Ali Hammuda – Leap From Good to Great – Discipline

			Buddha would narrate in his Showdown on the authority of Anna's
		

			that a man came to our NABI sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he said, Yeah, how you raspberry.
		

			You are the greatest of all creation.
		

			And our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam responded with words of humbleness. He said, Dr.
Ibrahim, that man you speak of is not me. That man is Ibrahim.
		

			Jim Collins has a book called from good to great.
		

			And he speaks of a question that prayed on his mind for many years. How is it
		

			that certain companies make the leap from being good to great? Are there certain universal
characteristics that if you apply, you can make the same leap into greatness.
		

			So he brought together a team of experts. And they identified a set of elite performing companies
that were sustaining good results for 15 years plus. And then they compared them against another set
of companies that only ever stayed at good. They never became great.
		

			And after five years of dedicated research to answer this one question, and sifting through
mountains of data and going through 1000s of pages of interviews, they came to the conclusion that
there are certain determinants of success.
		

			And he writes that at the core of it all is the following.
		

			To foster a culture of discipline.
		

			What is discipline?
		

			exemplified so clearly in the life of Ibrahim Salallahu, alayhi wasallam. In Arabic we loosely
translated as in the bopped in English, they say discipline, although the word discipline has
negative connotations, you say discipline, you think of restriction, you think of punishment.
		

			But this is not what I speak of today. I speak of the discipline that was defined by Abraham Lincoln
many years ago who said discipline is your ability to choose between what you want now and what you
want most?
		

			Or in other words, you can say, It's your ability to say no. When deep down you really want to say
yes.
		

			Now that you've understood the definition of discipline, I share with you the words and the behavior
of another Abraham.
		

			This time, he is one of the greatest of all creation, and man in whose footsteps humanity follows
every year during the season of Hajj, the exemplar worshiper, the Kali in the intimate friend of
Allah, the Ummah, the one man nation, none other than Nabil Kareem Ibrahim Alayhi Salatu was Salam.
During these days of the late Jack, everybody around the globe will be celebrating the legacy of
this giant. Some will be speaking about his dough heed his monotheism. Others will talk about his
submission others about his ethic of worship, I speak about something different that is rarely
addressed.
		

			And that is his ethic ethic of discipline.
		

			Ibrahim Ali he set out after all, was instructed by Allah to migrate on numerous occasions, and with
discipline he migrated.
		

			He was instructed by Allah to engage in manual labor to build a building in a scorching heat desert.
He did that in discipline.
		

			He was instructed by Allah to slaughter his own son, who can do that yet in discipline. He upheld
the instruction. He was instructed by Allah to leave his suckling son Ismail, and the mother of
Ismail in an uninhabited, lifeless desert. And with discipline, he upheld the instruction, Allah
instructed him to circumcise himself at the old age of 80. And with discipline, he did just that.
		

			And that is why Allah praised him. And he said what Ebrahim Alevi
		

			Ibrahim Allah said the man who fulfilled his promise, Allah said what Italia Ibrahima boo boo
kalimat in Tana Han, when I Allah tested Ibrahim with commandments and he fulfilled them with
perfection.
		

			Then we turn to Hajj and what is what is Hajj, but a yearly celebration of the disciplined family of
Ibrahim, and every one of the rites of Hajj is a vivid training ground
		

			to produce Muslims like you who are disciplined
		

			Fernand Farah Duffy hymnal. Hijjah Fela rasa, Walla, Walla, je de la fille Hajj, no sexual intimacy,
no foul language. No argumentation during Hajj Allah said discipline. Despite the clash of cultures,
different languages, hot temperaments, scorching heat, chaos adminer Chaos must deliver.
		

			What do you see there other than unity, and togetherness, and people moving in a set motion, one
voice, one uniform, one a bad one Lord, who was glorified in a national spectacle of discipline that
is second to none. And the intention of the Sharia is for this ethic of discipline to overflow from
the boundaries of the heroin and into the life of every Muslim.
		

			In conclusion, there can be no success, no happiness, no accomplishment, no flourishing in dunya and
the hereafter for those who live on disciplined lives, Muslims or non Muslims. And I share with you
examples from the non Muslims before we turn to our own tradition. The first is ejecting knees case
study.
		

			Who would have thought now when you come into the city of Hiroshima on one of the modern
contemporary bullet trains, that this was a city that was devastated by tragedy.
		

			Who would have thought
		

			that just two minutes after the American B 29 Nuclear bomber dropped its bomb on the city of
Hiroshima, that the city simply cease to exist, everything incinerated, flattened to the ground, 120
seconds or so.
		

			But despite this tragedy, despite the loss of hundreds of 1000s of lives, despite Japan possessing
hardly any natural resources, with the exception, perhaps to fish, despite them having problems with
volcanoes 100 active volcanoes in and around Japan more than any other country, despite them
suffering 1500 earthquakes every single year more than any other country. The resurrection of
Hiroshima, began just a few hours after the bomb was set on them.
		

			The very next day, the lights came back on in some of the regions of Hiroshima discipline,
		

			people who wanted to build their nation.
		

			Then, about 30% of power was restored to the surviving homes. Then four days later, the water pumps
were restored.
		

			There were 30 people who were incinerated vaporized by the nuclear bomb in the Bank of Japan. Just a
few days later, that very same bank reopened with no roof working under the open sky and using
umbrellas when it started to rain discipline.
		

			Such that the word Holiday in Japan they hardly ever feature in the same sentence. The trains that
either 12pm
		

			or 12am, taking people home at midnight from work, or just as busy with the trains leaving at five.
		

			They've in fact used a term in the 1970s in Japan called Karachi, which literally means death
because of work. And I don't endorse this, but it is discipline.
		

			They overwork themselves to a level that some of them die in the workplace. Company companies are
now offering financial incentives to the Japanese workers to leave at 5pm Go home. But even the
money is not working. They stay till nine and 10 ethic of discipline. In fact, the author of the
book Made in Japan, he said that after World War Two,
		

			the average Japanese citizen was working 16 hours a day
		

			in return for a cup of rice. And they did that without complaining.
		

			In order to rebuild the nation. We are worthy of this ethic of discipline. And the second case study
before I sit down is a German case study.
		

			Germany who suffered losses of two world wars hardly within the span of 20 years.
		

			Just after World War Two, 6 million Germans were killed. Five millions held in captivity. 2 million
German women raped by the Soviets and others 500,000 Children born because of this rate, who don't
know their biological fathers.
		

			The Allied bombing had flattened almost every city in Germany and the male population declined
severely. They were dead or in captivity. So what happened? They didn't give up discipline.
		

			The women came down to the streets.
		

			And they had two objectives. The first to clear the rubble, the debris
		

			and with their own hands with no machinery. They cleared 400 million cubic feet of rubble 400
million meters squared of rubble with their own hands.
		

			And the second thing they wanted to do was to remove the books to find the schoolbooks to reopen the
education system and to continue teaching their children.
		

			Just 10 years after this devastation
		

			every industry in Germany was operational medical industry, building industry, transport
communication, it was all working just 10 years.
		

			Then just 20 years after it. German products now have the greatest reputation in the world. You say
Aldi, you say mashallah
		

			Germany now 20 years later, has the biggest national industry in the whole of Europe. And it's the
biggest capital exporter in the world than just 30 years later, after the war. Germany is now one of
the seventh leading and advanced economies of the world they call it the g7. How does any of these
secular examples relate to us? These were examples of discipline.
		

			These were examples of people who preferred what they wanted most over what they may have wanted
now.
		

			And I want to say
		

			that we as Muslims,
		

			we as ambassadors of Allah, Jalla Jalla Allahu ambassadors of the final and only true religion that
Allah accepts for humanity. us as Muslims,
		

			we are worthy of this ethic of discipline than anyone else.
		

			As believers in a life that shall come after this fleeting one, no one has a greater duty to live by
discipline in the masjid, or in the workplace, or at home or with their friends, or on the weekends.
No one has a greater duty to live by the ethic of discipline than us.
		

			No one should be in better control of their emotions, their speech, their behavior, their desires,
their reactions than us. No one should be able to delay pleasure, delayed gratification than us.
		

			No one should be more focused on the task ahead of them which is entering Jannah than us.
		

			After all, didn't our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tell us of the reward of those who are
disciplined? And he said in that calendar I shall only lie. Ill Abdelhak Allah who emailed who was
lucky, I mean, anything you leave purely for the sake of Allah, Allah will send you a replacement
that is better than it.
		

			That is the outcome of discipline, choosing between what you want most and what you want. Now,
		

			Yusuf alayhi salam was he not seduced by a beautiful, high ranking woman? And he said, no, harana
Allah, I fear Allah. So what did Allah give him to thank him for this discipline. He established him
on the land, he gave him all authority space on the earth that he was deprived of in jail. Then in a
bizarre turn of events, the very same woman who said used him came back to us if, as the scholars of
Tafseer said, asking for the kind of use of in marriage and on their wedding night use of says to
the woman
		

			had the Hyrule Mima continue to redeem this is not better than what you wanted from me all those
years ago.
		

			This is the Promise of Allah, the hands of the disciplines will never go without Phil.
		

			So a man
		

			when he saw his horses, his marvelous parade distracted him from solitude. Still, the sun had set
and he'd missed the prayer. He behaved with discipline, and he sacrificed the horses in repentance,
and Allah who was grateful. So instead of horseback, he gave him the back of the wind, you mount
that instead, and you go to wherever you wish, using the wind, the hands of the discipline, Never Go
Without Phil had the Muslim businessman, behaved with discipline and stayed away from the Haram and
doubtful sources of money. Allah would have given him the halal equivalent, it would have made its
way to him anyway.
		

			Had our sister who may be compromised her hijab, behaved with discipline and held on to it
stubbornly and defiantly. Allah would have sent to her all of the wholesome things in life that she
wants a happy marriage and healthy children and mental well being and others, but just behave with
discipline and believe ALLAH
		

			had our brother
		

			who had not lowered his gaze, who did not avoid a lustful appetite had had he behaved with
discipline and forced his gaze to the ground and protected his private parts and ended the
conversations, deleted the photos and made an effort to fix his ways. Allah would have to help him
kill Not a trace of sin remains in his life. This is the outcome of discipline.
		

			So dear brothers and sisters discipline is not about punishment. And it's not about restricting your
time for pleasure and occasional play No.
		

			Discipline is about choosing between what you want now what do you want most?
		

			It's about saying no, although deep down you may really want to say yes, discipline is essentially a
bridge that connects between where you are now and where you want to be tomorrow in Jannah. This was
the bridge that was crossed by Prophet Ibrahim so many times during his life, and perhaps this is
the secret why the topic of discipline is repeated every year during the discussion of Hajj and
halal ha because this is the same bridge Allah wants us to remind us of. And this is the same bridge
that Allah intends that we cross every day of our life till we arrive at gender friendly Muslim,
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