Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – The Distracted Hearts Generation

May Allah subhanaw taala give us the Tofig to, to benefit from

these reminders that keep coming in this world over and over again.

And may Allah subhanho wa Taala give us the ability to make amends

in this world. And the way to do this, the easy, the way to do this

is to try to get closer to Allah subhanho wa taala. If we try to

what I've noticed is that if we tried to do all of this as just an

intellectual decision of trying to, you know, a rational decision

of just like, I want to be good from today, it's a good enough

intention. But the problem is that we're so habituated to the wrong

Love of Allah subhanaw taala is not penetrating in our heart, our

hearts, quite disease, our hearts are quite diseased, and they're

all dark and black. So although intellectually, we've kind of

tried to give us ourselves a direction, but our heart doesn't

allow us to continue because of the years and years of neglect, it

takes a while for this neglect, to be dealt with, and to be to be

removed. And that really to tell the truth, the only way to deal

with this is to do think of Allah subhanaw taala is to do think of

Allah subhanaw taala the benefit of that will be that Allah

subhanaw taala will give us purity and cleanliness of our heart. And

then after that the good desires that we will have, our hearts will

be able to follow it. Because right now we hear something, it

penetrates our ears, it penetrates our hearts, it goes through our

eyes when we see something when we hear something, and we want to

change. So for that moment, we want to change but because it

doesn't really find a good seating in our heart. But once we go

outside, we lose it again, we lose it again. And thus, we have to

keep having these doses. But the way that this will benefit us is

to actually start working on our hearts. And nowadays that's just

just very difficult because of our distracted states. Even when we

read in the Quran, do we have any concentration we read in the

Quran? Do we really ponder over the meaning when reading our

species? You could be doing, you know, 100 500 600 disputes the day

but do you really concentrate on your disputes? When you're making

salah? Do you really recognize that we're standing in front of

Allah subhanaw taala. And we feel that you know, some people they

stand like this, they stand in these weird ways in front of Allah

subhanaw taala they, how can you get yourself to stand in front of

Allah subhanaw taala believe me, you start doing thicker, you start

doing Morocco, you start doing meditation, you'll notice that

because of the concentration that you develop the meditation, this

this ability to concentrate, the biggest problem I think people

have today is attention deficit. You know, we all have it at some

level, you know, that's considered to me that that is considered to

be a problem today, that young children when they have an

excessively, they give them these medications like Ritalin and so on

for attention, attention deficit disorder, it's called ATT, where

they can't concentrate, they're always jumping around here and

there and other they can never focus sit and concentrate on

something, I think adults as well today because of the because of

YouTube and because of an information overdose. And because

of all these different things that you know, that are bombarding us

left, right and center, you know, you just go down the street, you

see billboards, you see you see shops, you see this, you see this

is just so much of a variety of things that are bombarding us

every second, every minute that what's happening is that is that

you're processing all of this information, you process this, and

then suddenly, you see, you know, you're in the middle of

understanding this, and suddenly you see something else. And then

you start thinking about that, and then you see something else.

Likewise, when you're sitting down, right, you're sitting down,

and suddenly, you know, your phone beeps, and then you see a blue

light. And then you open it and there's a text message. And then

suddenly you see another notification that's coming from

your Twitter, you see another notification has come from, from

your Facebook, so and then you see a name pop up, you see another

text message pop up, you see a WhatsApp message pop up. So then

you're trying to navigate all of this. And by the end of it, you

haven't concentrated in any of those. So although you've actually

read the message, you've actually read the first message, but you

will not respond to it because you've forgotten about it. Because

the next message seems to be more important. You looked at that. And

then while you're doing this, suddenly something happens on your

iPad and you start looking at that, then suddenly somebody calls

out to you can you can you see the amount of distractions we have in

our life. So there has to be a way to get back to go back and to and

to start focusing. Yes, these things have to be used, you know,

they have to be used in in a way that benefits us. But then this

kind of information overload that we're having, it's just it's just

really really distracting us. So we need to go back to

concentration that has a problem with our worship, because even in

our worship, when we're doing worship, we see a blink we see a

light we see something else. It does the same thing for us, right?

So how do we when we stand in front of Allah subhanaw taala

shaytan uses that time to remind us of all sorts of things. That's

that's kind of like a like a winding down time. Right that many

people use this a lot as a winding down time. What that means is they

just don't have time outside of Salatin being in the toilet and I

hate to say this, right? Being in the toilet, the bathroom, the you

know when you can't do anything else really right. Or when you're

in your salon. Again, you're restricted for 510 minutes to

doing this. Now we become so much you know, so professional in

performing our salads, right that you everything is happening

automatic

Allahu Akbar, we're reading automatically because we're so

good at our salah. And we we use this time shaitan makes us use

this time to actually think this is the time that people think and

make decisions and unwind, reflect. Same thing in the toilet,

there's nothing, nothing much that you can do unless you've got

magazines in your toilet, right. So it's the only time where you've

got time to yourself to think. Because even when you get in bed,

you got no time to think because your phone is next to you. Now,

you used to be stuck to a wall before with a wire. So you

couldn't take it anywhere. The TV was too big, right? But now you

got this thing that's right next to you, you can literally sleep

with the next to you Subhanallah some people do that they on their

phone, and then they just sleep, you know, it just falls on them

and they go to sleep on their chest or whatever, right or it's

under their pillow. SubhanAllah. You know, I wouldn't do that. That

because you don't know what kind of radiation is in this thing, as

well as just from that, that in that aspect as well. We're so

distracted. So that's why they're automatically found these ways of

doing vicar that are the same vicar La ilaha illa, Allah

Subhanallah Al Hamdulillah, Allahu Akbar the same kinds of dhikr. But

they've just found a way that will make you concentrate. And as I

said, the maraca is extremely powerful that if you sit and you

do this maraca by just thinking of Allah subhanaw taala as Rama to be

entering your heart and then after that, the heart begins to say

Allah Allah, you will actually find that you will develop

concentration, you will develop a you know, a way to like just for

five minutes to think of one thing only. And that's Allah subhanaw

taala. You know, today, if you have to think of one thing, the

only thing that we can think of is when we're watching something, we

get so immersed because the ability of the screen and these

and what they produce, it beams directly into the middle of our

brain into the part that doesn't even require any thinking on our

part is just hydrolyzes right beamed right in is direct internal

duct doctrine, ation, indoctrination, there's no need,

you know, for us to even think see, because when you have five

different things that are going around your mind, and your brain

is going to have to correlate all of these events, all of these

details that are happening that are taking place, and to bring

them together and to make up your own kind of idea about them. But

now they tell you exactly what you what, what they want you to think,

because they're able to beam directly into the middle of your

mind. And that's why our children Subhanallah going to school to

pick up my son, and I see that they're on YouTube. Right? The

schools are Subhanallah that I don't know if they're teaching

anything anymore, because they're using YouTube is the teacher now

even in schools. So you've got two three teachers in the class, but

they're putting on YouTube. So the children are absolutely engrossed,

because they're putting something that's kind of interesting today,

which has an educational kind of aspect to it. That's why kids,

they when they come to the motherland, you're trying to teach

them the Quran or something else, they have absolutely no time to

think they've got no ability to think that's what the problem is

today, people don't have any ability to think anymore, because

they just getting this all this information produced. It's just

like, Do you know how to make bread anymore? Right? Do you know

how to make bread? No, you don't. Because you don't have to make it

at home. Right? You don't you don't know how to ferment the you

know, the yeast in the dough and let it rise for a while. And then

after that, put it into the oven. What kind of you know how long he

has to stay for you probably mess up. The reason is you can buy

bread in the store. That's what you do. You don't make it at home.

So now you no longer know how to do it. Think of processed foods

like this, right, that you people used to make in the house before?

Now you just gone by them? Do you now to make jam for example, in

your house? No, you don't. Because you buy it? Right. That's the

insignificant, that's an insignificant detail there. But

it's the same kind of thing here that when you're not told how to

process information and think for yourself, then this information is

and this information is given to you, you know, packaged in the way

they want it right into the middle of your brain, that you no longer

think about the Quran, your afterlife, you just into this

dunya dunya dunya that's what's happening. I just I just pray to

Allah Subhana Allah, Allah, Allah subhanho wa Taala protect our

children, because they've got this worse than we did in our

generation. You know, we just about kind of got it at the end of

our at the end of our kind of adult youth, our youth that we

started getting into this stuff, but Subhanallah our children have

got it from the age of two, they know how to work a phone at the

age of two, right? That's how, you know, that's the capacity of these

children to be able to do this. They know where to go to get the

games on your phone. Right? And this your phone is for them a toy.

That's what it is. That's what they want it for. They don't they

don't check messages on there. What they're worried about is, is

going on to what do you call it? Temple Run? And you know, what's

other stuff Temple Run and Subway surf and, you know, I'm sure

there's worse stuff than that, right? That they can go on onto

your phone. That's what they want. Even these two year old kids,

that's what they want. They just want to grab your phone, and they

and when you don't give it to them. It makes a massive problem.

They create a massive scene, they go into a tantrum, right. So this

is what we're doing Subhanallah we have to be able to control this

somehow. We have to be able to control this somehow. And I said

that if we can't gain concentration, we have absolutely

no way to get anybody else to concentrate. And believe me you

start doing more aka you start focusing on your hearts you

develop

Love this ability to just concentrate for five minutes. That

is massive. That's a massive, you know, for you, for us to be able

to concentrate for five minutes on Allah subhanho wa taala. On a day

when we don't have too much grief where we're forced to do it,

right, that is a success, then it can build on from that, then after

that sitting for five minutes will be nothing you'll be wanting to

sit with Allah subhanaw taala for half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour,

two hours, believe me, what it will then do to you is that when

you start solid, you will be thinking that you're standing in

front of Allah subhanaw taala Allah will be watching you. And

then after that, you will actually look down properly. You know, when

he says in the Salah that a person should look at the place he does,

the place that they do such the way they prostrate right now we

have to actually just make sure we're looking there. But when

you're focusing on Allah subhanho wa taala, and you realize that

he's there, you're actually going to just naturally look there

because that's the way of humility. That is the way that is

the direction that you refocus. Because you know, you won't be

standing like this anymore, right? You won't be kind of slouching

anymore. Because you're standing in front of Allah. Imagine you're

standing in front of somebody with for an interview, or sitting in

front of you going to be at your best behavior. This is Allah

subhanaw taala. So then, to get this presence, you need to be able

to do this kind of specialty thicker, that's that's what it is

that Allah discovered that during the time of Rasulullah sallallahu

sallam, the fact that the proto Lawson was there, he could he

could make them you know, they would develop this very easily.

But as we get get further and further away from that time, we

are more and more and more and more distracted, we need to come

back to Allah subhanaw taala. So may Allah subhanho wa Taala give

us the trophy. And may Allah subhanahu wa taala allow us to

reflect over this in this world. And may the May He give our hearts

so much softness, that when we read a poem of this nature, that

we can also cry like Imam Muhammad cried, because crying, that tear

that comes down out of the fear of Allah subhanaw taala is one of the

most beloved drops in the sight of Allah subhanaw taala as mentioned

in the Hadith, that one of the one of the most valuable drops is

obviously the drop of the Majah his blood and another one, of

course, is the drop of tear that shed in the fear of Allah subhanho

wa taala. So if somebody is really really crying like that, for the

sake of Allah subhanaw taala out of his fear on that day, and our

feeling of what we've done in this world and what we haven't been

able to do in this world, then you can imagine how valuable that is

in the sight of Allah subhana wa Tada. So the ability whether Allah

mentioned is the ability to cry for Allah subhanaw taala is really

a Tofik from Allah subhanaw taala that if you notice that you can

never cry for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala he means your heart

is a problem. That's what the Buddha must say that your heart

has a problem if you don't have the ability to cry, when you see

these, these pictures out of Syria, when you see you know,

injustice is being injustice is being made, you know, being

afflicted on different people. And when you see just the disease than

the death around you, and you think you can't think for yourself

Subhanallah then you know that you've got a problem with your

heart. Right? You know, you've got a problem with your heart, you

just have to realize that may Allah subhanaw taala soften our

hearts, may Allah give us a heart that's not prevented from weeping

in front of him. And may Allah subhanaw taala grant us a heart

that is close to him. That is that may Allah grant us an ability to

become the Kareena like Shaka Rinella which means which means

that are very grateful to Allah subhanaw taala and that are full

of dhikr from every part of our body of Allah grant. They're

thicker in every pore of our body and allow us to allow us to make

the best day of our of our existence, the day that we're

standing in front of Allah subhanaw taala Welcome to that one

and Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen

bla