Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Integration Made Simple- Responsibilities and Solutions
AI: Summary ©
The complex process of the Prophet's shadiology is emphasized, including challenges faced by Muslims in various cultures, including domestic abuse, mental health problems, and gang violence. The importance of understanding the process and the belief system of Islam is emphasized, as well as the need for individuals to have a balanced mindset and affordability in modern times. The challenges faced by the family and duess, as well as finding a partner and stable income are also discussed. The importance of acceptance and sharing in deeds is emphasized, along with forgiveness, love, and opportunities for change. Rayyan courses and a course on deeds are highlighted, while the importance of respecting boundaries and forgiveness is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
I was talking to some of the brothers
yesterday and they said that I said you
should do, you know, some something for poor
people.
He said there's no Norwegian poor people.
There's nobody in Norway who's poor except maybe
immigrants or something like this.
Now this is what we thought in England
as well.
But we have a local, we established a
local charity and subhanAllah, what we discovered is
that there are quite a few poor people.
There are people who have paperwork problems.
They can't work officially.
So people abuse them.
Number two, there are a lot of women
who are in domestic shelters, domestic abuse shelters.
They've had problems in their marriage or whatever
the case is.
There are people with mental health problems.
So in the last three to four years,
we have spent over 60,000 pounds just
locally in just three areas of London.
That's it.
So these are some of the things that
we need to take into consideration.
My dear respected friends, our brothers, our sisters,
assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
It's a pleasure and an honor to be
here in your midst in this really beautiful
city of Bergen.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has blessed you
with a lot of nature.
And Imam Ghazali rahmatullahi alayhi says that when
it's raining, then you should make dua because
duas are accepted because rain is a mercy
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So mashallah, you guys seem to have a
lot of mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala here.
We just need to use that mercy when
it's raining, then remember Allah and make some
dua.
And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept
our dua.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the
Qur'an, the ayah that I recited, it's
all about this concept of istiqama, steadfastness.
So we're speaking about istiqama.
Istiqama is to understand istiqama.
Istiqama means to be completely on the balanced
and moderate and straight path, avoiding every type
of extreme, avoiding going left and right, just
being on the path to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
Now, this applies to ideology.
If a person is going to deviate in
terms of the ideology, take on ideas, doctrines,
beliefs, aqa'id, which are not Islamic, then
they will go off the path towards deviance
and misguidance.
Number two, it also deals with practice in
action.
A person should avoid that which is not
established by the sunnah, by the general understanding
and the spirit of the shari'ah.
Avoid the bid'at and the innovations.
That is also going off the path.
So we can go off the path intellectually.
We can go off the path on a
doctrinal level.
We can go off the path on a
practical level, on a practice level, and then
on a spiritual level, a number of different
levels.
That's why istiqama is very complicated to stay
on path.
If we're delaying in our prayer, in our
salat, if we're delaying in the way we
should be covered and the way we should
express ourselves in our akhlaq, if we're expressing
too much anger where we should not be,
where we should be controlling it, then that
is also going off the path.
That is against istiqama.
The ulema have explained that for a person
to have a balanced character, akhlaq, وَإِنَّكَ لَعَلَى
خُلُقٍ عَظِيمٍ Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said
that to Rasulullah ﷺ, that you are on
the most sublime character.
What is that character?
The ulema have explained that that was the
most finest tuning of human characteristic and behavior
you could have.
Complete equilibrium, complete perfection.
And anybody who's close to the Prophet ﷺ
in that akhlaq and its balance will be
the closest to the Prophet ﷺ.
Generally what the ulema say is that there
are three things which contribute and affect our
character.
The first one is akhlaq.
The first one is anger.
Anger is a faculty.
Anger is a faculty which if you have
too much of, it leads to crime, it
leads to murder, it leads to enmity, it
leads to harming someone else.
A person is just too angry.
He's not going to be able to control
himself.
He's going to lash out.
He's going to become violent.
And this is what happens.
You look around the world and you see
it happens on every level, even leaders to
the common folk.
You get so many questions from people.
They say, you know, Sheikh, I have a
question.
I just divorced my wife three times, but
I was angry.
So you don't divorce your wife over a
cup of coffee in Starbucks, do you?
That's how people divorce, unfortunately.
They get angry, the idea is in their
mind, and they get angry and they say
it.
That's why you should never think about divorce.
Even if you're having big arguments, don't think
about divorce in your subconscious.
Because if you do, then one day you'll
just slip out.
That's the problem.
Argue, no problem.
If you want to argue, you can argue.
Try to avoid it.
But don't think about divorce.
Otherwise it slips out and then you regret
it.
So that is abundance of anger.
On the other side, we need the faculty
of anger to also assist in courage.
If a person doesn't have heat inside him,
this anger for the right reason, then they
will have a shortcoming.
They will become cowardly.
This will be called juban.
They will be cowardliness.
Then their rights will be taken away.
People will be abusing them.
They'll be abusing their parents.
Maybe they will be abusing their religion and
they will feel nothing.
That's what they say.
Very cold person.
He just sits doing nothing.
Nothing moves him.
That's what they say.
This is a shortcoming in this regard.
We have to have fine tuning in this
regard.
Stand up for the right things, but don't
stand up for the wrong things.
Don't get angry for no reason.
So what you see in the world, I
mean, the excessive anger leads to people killing
people.
It leads to ethnic cleansing.
And this is the kind of things that
it leads to.
Now we can think about our level in
our own lives.
We all need to attain this balance.
Number two, the second thing which is very
important is shahwa, which has to be balanced
as well.
The shahwa is desire.
Desire for more food.
Desire for sexual fulfillment.
This is shahwa.
Now if a person has too less of
this, then the husband will not fulfill the
rights of the wife.
The wife will not fulfill the rights of
the husband.
They will not fulfill each other's rights.
That's generally not a big problem.
The bigger problem is ifrat, is too much,
excessive, abundant, where a person goes beyond the
halal into haram and commits sexual deviancies.
And this leads to all forms of haram,
which we don't need to explain today.
It's understandable.
That needs to be moderate as well.
The shahwa needs to be moderate.
So the ghadab needs to be moderate.
The shahwa needs to be moderate.
And then we also have ilm and hikmah.
We have to be balanced right in that
to get our source of understanding.
If we have too less of knowledge, then
we'll be ignorant.
And ignorant is a massive problem.
Ignorant is one of the biggest calamities of
the human being, to be ignorant.
When you're ignorant, you don't know how to
act.
We don't know what's recommended for us.
We don't know what's required for us by
our deen.
If we don't understand, confusion.
When you have ignorance, when you have jihad,
then you have ignorance, and you have confusion,
bewilderment.
And we don't know what to do.
And then we can do many things which
are wrong.
And that's why lots of people do things
which are wrong.
And too much means to go into areas
that is not for the intellect to get
into.
The human has five faculties, the sense of
sight and hearing and touch and so on.
These act like satellites for our intellect, our
brain.
And our brain processes all of these signals
we get from what we see, what we
hear, what we touch, what we smell.
Our brain gets these signals and it processes
this information.
The brain is an amazing masterpiece of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Even when a person is sleeping, the neurons
in the brain, there are millions of processes
that are constantly taking place.
Constantly, 24 hours a day, in our brain,
even when we think we're sleeping.
That is the ability of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala that nobody can create something like
this.
It's just amazing.
That is a constant movement in the brain
of what's happening.
Now, the brain processes the information that we
have.
But how would our brain and intellect understand
what is to come after life?
What is paradise and hellfire?
What there is in terms of other existences?
These are all things where the brain stops.
So just like our sight and our ears,
our hearing, our touch and everything has a
limit, a boundary, beyond which it doesn't work.
If I look at this microphone and I
look at it with my sight, I can
hear its effect.
But there's no way I can understand just
with my sight and my hearing or my
touch or my sense of taste how this
is functioning.
I can see the color.
I can see what it's doing.
But I can't understand how that's happening.
My intellect needs to come in here and
process this information.
Now, there are many things in the universe
which the brain cannot understand because we have
not been programmed to understand this.
That's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
made certain things out of our boundary.
The Prophet ﷺ once came out into the
masjid.
That's where his room was.
When the Prophet ﷺ came out.
Actually, no, that's where the Prophet ﷺ's room
was.
When he came out, he saw some sahaba.
They were in discussion.
They were discussing qadr, destiny, predestination.
And there was a good discussion, heavy discussion
going on.
The Prophet ﷺ said, stop.
This is not something that you should get
into the depths of because you will either
come out of it in one extreme or
the other, either qadri or jabari.
You'll either come out as a fatalist or
an absolute proponent of free will.
It's not the time to go into that
discussion.
But for anybody who wants to understand that
discussion, I have a one hour and 15
minute detailed lecture on that on zamzamacademy.com.
It's called Don't Be Depressed, You Don't Know
Your Future.
Don't be depressed, you don't know your future.
Very important discussion for a lot of people
because they think that if my last 10,
15, 20, 30 years have been miserable, lots
of setbacks, then my remaining 20, 30 years
will also be miserable.
And that's the wrong thought.
The Prophet ﷺ wants us to be optimistic.
That's why hadith of Muslim says, احرس على
ما ينفعك ولا تعجز.
Do not become enfeebled and go and avidly
search and look for that which is to
your benefit.
And then he said, if something وإن فاتك
شيء, if something does miss you, then don't
start crying over spilt milk.
He didn't say spilt milk.
He said, then don't say, oh, if only
this, if only that, because shaitan then uses
that to open the door.
He says, no, then you just say, إِنَّا
لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا لِلَّهِ رَاجِعُونَ And you just carry
on.
Because whatever has happened in the past doesn't
have to happen in the future.
This is the debilitating state.
This is what shaitan makes us think.
That if something has happened in the past,
it will happen again.
They think people start to think I'm a
loser.
Nothing's going to happen for me.
My marriage will never work out.
My business will never be prosperous.
This is what people think.
But no, we have to be optimistic.
So the intellect also has a boundary.
And there are many things that the intellect
will not understand, like qadr.
Another thing the Prophet ﷺ said that don't
ponder and reflect over the essence and being
of Allah ﷻ.
What is he made of?
What does he look like?
This is not something we'll ever understand.
But you should think about his signs, his
names around you.
That's how you understand the power and the
sifats, the attributes and the beautiful names of
Allah ﷻ.
That's how we understand Allah.
To give you an example, do you remember
the first time that you ever got a
calculator?
Who remembers the first time that they laid
hands on a calculator?
And when you first got that calculator, I
remember when I was about, I don't know,
five or six years old and I got
a calculator.
I was very excited.
So I started, you times this, and then
you get more numbers, and then you do
some crazy numbers, and then it gives you
a e-sign.
Have you seen that e-sign?
What does that e-sign mean?
It means error.
I didn't know what it meant.
It just gave me e.
What's the problem?
And why cannot this, why can't this do
the mathematical sum I wanted to do?
So give me this e-sign.
What's the problem with this?
Then my son has a scientific calculator which
can take a lot more sums, bigger numbers.
Because it uses square roots and everything, scientific.
But the reason is that that calculator, it
was only programmed to do so much.
It had a boundary.
Beyond that, it doesn't work.
Do you understand?
It doesn't work.
So likewise the human beings, we have been
bounded by certain things.
Alhamdulillah, our boundaries are great.
There are so many things that Allah has
opened up for us.
But then there is a level beyond which
it cannot go.
So that's why agnostics, who are still searching
after the humanity has been in existence for
thousands of years, history has been recorded for
hundreds of years in accurate detail.
There have been many belief systems and doctrines.
And agnostics, I don't understand why they keep
saying, I still don't know.
In Arabic they call it la'adriya.
I don't know.
I don't know us.
Why do you need to be agnostic about
that?
There are many belief systems.
Pick one of them.
It's lazy.
You're being lazy that you don't want to
pick something.
You want something that goes with the nafs
and with the desire.
These are some of the challenges that we
will be dealing with.
We want to reach moderation and istiqamah because
it's on istiqamah that will be accepted in
the hereafter.
As Allah says that verily those who say
that our Lord is Allah, Rabbuna Allah, our
Lord is Allah.
And then after that they try to remain
on the straight path.
If they do that and if they succeed,
then the angels will descend.
The angels will descend upon them.
And the angels, their promise will be that
you don't have to fear.
You don't have to grieve.
And accept the glad tiding.
With the paradise and the gardens that you
have been promised.
We were your assistants.
We were your friends.
We took care of you in the world.
In the life of this world.
We will also do the same in the
hereafter.
And then for you in there is whatever
your nafs and your self desires.
And for you is everything that you now
want and you call for.
This is abundant hospitality, special hospitality from the
forgiving Lord and the merciful Lord.
Look at the two names of Allah that
have been used here.
Out of all of this, Allah uses not
qadir, qadeer.
He doesn't use that name.
He doesn't use generous.
He uses ghafoorun rahim.
He is forgiving and merciful.
Because when somebody reads this ayah, they're going
to think, oh man, I have misbehaved.
I have problems.
I have crimes.
I have sins.
I have transgressions.
I have many shortcomings.
How am I going to get this?
Allah reminds you at the end.
He gives hope.
He says, I am ghafoorun rahimun, the forgiving
one and the merciful one.
So yes, you may have made a few
mistakes, but at least you've got this.
That's why there's another hadith in Sahih Bukhari
where the Prophet ﷺ said, Another one, hit
the mark or get close.
What that means is that we are told
that try to aim straight.
When a person is trying to fire at
something, he needs to aim straight to be
able to get the target.
If you're aiming in that direction and your
target is here, or you want to go
to Oslo and you take a road to
some other direction to North Cap, then you're
going to reach the North Cap.
You're not going to get to Oslo.
So at least get on the right roads.
So likewise, for Muslims, our responsibility is to
try our best to get on the right
track through knowledge, perseverance, sabr, patience, and inspiration.
And then if we have moved here or
there, then Allah will at least forgive us.
Because the hadith mentions, aim for the mark
or at least close.
And then the other hadith says, and accept
the glad tiding.
Because Allah understands our weaknesses.
See, when Allah created humanity, there's a hadith
which mentions that after creating the insan, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala saw that the insan
is weak.
We are vulnerable.
We will fall prey to sins, we will
make mistakes.
So he said that if I am going
to deal with these people in just a
complete just way, if they make a sin,
I'm going to punish them.
If they make a good deed, I'm going
to reward them.
If this was such a fixed system of
punishment for every sin and reward for every
good deed, we would never survive.
We would never survive.
So you know what he made his special
mission?
That's when he said, And he had that
specially written above his arsh.
That my mercy has overcome my anger.
So when I deal with people, the majority
of times and instances, it will be through
mercy.
And that is why we're still surviving today.
That is why we can hope for Allah's
mercy, despite our wrongdoings.
As great a problem we may have, as
great sins we may have committed in the
past.
Inshallah, we will be able to hope for
Allah's mercy.
That's why Ibn Ata'illah says something else
very interesting.
He says, For those who understand Arabic will
really appreciate this.
It's beautiful.
There is no small sin if Allah is
to confront you with his justice.
Then even the smallest sin, we're in big
trouble.
That's why we should be thinking, you know,
when people say, oh, don't worry, it's a
small sin.
People say this, it's a misunderstanding.
So there is no small sin when he
wants to deal with you with justice.
And he can if he wants to.
But then in the same breath, he says,
but there is no big sin when his
grace confronts you.
If you have sins, as big as those
sins are, as great as they are, as
much as they fill, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala's fadl and his grace and his rahmah
is greater than that, is greater than that.
That's why subhanAllah, if we just think about
the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
then if we focus on that only sometimes
it could mislead us.
That's why we need to have a balance
of hope, of fear and promise.
Because look, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
is a servant of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
Yes, he's the greatest prophet.
He comes into Makkah Mukarramah and he forgives
everybody.
After all of this aggression, they have thrown
him out and he persecuted his followers, made
their lives miserable.
And then when they moved to Madina Munawwara,
they had been attacked over and over again.
But when he comes back to Makkah Mukarramah,
he forgives everybody.
He says, whoever enters the house of Abu
Sufyan, one of the leaders of the time
of the Meccans, he says, he is safe.
What mercy is that?
What mercy is that?
Yusuf alayhi sallam, after what his brothers did
to him.
We don't need to talk about the whole
story.
We know the story.
He forgives them.
These are servants of Allah, forgiving, showing their
mercy.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, out of
his mercy, he has only sent one percent
of his mercy onto the earth.
That one percent is used by these prophets.
That one percent from their older mothers have
mercy over their children, just from one percent.
So can you imagine if 99 percent of
mercy was descending on this earth or we
were to be confronted with 99 percent of
mercy?
That's why if you just think about the
mercy of Allah, that could become a fitna
for us.
Because then we think, khalas, 99 percent of
mercy, mercy as never seen before.
I'm going to be forgiven.
Let me carry on doing sins.
But that is the wrong approach as well.
That is the wrong approach as well.
That's not istiqamah.
Istiqamah is, I need to fear Allah as
well.
How do I know that he will use
his 99 percent of mercy for me?
Sometimes he may dislike one act of mine.
Like we've seen stories of the past of
people who are great worshippers, but at the
end, just due to one act, one deed,
they lost their faith.
Then that mercy is not coming.
And yet we have also seen that out
of one act, a prostitute who's never done
any other good deeds except fed a dog
water that was thirsty, suddenly she gets salvation.
That's up to Allah.
Allah is independent.
Nobody can claim that I've got contacts with
Allah.
He will do my bidding.
So we can never be.
But if somebody has done wrong, then they've
got a lot to think about and lots
of hope from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Now living in the West, we have challenges.
Living in the East, they have challenges.
I know Mashriq is where the sun rises.
The East is where the sun rises.
And Maghrib is where the sun sets.
I don't know if that means anything, but
we are here and we're here to stay.
And the one thing that I have seen
which keeps us back is this, is the
mentality that us against them.
This needs to go.
If this is where you live, and this
is your home, and this is where you
have citizenship from, then this is your country.
And until you don't consider this to be
your country, then you will never be successful.
You won't understand how to deal.
Your confidence will not be there.
You will constantly be in survivor mode, constantly
on the defensive.
I'm not saying there's no challenges.
There's huge challenges.
But there's challenges everywhere.
I have lived in, I have lived in
at least four countries in different continents for
extended period of time, meaning more than a
few months, like at least a few months.
And believe me, anywhere you go, even to
a Muslim country, where they have Sharia law
sometimes, in some cases, there are challenges there
as well.
Because it's the dunya.
Dunya is a place of challenges.
Dunya is a place of challenges.
There are Muslim countries where I would not
be able to speak, unless somebody five months
ago, six months ago did an application, and
they checked you out and everything, just to
give a small bayan.
There are Muslim countries like that, where they
would not allow anybody else to speak, except
certain people.
The khutbah has to be one around the
whole country.
You cannot teach any other book.
There are places like this.
SubhanAllah.
We are everywhere there's challenges, because dunya is
a place of challenges.
Allah placed us here for a certain reason.
Now, yes, if you cannot do your deen,
you cannot practice your deen somewhere, then understandable.
Then you have to make hijrah, that we
have laws for that.
But where you've got freedom to practice your
religion, as much of it as possible, right,
doing your fara'id, your fard al-'ayn, then
after that, we are here for a reason.
What are these refugees that are coming in
here?
A million, just a million in Germany, and
then the rest.
Then maybe Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
something great in store for us.
The whole of Europe, the whole problem that
we see around us today is, look, if
you look at it from the country's perspective,
people who run the country, and they see
people who are going against the norm of
the way people dress, of the way people
eat, of the people, the way people greet,
of their approach to matters of the hereafter,
of their approach to worship, of their approach
to God, then they've been used to things
for a very long time.
And then suddenly we get all of these
Muslims who come in, because Muslims haven't had
a heritage here for hundreds of years.
What's been the last 50 years?
Now it takes a lot of getting used
to.
You understand it from their perspective, from the
people in authority and from the host community.
They see it differently.
They get suspicious.
Just imagine if you're from Somalia or from
Pakistan or whatever, and you get a whole
community of people from a different country.
You can imagine what you're going to think,
right?
You're going to be suspicious.
You're going to be considerate.
Now there's a very interesting story that's related,
that when the Zoroastrians, when they were thrown
out of Persia, the fire worshipers, they came
to the Indian subcontinent.
That time India was one, Indian subcontinent.
And they said, we want to come and
settle here.
The leader of India, whoever it was at
the time, he got a glass full of
milk.
And he said, now the person understood that
we are already full here.
India's full house.
There's a lot of people living in India,
right?
So what this person said, did, is that
he took some sugar and he put it
inside.
He put it inside.
So the person understood.
Now, is that what we do?
The question is that us Muslims who have
come, I mean, many of us are born
here, but those who came here are first
generation.
Are we putting sugar here?
Or are we taking from the milk?
Are we consumers or contributors?
Are people appreciating us?
Or do people see us as a burden?
Forget religious issues, akhlaq issues, religious, you know,
I'm not talking about freedom of religion here.
I'm talking about just humanity.
How many of us Muslims contribute to purely
social issues, social needs of everybody, Muslims and
non-Muslims alike.
That's also a Muslim issue to look after
others, not just, in fact, the ulama say,
like the Hanafi ulama, they say that if
it wasn't for that one hadith of Muadh
ibn Jabal, related by Bukhari, etc., where the
Prophet ﷺ sent him to Yemen, and he
told him how to teach people.
And then he talked about zakat, and he
said that you will take from their rich,
and you will give to their poor.
That hadith restricts zakat to Muslims only.
You take zakat from Muslims, and you give
it to other needy Muslims.
Zakat is restricted.
So the number of Hanafi ulama, what they
say is that if it wasn't for this
hadith, even zakat would have given to non
-Muslims.
But we can't because of this hadith.
But sadaqat, sadaqat al-fitr of Ramadan can
be given to non-Muslims.
Your udhiyyah and your qurbani can be distributed
to non-Muslims.
So that's a Muslim issue as well.
But we see that, okay, we're going to
help only Palestine, only when there's problem in
Somalia, only Muslim places.
We don't contribute to others to show that
we are also going to sweeten this place.
We don't want to be a burden.
There are countries in Europe who initially welcomed
immigrants.
But mashallah, the immigrants came and discovered that
there's free money on offer here, the welfare
system.
If you just sign the papers, and you
write this, and you can do work underground,
and you do this, and so on, you
can make a lot of money.
Now, this is tax money.
Somebody's paying taxes for this.
So the host community who is paying taxes,
now they start thinking these people are a
burden on us.
And this creates more Islamophobia.
Look, there are people, majority of people are
fair, decent.
Most people, they have humanity within them.
They don't mind people, right?
Of course, we have racists, and racism is
a problem.
And there is a minority which is very
vocally racist.
And some communities are known to be more
racist than others.
That's the fact that it's a problem.
And Islamophobia is there.
But there are many things that contribute to
that.
It's just the question is, are we helping
to remove that?
We unfortunately have our members of our community,
different parts of the world that suddenly take
a small area of 10 miles in Iraq.
And the first thing they want to do
there is to establish cutting the hands off.
The first thing.
They don't want to educate first.
The first thing to show people we mean
business.
So cut people's hands off.
This is a process.
And that is to just start with a
big bang.
And it creates a big bang.
But it creates problems for the rest of
us.
Is that helping Muslims?
Or is that harming Muslims?
They don't understand.
We have that problem.
But we in the West, we must start
taking ownership.
What can we do within our Islamic in
our Islam is encouraging us to do this.
What else can we do for the welfare
of others, instead of just consuming, consuming, consuming?
That's why university students, those who are going
to university should also think, what are the
courses that I need to do not just
to make money, the vocation that I choose
the specialization that I do?
Is it just to because this specialization makes
a lot of money?
It has a lot of prestige.
I just want to do it for my
own career and comfort.
Do things for your own career and comfort,
but have an element of welfare.
Have an element of how you can give
back using that.
Those are the people who are going to
succeed.
Those are the people who are going to
make some difference for everybody.
So choose your career.
Well, how can I contribute in this career?
This career is more suited than this one.
This one is more limited.
This one is better.
I can contribute on a policy level on
a consultation level.
That's what needs to happen if we want
to make a difference and a change.
Unfortunately, what we have in many places is
that we have a group of people who
are so dedicated in their work and they're
fully career oriented brothers and sisters that they
will even hide their faith because they feel
it will be a stumbling block.
They will not pray.
They will not ask for leave for prayer.
They will not ask for a prayer room,
and they will just be completely focused, trying
to be as fitted in as possible.
We have those people.
Then we have another group of people who
say they're very strong in their salat and
they want time off for Friday prayer, but
they're very bad workers.
They're very bad workers.
So if they have a generous supervisor who
says, okay, fine, you can take 10 minutes
for your prayer, they will take 15-20
minutes.
They will say, oh, I've got this function.
I've got that function.
It's my religious right.
And then they will take off and they
will not do good work.
They will come late.
They will leave early and all of these
things.
Both of these are extremes.
It's not istiqamah.
What the sharia wants is that you have
a contract with somebody.
Fulfill your faith.
Fulfill your contracts.
That's why, subhanallah, there's one hadith related by
Imam Muslim, Imam Bukhari.
It's a narration that there's a few things
which have a huge amount of rewards.
They get their reward twice.
One of them is that servant, that slave
who works for his master but also fulfills
his right to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
They get double the reward because they've got
two responsibilities.
We have a responsibility to Allah and we
have a responsibility to people if we have
a contract with them.
I'll give you an example.
I'll give you a few examples.
A friend of mine who, when I was
imam in America, there was one of the
brothers in a masjid.
Half Palestinian, half Egyptian brother.
He was an engineer in superconductor technology.
You need superconductor technology for mobile communication, the
mobile communication.
At that time it was just beginning, about
10-15 years ago.
So there was a big need for that.
So he worked in one of the firms.
Very good worker.
Very valued.
He would work every day a bit extra
so that on Friday, because it was management
of the masjid, he could take off half
day.
After Jummah he could take off.
But he would fulfill his hours and they
were happy with that.
And in annual general meetings he would not
go there.
He would not attend the annual general meeting
of the company.
Why?
And he made it very clear because I
can't sit on table where the wine is
served.
So now after a few years, one day
his supervisor came to him and he said
to him that we've got a meeting in
a few weeks.
He says, yes I know and I'd like
you to attend.
He says, you know my problem.
He said, no we've just changed our policy
that no wine will be served, no alcohol
will be served in these meetings anymore.
Now because of one man who is a
contributor, valued, true to his Lord and also
working hard to fulfill his right, he, mashallah,
they want him there.
So they changed their policy.
They changed their policy.
Numerous stories like this.
I've got a friend in London.
He was going to, he runs a particular
software.
He's an IT person.
He's very good at a particular software for
housing associations.
So he went for the interview and after
the interview he said to them, look I'm
a Muslim and because of that, he didn't
hide.
He said, I need to pray.
One is you can go there and just
say, I'll find a place afterwards.
He was clear.
He says, look I need to pray and
generally it's a problem in winter because the
prayers are all close together.
I just need a room that I can
spend, you know, seven, ten minutes and in
summer it's not a big problem.
So they said, okay let's look, let us
look into it, right, because anybody could make
any claim.
They did their research and they discovered, yes
as Muslims, Muslims have to pray five times
a day and these are the prayer times.
So what they said in the next meeting
with him is that next door is a,
I think it was a holiday inn hotel.
We will book a room in there for
you for the whole year and you can
use that whenever you need to go to
pray.
And he said, no, no, no, no, you
don't need to do that.
That's going to waste too much money.
I just need a small area, this much.
That's all I need.
So they found a storeroom and they put
a carpet in there and they give it,
right.
Valued worker.
He just told me before last Ramadan that
a few weeks before Ramadan they sent him
schedule, they sent out the schedule and his
schedule for Ramadan said was more lenient because
he can work from home on certain days
and it says Ramadan, Ramadan, Ramadan, Ramadan.
They were taking that into consideration as well.
Now you can only do that if you're
proud of your faith and know how to
carry yourself.
Not in a fanatical way, right.
Not in a way that, no, I must
pray and you know you can go to
*, right.
Let me pray otherwise I leave my job,
you know.
This is, there's different ways people do it
but they think that they must get angry
for Allah so they must do it in
an unwise way and that's wrong.
You do it in a way.
Now I'm not saying that this will work
for everybody.
There will be people saying no I don't
care, you know.
But these things have been known to work
because they value, people value good humanity, people
value good contribution.
As Muslims we must be those who when
we walk in a room we will say
mashaAllah now the cold breeze has come in.
Now you know something of value is going
to come about.
That's what's important.
So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
for tawfiq, to help us and assist us.
Now we'll move on to some other topics
of the other challenges that we have.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has blessed us
all in this country.
I was talking to some of the brothers
yesterday and they said that, I said you
should do you know some something for poor
people.
He said there's no Norwegian poor people.
There's nobody in Norway who's poor except maybe
immigrants or something like this.
Now this is what we fought in England
as well.
But we have a local, we established a
local charity and subhanAllah what we discovered is
that there are quite a few poor people.
There are people who have paperwork problems.
They can't work officially so people abuse them.
Number two, there are a lot of women
who are in domestic shelters, domestic abuse shelters.
They've had problems in their marriage or whatever
the case is.
There are people with mental health problems.
So in the last three to four years
we have spent over 60,000 pounds just
locally in just three areas of London.
That's it.
So these are some of the things that
we need to take into consideration.
But generally so, alhamdulillah it looks like in
Norway, just like in England, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala has blessed us.
We have security.
We can walk out on the street, go
for a walk and no problem.
I have been to countries where you can't
do that.
I said let's go for a walk.
He said no way.
You have to go in the car and
we have to lock the car.
You can't go out.
You'd be mugged, hijacked, carjacked, whatever it is.
Alhamdulillah here we have a few problems but
generally it's safe.
You know safety, allahu akbar aman, right?
That is such a valuable asset.
That is such a valuable asset that you
don't have to worry about just being killed
just randomly.
It's a sign of the day of judgment
that a person towards the sign of day
of judgment is that a person will be
killed.
He will not know why he's been killed.
And this can be gang violence.
This can be just a breakdown of society
and problems as we see around the world.
Allah help our Muslim brothers and sisters around
in the Muslim world because there's no Arab
Spring.
It's an Arab storm, an Arab hurricane and
there's a problem down there.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala assist and
may Allah help us.
So in these countries we have access to
the food that we want to eat.
We have access to the type of clothing
we want to wear.
We have access to Mashallah comfortable and safe
places to live.
That is a ni'mah of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
We must not take it for granted and
this prosperity brings about another challenge though.
Everything can be a challenge.
Even this prosperity is a challenge.
When you have a lot of disposable income
and money, then as they say in in
Urdu, the mischief of money.
So you understand what that means.
The ability that I can get whatever I
want.
Now what happens with that is then you
feel like indulging.
Then we get caught up in the whole
consumerism culture, in the whole capitalists.
Have you seen how they measure the success
and the prosperity of the nation?
They see how many people are going into
stores and buying.
It's crazy.
This system is crazy.
They say you know Christmas time sales and
then they have, do you guys have Black
Friday here?
Right?
Mashallah you have the American Black Fridays as
well, right?
The idea of Black Friday is that this
is when the shops go from red to
black in terms of their earnings.
A crazy idea.
But the idea is just buy, buy, buy.
Now look, I'm saying that if you need
something, go ahead and buy it.
You need a new phone, go ahead and
buy it.
But you have a completely sound phone, but
you just need the next iPhone, right?
But you've got a completely, completely fine phone.
I got a question once and a brother
said, I can't remember which country it was
from.
He said, I've got a, I think it
was a, yes, it's a Samsung particular one.
And he says, do I have to buy
the next one?
So what kind of a question is that?
He said, because if I don't, then people
will make fun of me.
Ajeeb.
I said, you do things for yourself.
Don't do things for others.
This group culture, this is exactly what it
is, right?
You know, if you look at people who
are fanatically in love with products, fanatically in
love with teams, right?
Like Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and things like
this.
You will see that the tendencies that they
display are very similar to those found in
religious fanatics.
Do you understand?
They're very similar to those found in religion.
Otherwise, why would you spend hours and hours
waiting outside a shop just so you can
get the first handset, which after a week,
you can get it very calmly and comfortably.
It's a psychological issue, right?
It's a psychological issue.
Now, if you want to do that, do
it for your deen.
Don't do it for anything else.
It's just about thinking about it.
You become slave to something that you must
have it.
That's the problem.
Yes, if you're in need of a phone,
go and get the best phone if that's
what you need.
But if you don't need it, you don't
need to do it just for an upgrade.
Because our lives now are becoming that one
year we upgrade our phone.
The next year we upgrade our appliances, because
the next one looks a bit more futuristic,
looks a bit more streamlined.
And it has better angles and edges.
So we need to buy the next one,
even though our kettle at home is perfect,
or our cooker, or the TV, just a
new, a new technology came out.
Or is it 4k?
Some of these screens that I have seen
in shops, they're, they're not even real.
You look at the picture, and it's got
so many vivid colors that in reality, you
don't have those colors.
I'm looking at those and I'm like, the
pink, the red, so bright.
This is not reality.
They just add a bit of extra color
in there.
And it makes it seem like extra reality.
So now you must get the curved one.
Right?
Just your, you know, whatever you have at
home, then you and the problem is that
a lot of people are getting this without
having the ability to have it.
So now you get a new sofa, a
nice sofa suite, and you are now paying
for the next three years.
By three years when you've paid off, when
it's now yours, it would be all now.
No pleasure.
Because when you're on there, and if you
lose your job, then what's going to happen?
This is what most people think.
Every day when they sleep, they're worried about
the car that they have bought on, on
this, the sofa, the refrigerator, and everything else
in the house.
If they lose their job, what's going to
happen?
And thus they feel obliged to take on
certain types of jobs.
Stay free.
Start off small.
The pleasure of saving up and then buying
something is immense because you know, it's yours
and you can enjoy it.
Abdullah ibn Mubarak.
Sorry.
His story is amazing.
Now, you know, he's one of the Ashara
Mubashara, right?
He is one of the 10 given the
glad tidings of Jannah.
Now, if you look at the 10 who
are given the glad tidings of Jannah, none
of them were poor.
Who are the poorest Sahaba that you have
in mind that you can think of that
were known to be poor?
Give me a few names.
Abu Dharr.
Abu Dharr was an ascetic.
He had decided that I don't want anything
beyond what I need for today, right?
He had a special fatwa that was different.
Who else?
Abu Huraira radiyallahu anhu, right?
And a number of others.
None of those are Ashara Mubashara.
Ashara Mubashara are the highest, you know, the
top 10, among which is the top four,
which is the four Khudafa.
Do you know that among the 10, four
of them were billionaires?
Who?
Uthman radiyallahu anhu.
We know about that.
You know, who can spend this many animals
in the path of Allah, right?
Buy the well when nobody else could do
that and give it Sadaqah.
It's a crazy amount of money he had.
The other one was Zubair ibn al-Awam.
Very wealthy.
Some of his son's forts are still in
Medina Munawwara, right?
Very wealthy.
Another one was Talha ibn Ubaidullah.
And number four, Abdurrahman ibn Awth.
Allah had given him so much money.
He himself says that if I pick up
a stone, I will find gold underneath it.
The golden finger he had.
Ajeeb.
Now, he was He was from Makkah Mukarramah.
He had to abandon everything and he went
to Medina Munawwara.
I took a lot of lesson from this
when I read his story.
He went to Medina Munawwara and the Prophet
ﷺ, you know, he did Mu'akhat.
He made brothers with one Muhajir and one
Medina Ansari.
He made Abdurrahman ibn Awth the brother of
one of the wealthiest Ansar.
One of the wealthiest of him.
I've got this money.
You can have this.
And I've got if you want, if you
want a wife, then I can organize that
as well.
He said, Look, just tell me where the
market is.
I don't need anything from you.
Just tell me where the market is.
The souk.
He went there in the morning.
And this is how he did business.
He didn't go and get a big loan.
He went and he bought a camel from
somebody on credits.
Let's just say for, you know, 500 dirhams.
He bought the camel for 500 dirhams.
For example, he took the camel and the
camel came with a string, a rope.
He took the rope off and immediately sold
the camel for the same price.
Quick sale.
But the profit was the rope.
And he went and paid off.
He did this whole day.
By the end of the day, he came
back to the house with food to contribute.
That's what you call a stigma.
That's what you call being a proper entrepreneur.
That is what you call really understanding what
to do, taking matters, not feeling sorry for
yourself.
You know, how can I make this work?
And then Allah gave him wealth.
Right.
And the best part of this is when
the biographer is mentioning his seerah.
He says in Arabic, he says, farabba tijaratahu
bisadaqah.
That word really, that expression hit me.
He said the way he made, the way
he nurtured his business, the way he made
it prosperous, rabba is tarbiyah, to bring something
up stage by stage by fulfilling its rights.
The way he brought his business up is
by sadaqah, ajeeb, by sadaqah.
Now, this is something that we will not
understand.
We are living in rational times.
We are living in a time of modernity
and post modernity where rationality is king.
Empiricism is what matters.
Empiricism is everything has to be proven through
science.
Otherwise, it's dismissed.
How do we understand that you give sadaqah
and Allah will give you more?
What we understand, what the way we live,
what they understand is you put money in
a bank, into bonds, into fixed savings, your
money is secure, and you will make 5
% on top.
That's what we understand as way of increasing
money.
Does it make sense that you give sadaqah
and Allah says He will give you 70
times more?
How does that even make sense in the
rational world we're living in?
But that's what comes from iman.
That's a test of our faith.
Those who believe in the unseen, that is
our description.
These are the people who are on the
guidance of their Lord.
They've understood it and these people will be
successful.
That's how Allah describes right in the beginning
of the Quran.
We need to know more about what Allah
requires from us.
The sacrifice of faith to understand that yes,
I will give in the path of Allah
and I will get back.
How I'll get back, only Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala knows.
And the stories we have for that are
amazing.
Abdul Rahman Ibn A'uth, he was so
wealthy, so wealthy that before he passed away,
he wanted to give a huge chunk of
his wealth to the Badriyeen.
You know the Sahaba who had taken part
in the battle of Badr.
After the Ashara Mubashara, the next hierarchy of
Sahaba is the Badriyeen.
The 313 or 315 Sahaba who took part
in the battle of Badr, they are considered
the highest.
Now whoever was left, the majority of them
were still there I think.
He wanted to give them each a gift,
an award of a huge amount of money.
Among them was also Uthman Ibn Affan.
He is the Khalif of the time.
This is during his time.
So when he's giving his money out, even
Uthman Ibn Affan goes to collect his amount.
And someone said to Uthman Ibn Affan that
you're wealthy anyway, why do you need to
take it?
He says no, this is special money.
This is Barakah.
This is Barakah.
Abdul Rahman Ibn A'uth, one day he
was, sorry, Aisha one day she's sitting in
a house by the Masjid and suddenly she
hears a big commotion.
Very loud like a big army has come
in, like huge amount, a lot of dust
everywhere.
What's happened?
This is Abdul Rahman Ibn A'uth's trade
caravan, has just come back I think from
Sham or somewhere with business.
Can you imagine how big that was?
Huge, like an army.
So she just mentioned, she just made a
remark.
She said, yes I've heard the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam saying that Abdul Rahman Ibn A
'uth is going to have to go into
Jannah on his knees.
He's going to have to go in Jannah
on his knees.
This word reached Abdul Rahman Ibn A'uth
and he said no, Abdul Rahman Ibn A
'uth is going to go into Jannah standing,
walking and he gave the entire proceeds of
that in the path of Allah.
He gave the entire proceeds of that in
the path of Allah.
How can he do that?
You've just had a major business profit and
you just give it in the path of
Allah?
How do you do that?
You know the way to do that?
It's because these people, their iman was so
strong, mashallah.
Their istiqamah was just that nothing could make
them waver and they did not allow their
money to go into their hearts.
They had a huge amount of money but
they kept it in their hands.
When you have it in your hands, you
can use it.
When it's in your heart, then it takes
over.
Essentially that is the difference.
They had huge amounts of money.
There is nothing wrong with having a lot
of money.
That's what I'm trying to say because our
challenge in the west is that we have
access to money and disposable income and to
buy what we want.
It's just how do we use it and
where do we spend it?
It's really sad the one thing that I
did here and I'm going to mention this
as a shikwah, as a complaint that hopefully
people will listen.
That you people don't pay the imam enough
money.
What I mean by that is, alhamdulillah I
think you guys have in this masjid, I
believe you have imams that you pay.
But in other parts, other masjids and maybe
even other cities, the imam is expected, the
shaykh is expected to work for free as
a khidmah.
While that's a great idea, it's difficult.
You can't do it.
You need to survive.
Then the problem is that he's going to
have to have a job for 12 hours,
maybe even taxi driving which is a crazy
job to start with.
And then he's going to come home and
then want to teach a few kids.
He's going to be tired.
I've run a madrasa so I understand what
kind of level you need to be.
Somehow we need to think about this.
What is the right way to go about
this?
Alhamdulillah in England, they pay the imams.
Yes, maybe many masjids they still pay low,
but they pay them.
They don't expect that you should just take
it from the government.
We need to be self-sufficient.
We need to be self-sufficient.
And part of this is that if we
don't look after our children and get them
good teachers who are fariq and free to
give them all the investment, our next generation,
I don't know where it's going to go.
What are we doing all of this stuff
for?
Why are we establishing ourselves for?
Don't we care about our next generation?
That is one of our biggest responsibilities, to
give them the best.
If we're trying to send our children to
the best universities, alhamdulillah, let them be the
greatest.
But if they're going to lose their faith
and they will not come to your, not
remember you after your death, who's going to
come to your qabr, your grave and pray
for you?
Who's going to do isad al thawab?
Who's going to read some Quran for you?
Who's going to do hajj for you?
If when you have completely materialistic generation who
doesn't understand that they must do things for
others and continue and pray for their for
their parents, they have no deen.
Deen can be lost very fast in these
places.
As you know, deen can be lost very
fast in this place.
We know so many.
There's one person I know who's 19 years
old, just started university, one of the top
universities of London.
Says two of his classmates, one from Pakistan,
one from Somalia, both say, I'm not a
Muslim anymore.
And the problem is their parents probably don't
even know.
Because the parents are not practicing.
They don't know if their children have lost
the faith or not.
This is a sad case.
At the end of the day, this world
is limited.
It's only for so many years, as many
years as it is, it's only for limited.
We've got another life to live.
Why are we forgetting that?
We've got another life that is for eternity.
There's great things there.
SubhanAllah.
Right now on zamzamacademy.com, you will see
that we've got the series on the paradise
and its delights.
This is based on this huge work by
Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziya about it's a
whole review of paradise.
You know, when you want to move into
a new area, you read reviews about it
online.
This is about paradise.
Right?
You know, SubhanAllah, this is about paradise.
It tells you everything about what it's going
to look like, what it's going to be
made of.
And I don't even want to get into
certain places because you guys will get too
excited.
Right?
But that is what creates shawq.
It creates a zeal, a desire, an interest.
And that's what we want for us and
our progeny until the last day.
That's why there's a beautiful du'a of
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
رَبَّنَا هَبْلَنَا مِنْ أَزْوَاجِنَا وَذُرِّيَاتِنَا قُرَّةَ أَعْيٌّ
وَجَعَلْنَا لِلْمُتَّقِينَ إِمَامًا If anybody's got trouble in
their family, and even if you don't have
trouble, this is a du'a for it.
Oh Allah, this is for men and women.
رَبَّنَا هَبْلَنَا مِنْ أَزْوَاجِنَا Oh Allah, oh our
Lord, grant us from our spouses.
The wife can read it for the husband.
The husband can read it for the wife.
Because, oh Allah, oh my Lord, grant us
from our spouses and from not just children,
but our generations, our descendants.
Because the word uses وَذُرِّيَّةِ.
ذُرِّيَّةِ.
ذُرِّيَّةِ means everybody who's going to come from
you until the day of judgment.
A lot of them you will not even
see.
But on the day of judgment, if your
du'a has been accepted, you will see
them and somebody will say, that's your great,
great, great, great grandson.
And look what he did.
Look what she did.
You say, wow, it's going to gladden your
eyes.
And that's why the du'a says رَبَّنَا
هَبْلَنَا مِنْ أَزْوَاجِنَا وَذُرِّيَّةِنَا قُرَّةَ عَيٌّ وَجَعَلْنَا
لِلْمُتَّقِينَ إِمَامًا Wonderful du'a if it gets
success.
One of my favorite du'as.
You should make it after every prayer when
you make du'a.
So, O Allah, O my Lord, grant me
from my spouses and my nassal, my descendants,
including children, everybody, those that will gladden our
eyes.
That will be a source of coolness for
my eyes.
And make us an imam for the muttaqeen,
for the believers.
Which means that make me a force for
good.
That if I'm going to do anything and
I'm going to be a leader in any
aspect, it's for the good people.
I'm not going to be a leader of
evil.
It's a wonderful du'a if it's accepted.
Especially, especially those who are doing any kind
of khidmah of the deen.
Whether in a masjid, tabligh, whatever it may
be.
This du'a is and not just for
them, for everybody because then Allah will accept
us.
Allah will accept us inshallah.
So these are the challenges that we are
facing.
Abdurrahman ibn Auf, as I mentioned just to
finally, when he passed away, he had more
than one wife.
He had two or three wives.
Now just to give you an understanding, wives
get, the wife or wives get one-eighth.
If they have children, then from the inheritance
laws, they get one-eighth.
If they have no children, then they get
one-quarter, right?
Otherwise they get a thuman, one-eighth.
If there's more than one wife, they get
a share of one-eighth.
Now that's why women don't like to have
co-wives because they get less money, right?
That's not the reason.
They just don't want it, okay?
Now, every one of his wives, just to
give you an idea of how much his
huge assets were, every one of his wives
received this huge amount that they did a
recent calculation of it.
Huge amount.
That was just from one-eighth.
Can you imagine the rest?
And before he had passed away, sometime before,
he'd given so much out in sadaqah.
But the balance was that he is still
He is still going to Jannah, guaranteed with
lots of money.
Enjoyed this world, enjoyment of the hereafter.
That's the tough one.
That's what we need to ask Allah for
help.
This is our challenge and our fitnah.
We ask Allah for success.
We ask Allah for tawfiq.
And the way to do this, every day,
every day, two raka'ats of salatul hajjah.
Just two raka'ats for the sake of
Allah and then, oh Allah, accept me somehow
for the service of your deen.
Allah knows how he can accept.
You may be a housewife.
You may be a taxi driver.
You may be a painter.
You may be an IT guy.
You don't know how to help.
Allah knows.
He will use you.
Just ask.
Don't underestimate Allah's power.
Don't say, oh, I can't do this.
So, why should I ask?
You're just limiting yourself.
Ask Allah.
Oh Allah, make me a wali of Allah.
Oh Allah, make me a wali.
Make me of the salihin.
Make me of those who do tahajjud every
night.
Make me a hafidh of the Quran.
You could be 50, 60 years old and
say, make me a hafidh of the Quran.
If you have that in mind, you really
have the zeal, Allah will open it up
for you.
I know a number of people who are
doing hafidh in late age and they finish
some of them.
It's all a possibility.
Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless you
all for coming here, for inviting me here
and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make
this a useful gathering.
A lot of these were thoughts, reflections of
the challenges that we face because we have
very similar challenges and we ask Allah to
help us and assist us and protect us
and protect our next generation and accept us
for the service of his deen in some
way.
Make us contributors and oh Allah, don't make
us burden on anybody else.
Make us contributors.
Make us people respect us.
Of those people respect and they value.
Make us of those who are valuable.
We're going to have to do something for
that.
Oh Allah, we ask you for your mercy.
Oh Allah, we ask you for your forgiveness.
Oh Allah, we ask you to treat us
with your mercy and your blessing.
Oh Allah, we have many sins.
Oh Allah, we have committed many sins.
We have committed many transgressions.
We have committed many, many, many, many sins
and transgressions.
We have many shortcomings.
Oh Allah, we ask you forgiveness from all
such sin that has brought misery in our
lives.
Oh Allah, we ask you forgiveness from all
the sins that have turned families against each
other.
Oh Allah, we ask you for forgiveness from
all of those sins that have removed the
barakah and blessing from our lives.
Oh Allah, we want you to make us
close to you.
Oh Allah, we want you to consider us
for your love.
Oh Allah, grant us your love and the
love of those who love you.
Oh Allah, make our surrounding conducive for us.
Oh Allah, allow us to rise to meet
the challenges.
Oh Allah, grant us the strength and understanding.
Oh Allah, grant us the strength and understanding
of how to deal.
Oh Allah, those of the first generation did
so much work and effort to build these
Islamic institutions here.
Oh Allah, and to entrench the Muslim community
here.
Oh Allah, now it is our responsibility to
continue this work and to meet the new
challenges.
And oh Allah, we ask that you make
us of those who will contribute.
Oh Allah, make us successful in everything that
we do.
Oh Allah, grant us success in this world,
but above all, grant us success in the
hereafter.
Oh Allah, allow us to see in this
world what will benefit us in view of
the hereafter.
Oh Allah, don't make us short-sighted that
we only think about this world in the
next 50 years.
But oh Allah, allow us to be farsighted
and prudent, and to allow us to think
about how our efforts in this world will
affect our hereafter.
Oh Allah, we want greatness in this world.
But oh Allah, we want also Jannatul Firdaus.
Oh Allah, we also want Jannatul Firdaus.
Oh Allah, we want to be there in
the company of your messengers.
Oh Allah, the Shuhada, the Saliheen, the Siddiqeen.
Oh Allah, we know that these are small
mouths, these are weak hearts, these are sinful
people, and we are sinful and we are
asking you these great things.
But oh Allah, we know that you can
turn the greatest sinner into your greatest Wali
in a moment.
Oh Allah, do not allow any one of
us to return from here today without being
forgiven.
Oh Allah, grant us forgiveness.
Oh Allah, grant us forgiveness, grant us purity.
Oh Allah, grant us purity, grant us Tawfiq,
grant us understanding, grant us knowledge.
Oh Allah, make that what is right and
that what is wrong very clear for us.
Allow us to follow what is right and
allow us to abstain from what is wrong.
Oh Allah, allow us to help and assist
others.
Allow us to be a force for good.
Oh Allah, allow us to be force for
good.
Allow us to be protective of ourselves.
Oh Allah, and our next generations to come.
Oh Allah, the challenges out there are seem
to only be increasing.
Oh Allah, help our Muslim brothers and sisters
around the world, wherever they are, whatever persecution
that they may be going through.
Oh Allah, help us and assist us and
help them and assist them.
And oh Allah, we ask you to make
us capable of dealing with the challenges.
Oh Allah, grant us Aafiyah, grant us well
-being.
Oh Allah, grant us Aafiyah and well-being.
Grant us Barakah and blessing in everything that
we have and everything that you will give
us.
And oh Allah, make it a true source
of guidance.
Oh Allah, we ask that you make the
best part of our life, the endings of
our life.
And oh Allah, we ask that you make
the last words that we can utter.
La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah.
Oh Allah, oh Allah, fulfill our permissible needs.
Oh Allah, those who are sitting here, they
could have been doing so many other things
on this Sunday afternoon.
There are so many other distractions.
But oh Allah, each one of these people
decided to come here.
Oh Allah, to your house and to listen
to these words.
Oh Allah, we ask that you accept these
words, you accept everybody here.
Oh Allah, that you accept everybody here and
you grant them Barakah in their lives.
And oh Allah, those responsibilities and tasks that
they still have outstanding, you allow them to
complete them.
Oh Allah, we ask you one final thing,
that you reward all of those who have
organized these programs, who have organized these programs,
who have worked hard and all the khidmah
and the service that they have given in
this regard.
Oh Allah, give them a great reward for
this.
Allow them to be a force for great
change.
Allow them to do many other good things.
And oh Allah, bless us all.
And we ask you finally, that you send
your abundant blessings on our messenger Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam.
And that you grant us his company in
the hereafter.
The point of a lecture is to encourage
people to act, to get further, an inspiration,
an 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 their 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 organized 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 listen to lectures, but
you need to have this more sustained study
as well.
Jazakallah khair.