yes, the prophets, Allah, Allah is definitely told us that
if you are habituated to certain worships, and then after that,
such a certain ritual, certain
worships that you do and devotions that you do, and then after that,
you became sick, and you couldn't do them anymore. Allah subhanaw
taala will give you the reward of them. Right? So yes, there is that
as a bit of a consolation for that. So we need a better quality
of life for many reasons, for our personal cell for our worship to
Allah subhanaw taala enjoyment in that worship, and not to be a
burden somebody else? And really, may Allah subhanho wa taala.
Accept that from all of us. So how do we become more healthy? That's
the big question. Give us an easy way to do that. I don't know. I
don't know what the answer is. Because everybody's lifestyle is
slightly different. But I can give you some ideas, and we can explore
it. And then what it is, and I don't want to speak for too long.
I want to take questions, or comments or suggestions from, from
you guys. So when we finish, when I finished them, I'd like to hear
from you. Because I may be talking about things that are totally
irrelevant to you. And you may have a question that, so I'd like
to open it up for questions afterwards, if I don't discuss it,
so how do you integrate? So a lot of people say you should go and do
exercise. And for some people who are disciplined, and they can go
and take time off to go and do exercise wonderful. But how many
people are disciplined? We actually have that time to do it.
I think in Gloucester, you guys have a lot more time than we have
in London. Mashallah, here, I'm assuming, right? London is just
too fast and too crazy. But in Gloucester, I think you guys, do
you guys get free time here. You have, you know, you have time,
right? But then if you're going to use a flexure, you're going to
lose your time. So it's the same thing, I think. So I have found
that incorporating a healthy lifestyle within your operation of
your life, and your work.
And your daily routine is the best way to do it, you have to make
changes. You can't think of a healthy lifestyle as a separate
idea. And you do everything normally. And then I don't know
you do something on the side once a week or twice a week or
something like that. Right? You can't like I'll just take a few
extra vitamins. Right? I'll walk one day somewhere. Now I think you
need to incorporate into a lifestyle. So a lot of the I mean,
one things that you can simply do is get rid of white breads.
Anything Wait, wait rotis like pure white, just get rid of that.
That's artificial. It's processed the whole meal. The whole meal,
parts of the grain are actually removed to make it white and is
bleached. So it's actually artificial. But the crazy world
today is that anything that's supposed to be healthier carries a
bigger price tag, even though it's probably more closer to what it
was naturally. So what you do is you remove sugar, and or you
remove certain ingredients and then you hike up the price because
it's according to current fad. So it's a bit crazy. So start with
brown breads, brown roti, at least that way and don't trick yourself
at all.
Half and half, that's just, I eat half and half, right?
Sorry.
The half and half people go into brown eventually get used to it
cut out a lot of the sugars. I mean, eventually, we've had 3040
years of extreme sugar until a law has been passed recently to cut
the sugar. Now all of these drinks, they taste awful, right?
Because they've just cut the sugar in them, because we're so used to
tasting it a certain way. Right? So all the sugars cut Hamdulillah.
Right, just get off the drinks.
So there's legislation because it's proven that it's just too
much refined sugar, right, to try to cut down the sugar.
And a lot of it I mean, I guess we're addicted to sugar, but we
don't see it as a health hazard. You're addicted to smoking, that's
bad. addicted to sugar. That's bad. But Adiga sugar is still not
as bad. It's not considered bad yet, because there's not enough
warnings out there. It's not made into a crime. It is not made into
a blameworthy practice, right. So these are some fundamental things
then in our lifestyle. We moderate the amount of foods we eat. And I
think one thing I don't know why is it because in India meat was
expensive, right when people were growing up, or maybe it's in our
genes, that meat was expensive, no longer chicken is very cheap in
India. Now it used to be expensive, in Sauron pouring the
madrasa they used to literally have
one time no meat, and the other time it was buffalo meat. They
never used to even taste chicken, or goat meat goat meat was even
more expensive. I remember buffalo cow account, instead of cow
buffalo because illegal in some states, it's 20 rupees a kilo at
that time when I was studying their chicken was about 60 rupees
a kilo. And goat meat was 90 rupees a kilo. That's a huge
difference. And many people just never ate that. In fact, when you
go to Bengal, they don't even eat meat. They get it a qurbani time
only they don't even get milk for tea in the morning to have black
tea in the morning, many of the villages that we visited. So I
don't know Is it because of that deprivation. Now it's like we need
to eat meat. And because we're Muslim and not Hindu, so we just
need to eat meat. So everybody just eats meat and meat and meat,
dal meat. You have to have some meat in the data otherwise, man,
what is that? Right? That's no good. Like, why don't you put meat
in there like meat every single day? That's ridiculous.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam enjoyed his meat. So yes,
you could say meat as a sunnah, maybe. But he didn't eat it every
day. He didn't eat it everyday. He ate it once in a while when it
came, he ate it well. But he meets at home every single day. And when
you go to a restaurant, where do you order?
A mixed grill. There's nothing else like every time I go, it was
like, oh, let's order to mix grills. I was like, there's a lot
of other stuff on the menu. Like what's wrong with you guys? Is
that all you see mixed grill, mixed grill mixed grill like meat
meat. And it's not just here, it's actually in the Balkans, we have
five country tour. And at least in three of those countries
everywhere we have three this is a mixed grill kabobs were nice, but
come on, like give us some vegetables.
You know? So hamdulillah what we have managed to do at home and you
know, is that we started off with one free meat today. So no meat on
that day at all. Not even a small amount. And hamdulillah it's
increased to
five or six days no meat. So we literally only have meat or
chicken
once or twice a week.
And it's easy, it's done. But you have to get a bit creative. And
people don't know how to how to
cook vegetables or they only know in one way. You have to get
creative with soups and things like that. They just don't know
how to cook it otherwise. I was in Bangalore and my cousin was with
me and then they telling this guy that vegetarian he says no, go eat
vegetable and I eat cow.
Right? It's like no, that's for the Hindus. That's not for us. But
the province of the Lord ism didn't do that. He took it easy.
The Prophet sallallahu Sallam would have
if he was lucky to get one meal a day and that was preference
actually because I'm impressed I had millions going through his
hands but he stayed as the poorest so that anybody could relate to
him and for a long time that is that he actually says the cooker
wouldn't come on his stove you know the the firewood wouldn't
come on and they'd survive on dates and water. I lead survive on
dates and water for for a long time. I guess we would never even
bother trying That's right. It's not something we've even bother
trying. You know to stay on something like that. Be flexible
in your in your eating whatever Allah gives you eat it. That's all
incorporating a health healthy lifestyle. Right. The other thing
then is
Do is the is the movement that is very, very important. As I said to
go and take time off to go to a gym, or to go running as boring,
like to go running to go jogging treadmill have had it your home is
boring. For some people who are determined it's fine for them. But
for a lot of people, it's just time taken out. And it's there's
no enjoyment in there. So try to incorporate into your work. So
walk to your work, okay, might take 10 minutes more or five
minutes more, but that will be hugely beneficial.
Bike to Work, right bike to that's what I found works for me, because
it doesn't waste any extra time I still have to get to teaching. So
I go on a bike ride 25 minutes there, 25 minutes back, and
hamdulillah even in the freezing cold, it's as long as not raining
or huge wind, right even a bit of rain, it's okay, you get used to
it, right you get used to it. And whenever you want to do something
like that, make sure you get all the equipment so that you have no
excuse not to do it. So if you are going to do something, then go and
get all the equipment to make it easy for you to do. But the best
thing is to incorporate it into your lifestyle. Right. And that
that is what people did throughout they walk to places they did not
always they only went on horses, if they had to really go or some
very, you know, the richest people would probably go in, you know,
some special carriages or whatever we've all become rich, the world
has just opened up to everybody. Before about 100 years ago, there
would be certain certain food products and other things which
are only accessible to the wealthy, the common folk would not
have access to that. But now today, anybody can do it. Anybody
can get whatever they want. And that is a fitna for us. So I think
these are just a several maybe disjointed points to think about
for our health. Because we want to improve the quality of our life so
that we can better worship Allah subhanaw taala and not become
dependent on others, because that's what makes people very
miserable. Now, a big challenge here is that the guys get to go
outside, the men get to go outside because a lot of their job
involves that, okay, they could walk to work and they walk to the
masjid because they have to go a few times a day if they walk into
the masjid, and so on. And they can go running more easily, you
know, the whole hijab issue doesn't? How do the women do it?
That's a huge challenge. Now, in other communities, it was easy
because the women had their own, you know, in the fields or
whatever they could, there was a lot more privacy and things like
that here, the privacy is only in the homes. So how do you do this?
Now, this is something that I don't claim to have, you know, all
the answers to but what some people are doing in different
communities, and maybe you're doing the same thing here is to
get together. Because it's always easy to do things together, right?
Rather than individually, it's very boring to change your
lifestyle because it's so difficult to change a routine
that's been going on, especially if it's genetic. So I think it's
good idea to get others involved, maybe take over the swimming pool
for women only sessions. Whatever else I mean, Marsha, you guys have
lots of things like
little farm I saw today, related to this place, I guess there's a
lot of other things that you can do while maintaining your modesty,
where there's a will Inshallah, there will be a way if you have
other ideas, please let us know as well. So
the women's,
the women's exercise, and the women's being fit that many women
say they count the steps on their phone. But the problem with their
steps is literally
cooker, bedroom cleaning, whatever in the house. It's not strenuous,
it might be quick and frequent. But it's not strenuous. It doesn't
get the heart, you know. So that's what really needs to happen.
They say with diesel cars once in a while you need to go and just
flow them on the motorway. So that cleans out the junk, the gunk or
whatever it is. And I think that's what we need to do to get the
heart rate up. That's what they say. So if anybody has great ideas
about that, then let us know.
Now mental health is a major issue. Right? And we can't deny
it. Mental health is a big problem. And I know that word
mental health is a word which causes a lot of people to kind of
deny because the word mental just sounds mental, right? And
psychological problems. And much of it is actually to do with much
of it is actually to do with stress and other things that's
caused by
sedentary lifestyle, not moving and maybe bad food. I would
suggest that if unless you really know your diets, like your food if
you
Know what is sufficient carbs, sufficient protein, and sufficient
fats and so on, you understand that if you don't, then it's very
likely, especially if you're overeating that you're not doing
it properly, and you're probably missing out on some really
essential nutrients, and minerals. There's a lot of people with this
problem. So they feel tired, they feel weak, they feel they can't go
on. Right? They just feel like eating more and sleeping. So what
really benefits is to get yourself a good multivitamin, and mineral
supplements, sold gars, vm 75. Or there's a number of them a good
one, like spend money on this don't get the cheapest brand,
right? Get something that is made by a good company, there's lots of
good companies, they will cost you 3040 pounds may be for a
supplement of maybe three months or four months, but I think it's
well worth it. Because what that does is that will help to
supplement for you the missing minerals. And, and there, it could
be simply just that generally are women that have a problem with
what is it iron, and vitamin D is alright, vitamin D, right? So
these are all things to think about. Right? The supplements
really do help. It's just beneficial to get back with your
life and be more productive because the stronger believer is
better than the weaker believer, what's the point of a person who's
weak and is dependent on others, right? We don't want to become a
burden. hamdulillah Al Hamdulillah, you should really,
really thank Allah for the NHS. The more sugar we do, the more you
might complain about the NHS but as bad good it is, it is a
blessing. You go to America, and just we're writing a fatwa about
medical insurance right now. And the survey we done they are the
basic insurance cost about $600 a month for a family.
Right? That's a basic insurance, the higher ones are like 1000
Something a month. Even if you've got insurance, your doctor visit
costs $40 A visit
even after paying 600 Your doctor visits, for example, cost 45 $50
Just to go and see a doctor, even though you've got insurance, what
are you paying for? I don't know. Right? Then if you have to have a
procedure, then obviously then there's a copay. So you've got the
basic level of insurance of five 600 pounds for a family of three,
four, then you still have to pay up to a quarter is it 1500 or
$2,500, then the insurance covers the rest.
And if you don't have insurance, and you pay for it, it cost double
or triple of what the insurance companies get charged for the same
procedure.
See what I'm saying? It is absolutely crazy. Right. In India,
it's different. They obviously have insurances, but they have
some they have free facilities as well. But they are extremely
understaffed, awful, terrible, dirty places. Right? So then you
have to pay for it to go to a better hospital. And if you're
wealthy, it's okay. But Subhan Allah in the, in the pandemic, and
the black fungus and so on. Many, many people are in debt now,
because of the eggs. And only if you've noticed, you go to a doctor
in India or America, they give you lots of medicine. In England,
they're like, No, you don't need it, you'll be fine in one week,
you'll be fine in three days. They don't want to prescribe, right,
whereas there they prescribe antibiotics for everyone. It's
telling me that for all the COVID that were giving anti anti
antibiotics, it's a viral problem. Why are you giving antibiotics?
Were you ever was anybody ever prescribed antibiotics for COVID?
Right? They don't, they don't because it's a burden on the NHS.
So they're making money down there. It's a there's a lot of
issues with this, right? Unfortunately, it's not as honest
as it should be. But what I'm trying to say is that we need to
do sugar, we really, really need to do sugar for the NHS, and may
Allah keep it up. And yes, we may have to pay more taxes or
whatever. I don't know. But you know, that's a real benefit that
we can go there. We might have to wait for a while. Okay, if you do
insurance in America, you get you know, you're in two, three days
you got you can get a surgery straightaway. But here, you might
wait for weeks, but hamdulillah right. It's really beneficial
sports. I mean, I think I need to talk about sports here. Because
sports is one way to gain exercise.
So for many people, they're into a sport and they can get involved
with it, and that's good. So if you are taking part in a good
physical sport, that's great hamdulillah but then with
everything else, you get obsessive, it gets over the top,
and that's what one needs to be concerned about. It's not my topic
for today, so I'm not going to go too much into that that's more
about sport in Islam and the whole aspect about that, but sport
Definitely as part of a healthy lifestyle, if you can get involved
in a sport, a martial art that works for people, that's great. It
doesn't have to be a martial arts such as kickboxing, which is quite
intense, right? It could be something like wrestling something
like jujitsu or some kind of mixed martial arts or whatever, just to
keep going because set for a lot of people to go for a run. But to
go on a treadmill is boring. Right? It's just like what do I do
there? That's why for them if they get into a if it motivates them to
get into a sport, then there's a bit more enjoyment in that. So
whatever whatever we can do, we do that this is what Allah says in
the Quran, eat and drink Kulu washable eat and drink so you can
eat and drink but do not do is rough. Do not be extravagant now
there's two levels this is rough and there's another word used in
the Quran V
LA to 234 for that Allah just says law 234 In hola hola you humble or
is it Mr. Finn
in the hula Your humble was revealed, right? Allah doesn't
like the those who are extravagant dealing with right now, which
basically means that money is easy come an easy go it's a lot of
people are very a lot of disposable income, they can buy
things on the spur Amazon Prime whatever, just get things. So you
have to be very careful of what how we spend that.
So let us see who Allah subhanaw taala then says that Allah has
made halal or pure things tidy about all pure things. And he has
made haram all repugnant things, all filthy things, unhealthy
things. So what is the year but most of us have done another talk
about
HMC. There was a talk I gave for a program with HMC. And we discussed
the idea of the meats that were even buying, you know, the meats
that you love. When you ask the people in the industry, it's some
of the worse and inferior quality meat that is being sold to
Muslims. Muslims seem to be the highest consumers of meat for some
odd reason. Which is really strange. I don't know. Right? And
it's inferior cuts.
Then it's not the best kind of meat. So that's something to think
about. Because yeah, it's halal HMC, whatever, but is it pure and
wholesome? How is it been read? Because if you look at once I was
in Hajj with a guy from England but who had big business in
Pakistan have chicken farms, he would not eat the chicken.
I wasn't eating much of it because of other reasons. He wasn't even
me anymore Guinea congrats and why not? Is that I know how they read
on chicken on chicken factories. Right in terms of the feed, they
go go big and add another 45 days or something like that.
And it's quite crazy. And when you when you hear about I don't want
to put you guys off but I you know, I am very selective. I tried
to be selective about chicken. Because it's, it's not made and
it's all about money. It's all about producing mass production.
So Allah wants us to be pure, to go back to being pure. And that's
very, very important. Now we have to fight to be pure. You know, you
have to make an effort to be pure before that's all you had
generally, but now you have to, you have to be careful about
what's pure.
Then after that, look at this now, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam said
that
La Ilaha illa Allah this is a statement of wisdom. It's such a
profound statement that I think the health authorities should
actually make this like the the principal and governing Maxim. It
says, My mother ignore them. We are in short, ramen botany.
Human being never fills a vessel that's worse than his stomach. So
if there's any vessel that you fill, right the stomach is the
worst vessel that you can fill up. You have to fill it somewhat to
take care and this is what the Prophet sallallahu sallam said,
be be has been the Adam Ocula or Loki Matt your keenness solver?
Sufficient, just a few morsels that will just keep his
backstreets like just enough to survive.
I find that difficult. I mean, I wish one day I can do that. I know
it's difficult. I mean, how many people do that? Like they just eat
just sufficient? I think the only people that get to do that are
some very few disciplined people. All those people who have had
their stomach tied now are stapled. They can't eat anymore.
There's a guy named Marshall. He was very big Sunday. I see him I
had not seen him for a while. And he is then what happened. So
apparently he'd gone and got his stomach because he had to it was
just causing too many issues. So then he just says I can't eat
I can't even have a full bowl of something. You can't there's no
space in the stomach. There's no space in the stomach. Right? So
you're forced to eat less, right? That's extreme. But if, if that
helps us, I don't know. I mean, I'm not gonna talk to health. But
that is the Prophet sallallahu sallam said, there has to be many
of them. Ocula European national, but that's just enough to keep
your back straight. And then the person understood that obviously,
people need to hear a bit more sometimes for in cannula
Mahabharata,
if he is definitely going to eat a bit more, if he needs to eat more
than for salutely, for me was to loosen the Sharabi he was sudo,
Lena, Lena, fussy, then 1/3 If you're going to really eat a bit
more than that, then 1/3 For your food 1/3 for your drink, and then
1/3 For your breath.
Now we is 100% for foods, the water just slips through, right?
And
subhanAllah you know, you know, when you have chicken and chips,
you have to have a drink. That's why they do a meal deal. Why?
Because you need that fizzy drink to burn it down or something. I
don't know. I mean, it's like, I remember once I try not to get the
drink has a lot of sugar. So I'm having that so you don't have a
drink with it. And he's like, disgusting, like he is in such
disgust like, you're going to have that without a drink. Like how do
you do that you need something to burn it down with, you know,
subhanAllah This is our new lifestyle in our mother. So we've
actually made it private so that if you want to feed anybody don't
bring pizzas, and don't bring chicken and chips. Like don't
bring something more wholesome. Like make an effort for it. It's
just a bit quirky, but that's what I think. Not to say. I mean, you
can eat that stuff when you need to you can eat it, right? It's not
haram, it's not bad, or whatever the case is. So anyway, there you
go. There you go. I mean, sourdough bread, which is only
made up of three ingredients.
Right, go and check sourdough bread. If you've got any shops
here, right. It's made of three ingredients only it has no yeast.
And compare that to any of the breads in the supermarket, which
have about five or six ingredients. But the sour bread
will be way more expensive. Even though it's the oldest bread
making recipe that have been used. It's only got three ingredients
and is much better for your stomach. Does anybody knows how
bread sourdough bread? Just one person, you don't even know what
it is. Once you get hooked on this stuff, it's a bit difficult to let
go. You get generally get the in high end restaurants and hotels
and that and
certain bakeries make it right. But it costs like three pounds a
loaf. Whereas a normal bread cost a pound a loaf is like three, four
pounds a loaf. But it's a very special type of bread. It's very
basic. It's very basic, just have three ingredients.
There's a lot of stuff like that out there, but they just cost more
for some reason. You go to a Whole Foods Market, it just costs more.
I don't know why. Right? It's capitalized on that. So may Allah
subhanho wa Taala make it easy. I mean, right now turmeric is a big
thing. Like it's like the new thing. You go to Costco, they're
selling Haldi turmeric foreign, like 20 pounds, go to an Indian
shop, and you can get it for two pounds for the same amount. It's
crazy, isn't it? Right? So Allah subhanaw taala make it easy for
us, Allah subhanaw taala give us a healthy lifestyle. Because I think
we're in a flux. It's only been about 5060 years of all of these
communities that have come from other countries in this country. I
mean, even places, India, Pakistan, and all of these
countries, they're changing because of the modern foods. So
even they're changing isn't actually not, it's just
convenience, and everything else. And I don't know where it's gonna
go. I don't know where it's gonna go. So let us be careful for our
own purpose. And Allah subhanaw taala make it easy for us. They
say spend more to buy lesser amount of good stuff than to spend
huge on buy one get one free of junky stuff.
Right? And eat less May Allah make it easy. It's not easy, but may
Allah make it easy for us. Okay, if you have any questions? Yes,
you're right. I mean, that's one thing I forgot to mention. That's
one thing I forgot to mention, is trying not to have a kitchen diner
setup where you're sitting in the living room, which is connected to
the kitchen, so you can constantly see the food and cupboard and
stuff like that. Because one of the biggest problems today is
grazing. You know, cows graze all day. But they they their whole
stomach is fitted separately. They've got a different dynamic.
They chew the cud, so they they store food and then you know, they
bring it back up. It's called rumination. Right? We don't do
that we just go in and it has to come out some other way and it has
to do something in the body. So I think one thing you do is that if
you could just fix your meals and have Hearty meals at that time
first and just stop the grazing in between. How do you stop the
grazing I guess just buy less chocolates and
with some
snack bars and things like that, replace them first with maybe nuts
and fruits, and what kind of fruit some people just don't like fruit
I just don't understand. They just like don't see any point in
fruits. It's like, You're weird, right? It is the most natural
thing, but it's like, no, I can't eat fruit. That's really weird.
Start off with replacing it with healthy. And then eventually you
can get rid of that and just eat what's you know, in during the
mealtimes. And I think maybe it could be that we're not like in
breakfast time. If you plan your diet. If you're eating nutritional
food at breakfast, you're going to feel hungry very quickly, and
you're going to have a downer, right, you're going to need to
pick yourself up. But if you have a good protein breakfast, you stay
you it doesn't make you hungry for longer, right, so you stay
satisfied for longer. And this is what's important that the long
days of fasting are gone. But when that was the case, we did a lot of
research to try to get some foods that last you for the 1920 hours
of fast. Now it's getting easier. But that's these are some things
to think about. So that's a very good point that you don't graze in
between.
You have a craving for it because it's a tradition you when you eat
better and if you have to have like, and that's fine once in a
while, but you don't have have to have it with each meal.
You understand you don't have to have it with each meal. So when I
come back sometimes from a tour and when you're on the tour you I
mean Utopia please cook something simple cook vegetables that's
haram for them. Like we can't just give you a baguette they probably
don't even know what kind of vegetables to give you. I went and
stayed in Dar Salam Karachi for two weeks. And you just had to
tell the canteen people or the kitchen to make use and foods and
literally for those two weeks I said it was either done, or
vegetables. That's what I ordered. Right? But you go anywhere else
for $1 They want to feed you meat because if you don't eat meat our
house is like
if they ever made caricatured I have to apologize. 10 times sorry
You came very late. As though that's not food sold tradition. I
don't know. Soul culture.
Cook what in sometimes you go to somebody's house, can you give me
some water? They bring you coke.
Like, okay, bring the coke if you feel like it, although I think
Coke is I have not had coke for the last seven years. But if you
want to bring a drink, that's fine, but bring some water as
well. Like we really want some water is not like a disguised you
know, desire of drink. I meant a drink. No, like, give me some
water, please.
And I forgot to speak about fasting to Subhan Allah, right.
And there's so many people, right? Even in Muslim world who are
fasting twice a week, right? Twice a week, eat five days, fast two
days. And that's really, really helpful. Hamdulillah I know a few
people who do that. And they tend to be a mashallah there's one
teacher that I know, he teaches with us. And he teaches in several
other places, and I never see him stressed or tired, but much that
he's very particularly fast, twice a week, regularly, summer, and
winter. Because what fasting does, it allows the body to recoup, I
mean, we do this a major detoxification once a year in
Ramadan, but it's better that you do it more regularly. Imagine
having an oil change, you know, not what, after every 10,000
miles, but it'd be very expensive. But here, it's actually cheaper
to, to do this. So what it does is it allows the body to settle
because the body the stomach has to work very hard. The enzymes and
every has to the muscles have to work very hard to process the food
that's going in there, it's a button, you know that the the
processor is the worst thing that you can fill. So the stomach has
to help. So that just creates a lot of fatigue in the stomach.
That's why when you do have a bad sound, they say just stave off
food, just just stay off food for a while, so that the stomach can
just work to get back into balance. The origins of yoga,
definitely, you know, from Hinduism, and there's no doubt
about that, in terms of what it is now, because there's a lot of
people places, many yoga practices that promise, none religious yoga
is such as such that it's totally
cleansed out. And it's just the secular yoga. So there's two
opinions about this. I know certain experts and certain
scholars who still say haram, because it's very difficult.
They're saying their argument is that it's very difficult to
divorce completely the religious connotations from the postures,
because some of the postures are about the rising sun and I can't
remember them all and they're so inherently integral to the yoga
that why you might not call it that or whatever, then it's still
you know, that's what they say. I personally go with the other view
and we've actually should have on fatwa center.org We should
actually have a detailed write up on there. That
While that's the case and is best avoided, but we're not going to
say It's haram, especially if he's been secularized. And there's none
of that invalid. Because I mean, at the end of the day, it is
postures, and there is a certain benefit to those postures, right?
But you're better off doing something else, just to avoid the
controversy there, and the possibility of falling into
something else. So the way I'll repeat that to everybody is the
only thing is that so many times, it's actually very beneficial to
employ the service if you can, if you've got a friend like that, or
somebody, you know, if you have to pay for it. If you're doing
something a lot, and it's impacting your lifestyle, then you
need to maybe get professional guidance and help and consultation
on that. So for example, if you are sitting at a desk for a long
time, then you find somebody who can help you get the best setup
for yourself. If it's about diet and nutrition. That's very, very
important. As I said before, our older women knew exactly what to
give a pregnant woman and a nursing woman eat this, that and
other and enriches the milk problem nowadays is that we're
fitting also a lot of additives and everything. So maybe those
things insha, Allah the effective, but there's a set other minerals
that we may be losing out as well. So that's actually that leads us
to the next point, which is that I think as a community, we need to
encourage some of our young people to get into those fields so that
they can provide that service. Our community has already gotten
older. Right? Many have died, a generation is dying, this few left
of that first generation that came to the UK in the 1960s. Right.
Very, I mean, there's some left of them right there. It's not
finished yet, still in that generation, but it's something to
think about because they don't find it comfortable to go to
others and others may not understand this, this lifestyle
that we have, which is half Indian, or I don't know, 60%
Indian, or I don't know if it's 40% Indian depends on how much
fish and chips you have. I don't know, right. So that's really,
really important that we think on a long term for that we're
thinking hamdulillah madrasahs, McAdams and things like that. But
this is important for the health of our community. I found it very
useful that in our masjid, once we brought this heart doctor to
explain the issues about the heart and diet and, and cholesterol and
all of that, and people are like, wow, we never knew about this.
We just never knew about this. So what I'm talking about is just
very general health, but I think this could be followed up.
Inshallah with specific you can identify specific issues about
nutrition, specifically, heart, and then maybe posture and so on.
I work a lot on a desk, and I was having carpal tunnel problems and
in the arm, so I invested in a chair. Right, that chair is
the cost of that chair is about 1000 pounds. It's 1000 pound
chair. Now I didn't buy it for 1000 pound I bought it I got it
for 170 pounds, but I bought a chair me that is a bit crazy as
well. A chair like you're paying 170 pounds for a chair, but I paid
170 had it for seven, eight years. It's it's adjustable, that the
reason I was told by somebody else who had problems is that get this
chair, you can adjust everything in it. Right, the tilt, the seat,
the back, lumbar support, the arms, armrest, front, back,
sideways, everything, you can just adjust everything and it helps you
the keyboard draw I it's a $300 keyboard rod I got for about $100
I paid a lot of money for that because again, you can bring it to
wherever it doesn't just go back and forth. It goes up down.
It inclines us left right. So however you're sitting you can
have that because that's very important if this that's the kind
of job you're doing. Right? So spend money on these things if you
have to if you've got the money to spend it, get the consultation and
do it right.
Right. So I think we need experts like that to be able to like for
Ramadan, we you know, it's good to talk to dieticians now and
hamdulillah days are getting easier the for another 27 eight
years, then I don't know it'd be easy inshallah. Okay.
I mean, some some Academy is that we have a few websites, some some
Academy is we have about nearly 1000 bonds on there on various
different topics. So feel free to go and check those out. But after
bonds, we're encouraging everybody to move on to some more serious
kind of study. And that's we have another website called Rayyan,
institute.com or Rayyan courses there at your own pace. You can
sign up for courses on those essential aspects of Islam or some
more intermediate aspects and take them at your leisure. You know,
whether that be jurisprudence history
Aqeedah Syrah of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam see, because we
need to, for our Imani health, right, Al is very important. And
one of the biggest calamities in the OMA is Jehovah that
everybody's just going by what they think they know. And they
have not done any serious study. Since mucked up, they've not read
a book on Islam or Islamic book. And what they know is just
basically what they've picked up from little bands here. And there,
a ban is never going to give you a full on detailed synopsis or
coverage of something a ban is for, for the rib, for motivation
for inspiration is not serious study, because people will get a
bit confused if the shaking Imams up starts giving you complex, you
know, discussions. So that's why you need to move from there. And,
you know, they don't take long, few hours a week you can spend at
yoga, so go to the yarn Institute, and check that out. And then we've
got obviously white thread press, which is for the books. I think we
got some books at the back today anyway, and then there's white
thread Institute, I don't want to confuse you. That's for all of
them. Just keep in mind some some Academy and Rayyan Institute and
inshallah suggest it to others who can benefit from this as well. And
may Allah grant us prosperity.
The point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get
further an inspiration, and encouragement, persuasion. The
next step is to actually start learning seriously, to read books
to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of
Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan
courses so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand
whenever you have free time, especially for example, the
Islamic essentials course that we have on there, the Islamic
essentials certificate which you take 20 Short modules, and at the
end of that inshallah you will have gotten the basics of most of
the most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more
confident. You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue
to live, you know, to listen to lectures, but you need to have
this more sustained study as well as local law here and Salam
aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.