Ammar Alshukry – Isha Khaitrah 13-07-2024

Can I do something else? Is it okay?

So I see a lot of young people

here, Masha'Allah. Young

young men.

And so,

I'll share with you guys a poem that

I love.

That is one of the very few English

poems that I've come across

that I would wish for young men to

learn.

And it's a poem by Rudyard Kipling, who's

famously the owner or the author of The

Jungle Book,

and it's called If, and it's a it's

a poem that I would encourage you to

go home

to Google,

and if you have any young men in

your life, that you share it with them.

And it goes like this.

It's advice that he gave to a young

man.

And so he says, if you can keep

your wits when all about you are losing

theirs

and blaming it on you,

if you can trust yourself when all men

doubt you, then make allowance for their doubting,

too,

If you can wait and not be tired

of waiting,

or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

or being hated, not give way to hating,

nor look too good, nor talk too wise.

So he's basically saying,

if you can wait, if you can have

sabr,

and not be tired of waiting,

and if you can interact with people and

recognize that sometimes they're gonna treat you badly,

being hated, not give way to hating,

Nor look too good, nor talk too wise.

Don't be a smart aleck.

Don't look too good. Now,

I always like,

Americans, we don't have a problem with looking

too good, but he was British.

And the Brits hate when a person is

like, you know, like a show off. A

guy has a flashy car.

Americans will say, that's really cool. Masha'Allah, Marrook

on the red Ferrari. But the Brits will

be like, who does this person think he

is? Right? So at the end of the

day, you can't remove the author from his

context.

But he says,

if you can dream

and not make dreams your master,

if you can think and not make thoughts

your aim,

if you can meet with triumph and disaster

and treat both impostors just the same. Assalam.

It's beautiful.

If you can dream and not make dreams

your master, like, yes, have vision, but don't

live in the world of dreams.

You got to come back to reality. You

got to do work.

If you can think,

but your goal should not be to think.

Your goal should be to think for the

purpose of action.

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

and treat both impostors just the same, don't

let

your triumphs get to your head,

and don't let your failures get to your

heart.

Recognize that they're both impostors. Be even keeled.

He said, if you can take

one heap of all your winnings,

and

toss it, or turn it, and lose it

in one heap of toss,

And lose and start again at your beginnings,

and never breathe a word about your loss.

He's talking about the idea of of loss.

You might take risks and you might lose,

but don't be that person who's complaining to

everybody

about when you lose.

He says,

if you can

walk with kings,

if you can speak to crowds and not

lose your virtue,

and walk with kings and not lose the

common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt

you,

if all men count with you, but none

too much.

If you can talk to crowds and keep

your virtue,

that's not easy to do.

You know, a lot of people you see

this on social media now, that when they

want to get larger followings, they have to

be controversial.

You have to lose your virtue.

So he says, if you can talk to

crowds

and keep your virtue, that you keep your

integrity,

even as you're getting to bigger and bigger

audiences,

and if you can walk with kings

and not lose the common touch,

if neither

foes, your enemies, nor loving friends can hurt

you, but all men count with you. All

men count with you, but none too much.

Ali ibn

Abi Talib says that love moderately

and hate moderately

because your situation with this person might change.

That person that you aided yesterday, they might

accept Islam.

And then you have to love them. Right?

So so love and hate moderately.

He says, all men count with you, but

none too much. Let all men count with

you.

I respect and I love this person, but

I don't make this person my iman is

attached to this person.

He says, Whoever of you seeking to follow

the path of somebody, follow the path of

those who lived before you because the living,

you don't know if they're going to survive

their tests.

And so I'm not going to let the

downfall of somebody who fails their tests, or

someone who

who has a scandal, or what have you.

I'm not going to let that affect my

iman. He says, let all men count with

you. I respect everyone.

But nobody counts so much that

my confidence is attached to this person. My

faith is attached to this person, other than

obviously the prophet

And then he says, if you can fill

the unforgiving minute

with 60 seconds of long distance run,

Yours is the world and everything that's in

it.

And what's more, you'll be a man, my

son.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute,

life is a it's just a minute. It's

just a it's just a

it's a minute and passes. If you can

fill that minute with 60 seconds and

the

And the

prophet says, no one was given anything more

better and more comprehensive than patience. If you

can fill those 60 seconds with that long

distance run and have that endurance, yours is

the world and everything that's in it. And

what's more,

you'll be a man, my son.

Anyway, so that's if by Rudyard Kipling.

And with that,

I

gave you guys a weird khata ra today.

Jazakamu lakher for your attentive listening.