Bilal Assad – When is the LastHour
AI: Summary ©
The importance of understanding the meaning of death and the importance of not just talking about future events but also understanding the meaning of death is emphasized in this segment. The speakers emphasize the importance of following the Prophet's teachings, respecting words, following tests and retests, and finding one's own success and staying busy during times of conflict. The importance of finding one's own success and staying busy during times of conflict is also emphasized, along with shaykh, sharding, maintaining connection with Q----, Maintaining love and following the Messenger salallahu alayhi, following anything you read, and remaining true. The speaker advises against seeking advice, avoiding false and distraction, staying away from misinformation, and remaining patient in life.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolillah, assalamualaikum
warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu.
My brothers and sisters, a group of young
men last week asked me, are we close
to the last hour?
Because we heard on YouTube and I don't
know where else, that now it's close to
the end of the world.
And subhanallah, I remembered this exact incident that
happened through obviously hadith of the Prophet ﷺ.
At the time of the Prophet ﷺ, which
is in Bukhari and similar like it in
Muslim, where a man entered, who was a
Bedouin.
He entered when the Prophet ﷺ was with
his companions, probably in the mosque.
And he asked him, ya rasoolallah, matassaa, oh
messenger of Allah, when is the last hour?
The Qur'an and the revelations which Allah
had sent down beforehand, the Gospel and the
Torah and all the other books and scriptures
sent upon the Prophets, tell us that this
world will come to an end and it
is called the last hour.
So when you hear something like that, it
triggers an emotion.
When is the world going to end?
And then you find that people often go
into guesswork, they start giving an analysis, they
start interpreting the current events, what's going on
here, what's going on there.
And they will make it so big in
their brains and in their minds, that it
seems like tomorrow, Thursday the world is going
to end or something.
And what happens is that they get very
intrigued with it.
Which is fine, the Rasool ﷺ once passed
the group of companions and they were sitting
in the masjid after fajr.
And he said, what are you talking about
so intriguingly?
And they said, we're talking about, ya rasoolallah,
the last hour and its signs and everything.
And then he sat them down and he
told them a few things very simply.
But going back to this hadith, this man
who came and said, ya rasoolallah, when is
the last hour?
Rasool ﷺ immediately replied to him by saying,
wailak, woe to you.
Now woe to you is a negative word.
But Rasool ﷺ spoke Arabic and the Arabs
sometimes would use words of astonishment or words
that imply, why would you ask that question?
Like that, why would you ask that question?
Where are you going with it?
Don't go there, don't go there.
So what did he say?
Wailak, don't go there.
Wama a'datta laha.
What have you prepared for it?
What have you prepared for it?
Rasool ﷺ changed this question to ask, you
should be asking, instead of when the last
hour is coming, what have you prepared for
it?
It's not when your time and my time
comes to an end.
It's on what state will you and I
be when our time comes to an end?
Not when, but what state?
And this is what we should be focusing
on.
So you see Rasool ﷺ directed this young
man to not focus too much on when
the world will end.
This is 1400 years ago.
The guy's already died, his family and children,
generations after generations had come.
But Rasool ﷺ doesn't want us to waste
time in our talking conversation too much to
the point where we start neglecting our day
-to-day duties of worship, good deeds, righteousness,
our duties to our families and children and
everything that's around us.
You know when we sit down and talk
sometimes about future things and events, we start
to analyze this and analyze that.
Before you know it, days and weeks and
months pass and we've busied ourselves so much
in just analytical thinking, guesswork, talking, conversing.
Some of us, our prayer goes past, we
start delaying it.
Some of us, instead of learning something beneficial,
we're busy ourselves trying to guess.
We go on social media, we start to
debate.
And then some of us even get into
fights and conflicts.
Over what?
We've got to be very careful and go
back to the reason and purpose that you
are here.
So what is it that is within your
control and what you should be doing now,
right now at this particular hour?
Rasulullah ﷺ also is pointing that young man
and the companions around him to something else.
Not only is he telling us, don't be
fixated on when the world will end, that
it's signs and all that stuff.
Although there's some benefit in it, but don't
fixate, don't spend too much time on it.
He's telling us also that another meaning to
the last hour is something else as well.
Who can tell me what's another meaning to
the last hour other than the world ending?
No, the death.
Your death and my death.
So the last hour means your death.
Rasulullah ﷺ he said, مَن مَاتَ فَقَدْ قَامَتْ
قِيَامَتُ Whoever dies, their last hour has arrived.
Continuing the hadith, Rasulullah ﷺ he says, مَا
أَعْدَتْ لَهَا What did you prepare for?
So the man replied, something beautiful.
He says, مَا أَعْدَتْ لَهَا إِلَّا أَنِّي أُحِبُّ
اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهَا He said, Wallahi ya Rasulullah, I
have not prepared much.
In another hadith he says, another narration, similar
to it in Muslim, he says, Wallahi ya
Rasulullah, I have not done too many things
of Salat, too much of Zakat, too much
of Sadaqah, too much of fasting.
Like I've done, I pray, I fast, I
do all these things.
But Wallahi I think I haven't done enough.
Ya Rasulullah, I swear by Allah, I love
Allah with all my heart and I love
the Messenger of Allah with all my heart.
Then the Prophet ﷺ replied, إِنَّكَ مَعَ مَنْ
أَحْبَبْتْ You will be with those whom you
love.
You will be with those whom you love.
Meaning you will be, if you are truthful
and honest that you love Allah and you
love His Messenger Muhammad ﷺ, then you will
also be in the places where Muhammad ﷺ
will go and where Allah will talk to
you.
Meaning Paradise, Jannah.
And all the people who love Rasul ﷺ
and he loves them, and in the same
way.
So the companions were sitting there and they
listened.
And they said, While we were there, فَفَرِحْنَا
We became so excited.
We said, O Messenger of Allah, does the
same apply to us, what you said to
him?
That if we love Allah and His Messenger
with all our hearts, we'll also be with
you?
Rasul ﷺ said, نعم, yes, also you.
فَفَرِحْنَا We became so excited.
On that day, so much so, more than
any other days.
And then a young boy went past.
The narrator of this hadith is Anas, رضي
الله عنه, who was only about 10 years
old.
He says, a young boy came past and
he was about my same age.
Same age as Anas.
Still a young boy, hasn't reached puberty yet.
Rasul ﷺ wanted to teach them something further.
And he said, see that boy, if he
is to live on after puberty and becomes
a man, the hour will come before he
reaches old age.
The hour will come before he reaches old
age.
Which hour is Rasul ﷺ talking about here?
Death, his death.
So that boy is saying, he may or
may not reach old age.
And his hour will come and some of
you will still live on.
Will still live on.
Again, he's turning their direction from the world.
The world is for Allah, don't worry about
the future.
And you, that boy who you see who
is younger than you, his end will come
before yours, possibly.
And you will live on.
So don't make a calculation of just because
you're so young, you have so much time.
And just because you're old, it means you
have little time.
Yes, generally that's true.
Generally speaking, young people do have a lot,
inshallah, to look forward to.
And an old man has probably less more
time as you get closer.
But Rasul ﷺ is telling us, don't sit
there with that mindset.
Don't sort of calculate as if you know
what your future is holding.
Today is the day, what do you owe
of your worship?
What should you be doing right now?
Do it.
In another hadith which is in, I won't
state, it's an authentic hadith, I think it's
in Bukhari, maybe someone can correct it for
me.
Rasul ﷺ said, if you hear that the
last hour is coming, tomorrow the last hour
will come, and you have a shoot of
plant and you can still plant it, then
plant it, plant it.
Don't just say, oh, the world's going to
end, there's no point.
There's no point of doing any more good
deeds.
He said, do it.
For the truth is, there's still a lot
of good life that's coming for people ahead.
What's he saying?
He's saying two things.
Number one, don't just believe everything you hear.
There are more rumors than truths.
And 90% of information that you receive
is misinformation, and most of it after a
few days you'll forget about it, and it
didn't really mean anything.
It's just people carrying interpretations and giving their
own, probably based on agenda or desires or
maybe just to show off or maybe to
get likes and views on social media or
something like that, and then you just forget
about it.
Rasul ﷺ says, don't hold on to people's
words and interpretations, misinformation, things that waste your
time.
You can do a good deed right now,
and you have that shoot of plant right
in you, you have it, this is in
your control.
Can you do something with it?
Do it.
You have your health, you have your money,
you have your house, you have freedom, you
have security, you have whatever you have, brothers
and sisters, think what you can do with
it that pleases Allah.
Don't sit there giving up hope and saying,
oh, the world, this is the last hour.
I hear this all the time.
Something happens, they hear the news about it,
suddenly people almost are about to get into
state of depression.
What's the point?
There's no hope.
Alhamdulillah, you got within your capacity, you can
do things.
That's all Allah is asking from you.
Some people start to go outside of their
lane, and they start to accuse scholars and
sheikhs and da'is, and they start to
talk about this person, that person, they accuse
them of being this and being that, and
subhanAllah, even backbiting, probably eating the flesh of
people and just throwing around words out of
emotion instead of using that time beneficial, they
just lost their rewards, and they took the
sins of other people.
So, brothers and sisters, the Rasul shallallahu alaihi
wa sallam is very caring for us, and
he wants us to do what benefits us.
Then, I have to make a point.
Some people may misunderstand and think, does that
mean if I love Allah and love His
Messenger, that's all I need?
Brothers and sisters, please, understand what the word
love means.
If you love someone and someone loves you,
but doesn't show the meaning of love towards
you, or you don't show the meaning of
love towards them, can you call that real
love?
No.
What that means is when somebody says, I
love you, but doesn't really show it and
is not honest about it, what they're really
saying is, I want to use you, not
love you, I want to use you.
But when you actually show the genuine love,
you don't want anything from that person, then
the love starts to grow.
Husband and wife, they see it all the
time.
So, when you say, I love Allah and
I love His Messenger, it comes with action.
Not just I love.
So, we're going to go through...
Right now, I'll state five things.
What are the five things that show and
prove that you do love Allah and love
His Messenger?
You love the Messenger shallallahu alaihi wa sallam
by loving Allah.
By following Allah, you love the Messenger.
Number one, following the message He came to
you with.
قُلْ إِن كُنْتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحِبِذْكُمُ اللَّهُ
In the Qur'an, Allah says, say, O
Muhammad, if you truly love Allah, then follow
me, follow me, and Allah will love you
so much.
So, it's a combination.
Loving Allah means loving the Prophet shallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
Loving the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam means
loving Allah.
They're connected.
Loving means following as a role model.
Number two, defending His name and His teachings.
You don't love Him if you don't defend
His names and His teachings.
Some people do the opposite.
They hear one hadith of the Prophet shallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, even if it's authentic, or
they...
whether authentic hadith, even if they're not sure
of it, the fact that they don't like
what they heard, they'll say terrible things about
the words of the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
And some of them, instead of attacking the
Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam, they'll indirectly attack
the person who said it, as if they
did something good there.
When you attack a person who says a
verse of the Qur'an, or an authentic
hadith from the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
or you're not sure if it's right or
wrong, but you attack them and say terrible
words, indirectly you are attacking the Prophet shallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
That doesn't prove your love.
It means your desire is more important.
Number three, proving the love of the Prophet
shallallahu alaihi wa sallam is making sure that
what you say is correct about him, otherwise
you won't say it.
And if you do say it wrong, you'll
correct it, and you won't care if people
look at you and say things about you.
Even if it's the expense of your credibility,
correcting the statement of the Prophet shallallahu alaihi
wa sallam, if you've said something wrong, shows
the love that you love the Prophet shallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
So that's included in defending his name and
his teachings.
Number three, putting his words above your opinion
shows the love of the Prophet shallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
Number four, saying salawat whenever his name is
mentioned, Muhammad shallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
You don't know it in Arabic, say it
in English for now, peace be upon him.
But try to learn it in Arabic because
it's more profound and it carries more comprehensive
meaning when you say it in Arabic, shallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
Or you can say shallallahu alaihi wa alihi
wa sallam and his family.
Number five, listening, listening and respecting when his
words are narrated to you.
I quote a hadith to you, you have
a friend that's sitting around, you're at home,
you're at work with a bunch of friends
of yours, it doesn't matter where you are,
someone says, you know, I heard the Prophet
shallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, listen.
If the hadith is true, you've respected it.
If it's not true, then you can correct
them or look it up yourself.
But the point is you're respecting the words
of Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
That's why Allah says in the Quran, يَا
أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَرْفَعُوا أَصْوَاتَكُمْ فَوْقَ صَوْتِ
النَّبِيِّ O you who have believed, do not
lift your voices above the voice of the
Prophet.
وَلَا تَجْهَرُوا لَهُ بِالْقَوْلِ كَجَهْرِ بَعْضِكُمْ لِبَعْضٍ And
do not start talking over him like the
way you talk over each other.
And that includes after his death, someone quotes
a hadith for you, says the Rasul shallallahu
alaihi wa sallam said, don't attack them.
Otherwise it's not really showing your love for
the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
For Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in
the Quran, وَمَنْ يُطِعِ اللَّهَ وَالرَّسُولَ فَأُولَئِكَ مَعَ
الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمَ اللَّهُ
عَلَيْهِمْ مِنَ
النَّبِيِّينَ وَالصِّدِّيقِينَ وَالشُّهَدَاءِ وَالصَّالِحِينَ وَحَسُنَ
أُولَئِكَ رَفِيقًا Allah says, and whoever obeys Allah
and the Messenger, whoever obeys Allah and the
Messenger, both of them, then they are the
ones who will be blessed by Allah, meaning
rewarded, and in Paradise with the Prophets, with
the truly honest ones, with the martyrs and
with the righteous, and what a beautiful companionship
that is in the end.
My brothers and sisters, I'll just quickly say
five signs, five ways of how to build
your love for the Prophet ﷺ.
Number one, sending salawat, I just said that
before.
Number two, reading and learning about his life
and his hadiths.
Learn hadiths from the Prophet ﷺ.
Don't listen to those people who tell you
hadiths are man-made.
They have no knowledge.
No matter what they say, dismiss it.
Allah ﷻ told us in the Qur'an
already that he sent this dhikr, this Qur
'an to the Prophet ﷺ لِتُبَيِّنَ لِلنَّاسِ مَا
نُزِّلَ إِلَيْهِمْ so that you can explain and
clarify and expand on the verses that had
been sent to them.
So Rasul ﷺ speaks and he acts the
verse of the Qur'an to make us
understand them more.
So learning hadiths of the Prophet ﷺ, such
as from Bukhari and Muslim, and trying to
understand them is showing the love of the
Prophet ﷺ and reading about his seerah, his
life increases your love for him and understanding
it.
It's better than people when they hear ambiguous
statements or attacking statements on social media because
we're used to now, a lot of people
now have become a little bit intellectually lazy,
I say.
We look for comments.
Probably a beautiful lecture will be up there
but because it's half an hour, we don't
have the patience, some of us, so we
go straight to the comments.
The lecture hasn't even gone in one minute.
We go to some random person what they're
saying and it affects us.
Comments have an effect on us.
You see some person who is saying silly
things and just speaking from their mind and
it affects us.
Be very careful about that.
Number three, applying his sunnah as best as
you can.
You hear about the Prophet ﷺ used to
do this or used to do that.
Loving the Prophet ﷺ means you apply his
sunnah more, even if it's little things.
Number four, avoiding sins in general and number
five, accompanying those who love the Prophet ﷺ.
You know your companionship around you has an
effect on you.
So accompanying people, I know brothers when they
say to me, you know my brother, subhanAllah,
there's this person, whenever I sit with them,
I come out loving the Prophet ﷺ more.
Why?
What happens?
Every time I sit with them, he mentions
the Rasul ﷺ, something about the Prophet ﷺ.
Either I learn something new or my love
for the Prophet ﷺ increases.
Why?
Because we get distracted talking about a whole
lot of other superficial, unnecessary things in our
life.
And the more you talk about them, the
more you start to train your brain to
be thinking about them.
One person said to me, how come I
keep seeing dreams of this and that and
that?
I said, what are you reading?
What are you talking about?
What are you watching?
What are you talking?
What's your environment?
What do you keep hearing?
And when I hear what they tell me,
I say, oh that explains it.
It's your subconscious mind.
What you get yourself used to, you dream
about.
Listen to your dreams.
Your dreams tell you a lot about yourself.
Sometimes it's just you, you, not from Allah
or the shaitan, because there's three types of
dreams, from Allah, from the shaitan, and from
your subconscious mind.
The majority of them are you, your subconscious
mind.
So it tells you about your life.
And sometimes some scholars say that if you
read about the Prophet ﷺ's life, let's say
before you go to sleep, they even say
that this is one of the ways of
getting closer to seeing the Prophet ﷺ.
Because the Prophet ﷺ said, whoever sees me
in their dream will see me in truth.
Sometimes, it doesn't mean that you're special and
better than other people and that now you
know the future or something.
Some people, they take it too far as
well.
They start to make interpretations and they think
they're the Mahdi or something.
That now they have to rule the world.
They think they're Jesus or something.
Layah habibillah, even a non-Muslim can see
the Prophet ﷺ as God.
It doesn't mean that they're the new Mahdi
or something like that.
There have been over 200 Mahdis that have
come out.
And me, in my life, in the last
seven years, I've heard of at least five
Mahdis.
Two of them died.
One of them got imprisoned.
And two, I don't know what's happening.
I remember once in Mecca, we were doing
Umrah with a bunch of students of ours.
I think it was 2014.
We're praying Dhuhr.
The imam's in front of the Ka'bah
and then suddenly someone runs to the microphone
and screams.
He's screaming, I am the Mahdi!
I am the Mahdi!
And then you see the soldiers carry him
and he's just gliding all the way to
wherever they're taking him.
There goes the Mahdi.
Probably something was wrong.
Maybe he was mentally not all there.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala cure him.
But what I'm saying is about people who
take this and they think, okay, everyone who
says I am the Mahdi means they're the
Mahdi.
No, it's not right.
Or they see certain signs and they interpret
it in their own way.
So brothers and sisters, Rasulullah ﷺ always comes
back and tells us, follow what is clear
and what is concise and don't follow interpretations
and things that become delusional.
My dear brothers and sisters, next, we live
however in a world where there will always
be fitna.
Fitna.
And the definition in Islam of the word
fitna means tests, trials and tribulations in life
in both good and bad things.
Tests, trials, tribulations in our life in both
good and bad things.
We get tested, trialed and tribulated with our
luxuries, with our comfort, with our blessings, with
our looks, with our reputation, with our status,
with our position, with our money, with our
business, with our success.
All of these are a fitna.
And we also are tested with trials, tribulations
and tests with the opposite, with lack of
wealth, loss of lives, with certain hardships in
our life, with conflicts, with death, with sickness
and so on.
The word fitna, its origin in Arabic means
to bring out the truth or the purity
or to bring out what is beneath something.
So usually they used to use it for
gold when you can bring out gold from
the earth and it's mixed with other properties.
It goes through a heating process, a difficult
heating process in order to extract the pure
gold out of it.
And the more heat that is and the
more the process is intense, the more pure
the gold comes out.
So Allah SWT gives us fitna through good
and bad.
What comes out of you?
You can come out gold or you can
come out something else.
And my brothers and sisters, here are some
six ways the scholars counted different types of
fitna that happen in our life.
Number one, I'll just call them tests.
Test in temptations, desires and lusts.
First fitna.
Number two, test in wealth, success, ease and
loss.
Second type of fitna.
Number three, test in our families.
Another type of fitna.
Number four, test in tragedies and disasters.
For example, life's hardships, natural disasters, famine and
so on.
Number five, test in our ideologies and religion.
That's probably the most difficult one.
To be tested in our ideologies and our
religion.
Today this is probably the hardest one in
our time that we're living in with the
extreme networking and social media that we have.
Number six, test in conflicts and fights and
confusion between people.
And this is when wars, conflicts, oppression, persecution,
misinformation, cults, killing, like what is happening now.
This is a fitna when people are harmed.
Confusion, conflict, killing, murders, cults, oppression, wars.
Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us to do
something about all this.
He said, the hadith is in Sahih Muslim,
بادروا بالأعمال الصالحة Hasten, be quick, don't procrastinate.
Hasten in doing righteous deeds now.
Don't wait till tomorrow.
Then he said, فستكون فتنا For soon there
shall come tests, trials and tribulations.
كقطع الليل المظلم Like walking in a pitch
dark road.
If you're walking in a pitch dark road,
you don't know what's in front of you,
what beasts lurk, what ditches there are, what
objects there are in front of you.
You don't know where you're going.
That's called fitna.
And this is the worst type of fitna.
When things are mixed and you can't tell
the truth from the false.
And there are doubts and you hear misinformation.
And people interpret things their way.
Then other people they bring you news another
way.
Emotions and stories and news and I don't
know what.
These are called fitna of darkness.
Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, يصبح الرجل مؤمنا
ويمسي كافراء And that time a person by
the morning is a believer, by the evening
is a disbeliever.
ويمسي مؤمنا ويصبح كافراء And by the evening
is a believer, by the morning is a
disbeliever.
يبيع دينه بعرض من الدنيا Why?
He sells his religion and his faith for
a gain of this world.
That's why.
Once again, Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says, Hasten
in righteous good deeds.
Why?
Because when you hasten in righteous good deeds
now, before calamities and trials approach you, they
will be your strength when the trials and
calamities approach you.
But if you're a person who is constantly
playing games with your life, neglectful, your heart
is neglectful, you're wasting it on other things,
always materialism, your Salat is neglected, your fasting
is neglected, your righteousness is neglected, your Quran
is neglected, reflecting on Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala and your deen is neglected.
And suddenly trials and tribulations happen to you,
you're not going to be strong.
These are the people Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
say, they will be believers, next minute they're
not.
One minute you see them at the masjid
at Fajr, by Isha, where is he?
And suddenly someone tells you Allah is apostate,
he's left Islam.
You see him at Isha, by the time
Fajr comes in, possibly he's apostated.
Allah knows what they've read on the internet,
who's told them what, what things have accumulated.
And suddenly you find them leaving Islam.
And we do live in that time now,
brothers and sisters, it's become more and more.
We hear about people leaving faith and leaving
deen.
And a lot of people who manipulate, let
alone those who are leaving the sunnahs to
innovations and leaving what's right to the wrong.
Now you've got people who are trying to
create their own new religions.
They come and tell you their own interpretation
of the Qur'an.
They choose which verses of the Qur'an
and Hadith that they want, and then interpret
them to their desire and going into nitty
gritty stuff without real knowledge, just from their
own head.
And then they think that they're saying something
and affect other people.
Why?
Based on their desires, not based on the
truth, because this suits me, it makes more
sense to me, so I'm going to interpret
the way I want.
And they make posts and they make, you
know, TikToks and I don't know what.
And somehow, I don't know why, maybe it's
like psychological sorcery, that I don't know why,
when something goes on, a post goes on,
suddenly it becomes magically true in our mind.
I don't know why.
You see that same person would say that
to you and you say, ah, shut up
man, you don't know what you're talking about.
Suddenly you see that same person posting on
TikTok, thousands of people believe it.
What is it about the screen that does
this magic?
Is there some kind of classical operant conditioning
of psychology that these algorithms work in?
I think there are.
I think there's studies about that.
They suck you in.
But Rasulullah ﷺ is saying people become believers
in this by night, and so very quickly,
from this to that.
And he said that they sell their religion
for material gain, a status, a position, money,
fame, luxury, comfort, desires, temptations, in the name
of so-called love, attraction, whatever it is.
All that is superficial.
Rasulullah ﷺ says بِعَرَضٍ مِنَ الدُّنْيَةِ عَرَض means
filthy, worthless things of this dunya, which you're
going to leave all behind, it means nothing,
there's no value to it.
Some people will sell their religion for a
little bit of likes because their self-esteem
is low, and instead of seeking support, going
back to Allah who loves them and the
deen which will give them that support and
being around the people who fear Allah and
give them support inshallah ta'ala, you know,
they'll look for other people who are actually
out there to ridicule them, who are jealous,
envious people.
May Allah ﷻ protect us from the bad
company and from our hearts being lost.
Ameen.
Ya Rabbal Alameen.
So brothers and sisters, when you are in
good health and good security, increase in your
acts of righteousness.
Recite your Qur'an, read from the Qur
'an every day.
How many of us here, I'm not going
to ask you to put your hand up,
but just asking you yourself, how many of
you and me here have a daily time
where we read from the Qur'an?
Some of you may not read in Arabic,
majority of us do alhamdulillah, but how many
of us actually have a dedicated time daily?
Even if it's 10 minutes or 15 minutes
to read our Qur'an.
You know, the Qur'an, just reciting it
has its effect on your heart.
Tremendously.
I mean, think about it.
How much time we spend on social media
over and over again, probably into the deep
nights.
Every day, every night.
Where's the Qur'an now?
It's like a little fish in the Pacific
Ocean, the Qur'an.
Somewhere far in the darkness.
And all this stuff that's coming into our
brain, and we're scrolling away at it and
one after the other.
It's killing our brains, killing our hearts, and
I think 50 to 60% of our
depression is from social media.
It's doing something to us, so we're going
to have to cut down on it and
replace it with our time, at least with
the Qur'an.
The Qur'an can clean your heart 10
times more, 10 times over, by reciting just
for about 10 minutes, inshallah.
Dhikr, dua, and so on.
So, hasten to actions of righteousness now, it
will help you in the times of calamity.
What are the times of calamity?
Sickness, poverty, tragedy, losses, right?
Not just conflict and war, but conflict and
war is the biggest one.
Why?
What happens in time of fitna?
What happens when people start to conflict and
harm each other?
And we hear about wars and conflict around
us like what we're hearing today.
What happens to us?
Naturally, when times of conflict and things that
come to us of calamities, we get very
busy.
We get very busy talking about it.
We get very busy spending our times and
days and nights analyzing, interpreting, giving opinions, fighting,
calling each other names, and on and on
and on and on.
How many times have you...
Has it happened to you?
When you're on social media, someone brings up
something and you just get caught in a
cycle that goes on for hours, maybe the
next day.
Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tells us prioritize.
Okay, there are conflicts in the world that
are happening.
Spend a bit of time on it, but
be careful, you can go into a spiral
addiction where your salah is neglected and your
true duties start to be neglected.
Even your own family, your mother, your father,
your husband, your wife, your children, your children,
your children.
They don't obey us all the time, but
they never fail to imitate us, and then
we think what happened to them.
My brothers and sisters, Allah says in the
Quran a reminder.
He says in Surah Al-Hajj, verse 11,
Allah says, And you will see among people
those who worship Allah as if walking on
an edge of a cliff, barely hanging on,
right on the edge, doing the absolute bare
minimum, and their heart is not really with
it.
So long as they're nice and comfortable and
happy, they'll just walk like on the edge.
That's a metaphor.
But when a fitna, when a trial befalls
them, of goodness, of goodness, they stay where
they are.
They become complacent.
I'm good.
Allah must love me.
My business is going good.
My children are healthy.
They say Alhamdulillah, but their practices of the
deen are still very minimal, like on the
edge of a cliff.
Then Allah says, But when a calamity befalls
them which they don't like, انقلب على وجه
You find very easily they fall flat on
their face.
They lose everything they had.
Why did God do this to me?
They say.
What did I ever do?
I've been praying.
I've been fasting.
Why did Allah do this to me?
Maybe there's doubt.
I've made dua, and my dua didn't get
accepted.
How come calamities are happening in the world?
And suddenly, some of them go on to
social media to find validation, and all they
do is the algorithm works with you.
It always says, Here, I'll give you stuff
that will make you feel better about yourself.
And it just makes you worse and worse.
And then this person starts to lose even
their deen.
Because they were worshipping on the edge.
Right?
خسر الدنيا والآخرة Allah says something crucial here.
He says, He or she loses both this
world and the next.
Depression, anxiety, doubts, loses their deen, starts hating
everyone, isolates, becomes lonely, loses in the world.
والآخرة And even in the hereafter.
ذلك هو الخسران المبين That is the greatest
loss.
So, what do we do?
We return back.
Reignite your connection with Allah by practicing your
dhikr, your Qur'an, your salah.
Increase in that.
Start doing.
Wallahi, your heart starts clearing up insha'Allah
ta'ala.
Rasulullah ﷺ used to say, Take advantage of
five before five.
Your life before your death, your health before
your sickness, your youth before your old age,
and your free time before you become busy.
How many is that?
Four.
And your life, did I say life before
death?
Okay, I must have missed that one.
I forgot.
But you got the point.
No?
Yes, yes, yes.
Your wealth before your poverty.
When you have wealth, before you don't have
it.
JazakAllah Khair.
Hadith is in Rawahu an-Nasa'i.
Rasulullah ﷺ, he tells us, عبادة في الهرج
كهجرة إليه Narrated by Muslim.
Worshipping during times of chaos and conflicts is
like migrating to join me.
What does this mean?
It means that people generally get occupied night
and day with conflicts.
Who's right?
Who's wrong?
My opinion and analysis.
His opinion and his analysis.
Night and day.
You're with or against and you're still where
you are.
They solve the whole world's problems in one
little seating and you're still where you are.
Haven't solved anything.
Just words back and forth.
Okay, we're mates now and then we go
home.
In the times of conflict, Rasulullah ﷺ says,
busy most of your time.
Be extra busy with acts of worship.
Why did he say that?
Because he knows that when conflicts happen, people
busy.
It takes away our time.
And what happens with it is we start
to lose ourselves and perhaps tomorrow you and
I can die.
What do you want to die on?
Rasulullah ﷺ says, in times of conflict, if
you can do something about it, you have
a skill, you have an ability, you have
knowledge to change something in the world, go
ahead and do it.
But if you're like me, a lay person
just sitting around, I don't know, for example,
much about geopolitics.
I don't know about world economics.
And then I sit there and I act
like I do and I want to talk
left right and sound like I know everything.
I go on social media and make a
post by going and reading a couple of
entries in Google and then say, now I
know everything.
It's not my place.
I'm wasting my time.
If I can't do anything about it, let
me focus on what I can do.
Our children, your mother and father, be good
to your neighbors.
Go and learn something that's beneficial.
Recite a few verses of the Qur'an.
Memorize a few verses of the Qur'an.
Learn a few hadiths from Prophet ﷺ.
Go to the masjid and sit in a
class.
Continue to keep doing that, brothers and sisters.
Allah did not ask you to solve the
world's problems.
Make dua for your brothers and sisters.
So if you can do something, do it.
If you can't, don't.
Don't busy yourself.
Rasulullah ﷺ says, it's like migrating to me.
If you busy yourself with worship and acts
that is within your circle, within your capacity.
And I finish with this great hadith and
then some advice about how to maintain staying
well in times of conflict.
I love this.
Someone asked, what is your favorite hadith?
And among my top 10 is this one.
Ever since I was a child, this one
has always stuck with me, subhanAllah.
The hadith is in Sahih Ibn Habban, 7238
and also a shorter version in Sahih Muslim
2889 and also in Bukhari, they're similar to
it.
That a companion by the name of Thawban,
radhiAllahu anhu, he was a freed slave by
the Prophet ﷺ.
He brought him and freed him.
And he became the one who manages the
Prophet's ﷺ expenses.
And he accompanied the Prophet ﷺ nearly all
his life everywhere from a young age till
he grew older.
Thawban, radhiAllahu anhu, he narrates that he heard
the Prophet ﷺ say, the Prophet ﷺ said
in front of his companions, Allah, Allah, gathered
the earth before my eyes.
Rasul ﷺ saw the entire earth in front
of him in present and in future.
And I could see all of its areas
from east to west.
This is an exaggerated form in Arabic to
mean east, west, north, south, the entire world.
I saw the entire earth east to west.
And I saw in the future that my
nation, my ummah, their kingdom, the kingdom that
he left behind.
What is that?
The kingdom of deen, of Islam.
And the ummah and its possessions and power
will reach all that Allah ﷻ showed me
in that vision.
They will reach east to west.
And truly we did.
And then he said, I saw that I
was given the two treasures, the red and
the white.
In Arabic when you say red and white,
it means gold and silver.
And truly the Muslims conquered Persia and the
different parts that were conquered by the Byzantines
in the east and the west.
And then he ﷺ said, And I asked
my Lord, I asked my Lord for my
ummah three things.
Number one, I asked Allah to not annihilate
and destroy my ummah to extinction by an
outside enemy that wants to extinct them.
And Allah gave me that, that He will
not allow for any external enemy to annihilate
this ummah.
This ummah will stay till the last hour
and not be annihilated by any external enemy.
Then I asked Allah to not annihilate my
ummah to extinction by an epidemic that or
a plague that erupts within them.
بِسَنَةٍ بِعَامَّةٍ Plague or an epidemic.
And Allah gave me that.
And then I asked Allah that we are
not destroyed by fighting one another within ourselves.
But He did not give me that.
The first two Allah gave us, not the
last one.
The fitna with the inside, Allah says you
have to deal with it.
Which means Allah will not give you victory
until you within as an ummah settle at
least most of your affairs.
That kind of indicates that sometimes we'll make
dua for victory but there's so many of
its ingredients are missing.
Dua is not ready yet.
Maybe Allah SWT knows that within our ummah
and our ranks.
The reason that we're in the state we're
in is because within our ranks we're destroying
each other.
Then Rasulullah ﷺ however gave hope.
He said, even if the whole world gathered
against this ummah they will not be able
to destroy them unless they start among each
other, kill each other and destroy each other.
Then the Prophet ﷺ he says, As a
matter of fact, the thing I fear upon
my ummah are people who pose as leaders.
They could be religious leaders, political leaders, influential
leaders, any type of people who influence and
lead.
They lead people astray.
He said, I fear that it will come.
So we have to be careful who we
follow but at the same time be careful
who we attack.
We don't know who they are.
But Rasulullah ﷺ said, I fear that.
There are people who really don't, are not
religious, they're not knowledgeable or maybe they're knowledgeable
in the deen but they don't care about
the deen.
They'll follow some kind of desire, status, position
and they will know certainly what is right
but they will teach you what is wrong.
So a leader, remember, is not a real
scholar.
Al-'ulamah who fear Allah ﷻ are known for
their God-fearing.
Don't attack them, my dear brothers and sisters,
ever, ever.
Calling this person that and calling this person
that.
These leaders that Rasulullah ﷺ is telling us
about, they're different.
They're these new faces that come up.
Other scholars don't know about them or they're
shunned by others and then they truly tell
you things that are really outrageous and they
find people with desires that will follow them
as well and they start to influence you
as well.
Things that are clear black and white.
We're talking about like, even today we have
these types of leaders who come up, they
look like they're knowledgeable and they tell you,
for example, alcohol is not haram.
Hijab is not compulsory.
Salat, you don't have to pray five times
a day.
This and that and that and that.
These are the leaders that are leading people
astray.
And then people make out of certain influences
leaders and they have many followers and start
to propagate their false teachings.
Then the Prophet ﷺ, he said, when the
sword has been placed among my ummah, it
will never be lifted.
This is the greatest problem and the sword
was placed in the ummah at the time
of Uthman r.a. After him, the fitna
will never stop.
So if you guys are expecting that trouble
will stop, it will never stop.
The fitna will always be there and we
can do nothing about it.
However, it is all a test for where
you stand.
Do you let this fitna make you leave
your deen, leave your salah, talk badly about
Allah ﷻ?
You look at your identity and say, why
the * am I Muslim?
Look at those others, they're advancing, they've got
technology.
You have iman.
The problem is not Islam, my dear brothers
and sisters.
Islam encouraged us to go into business, to
go into advancement, technological advancement, engineering, science, maths,
medicine, astronomy, everything.
We were once great leaders of the world
in all these disciplines in the 11th and
12th century.
The heart of the world, the greatest library
of the world and knowledge was from there.
Physicists and scientists, astronomers and medicine, they all
owe it to the Muslim scholars of those
times.
Rasul ﷺ told us to do that.
The problem is in the Muslim ummah, they're
lazy.
Not all of them, but the problem is
those who say this, the Muslim himself and
herself.
So Islam told us to advance, but then
we look and think, oh, they're better than
us or whatever.
So the idea is that our identity has
to be the strongest, inshallah, within us, within
our families and as a community.
Then the Prophet ﷺ he said, and the
last hour will not come until groups of
my ummah will follow the polytheists.
What does it mean to follow the polytheists?
In two ways.
They convert to polytheism and number two, they
remain Muslim by name, but they adopt polytheistic
ideas and ideologies into the religion.
Like real polytheistic ideas.
For example, Buddhist ideas, Hindu ideas, Zoroastrian ideas
of the ancient Babylonians and the Persians after
them.
So you've got to be very careful.
And he says groups of my ummah will
mix their deen with polytheism or they will
convert to polytheism until idols are worshipped again.
Now idols come in different forms.
Don't always think the statue.
Nobody worships a statue.
No Muslim will do that.
But idols come in different forms.
They could be celestial planets.
They could be an idea.
It can be forces that are imagined.
For example, superstitious beliefs, stuff like that.
And he said, and in my ummah there
will be 30 liars.
Each one of them will claim he is
a prophet.
Even among them are women.
All of them are liars.
And he says, there is no other prophet
after me.
وَإِنِّي خَاتَمُ النَّبِيِّينَ I am the seal and
the end.
You find people, they come up and they
interpret this word khatam in some bizarre way.
It does not make sense with Arabic.
They make it work into it.
It doesn't make sense with the context.
And they just bring up and say, oh,
he is the seal, meaning he is the
best.
Subhanallah.
The context of the verses in the Quran
and Hadith are very clear.
وَأَنَا خَاتَمُ النَّبِيِّينَ I am the seal of
the prophets, meaning the end.
The Arabs, whenever they use the word khatam,
it means the end.
But some people, because of their desires or
because of some man they want to follow,
no, they have to work it in.
No, that person is the prophet.
We would just want to say, whoever says
that, Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he is telling
you, you have disbelieved.
And it's in the Quran.
I'm not going to go through the whole
thing.
One day we'll talk about it.
And he said, لَا نَبِيَّ بَعْدِي There is
no prophet after me.
And Allah says in the Quran, the hour
has come for the people.
The time of people's reckoning has drawn near,
and yet they turn aside in heedlessness.
Whenever any fresh surah comes to them from
their Lord, they barely heed it and remain
immersed in play, their hearts being set on
other concerns.
The wrongdoers whisper to one another, this person
is no more than a mortal like yourselves.
Will you then be enchanted by sorcery while
you see?
He said, My Lord knows well all that
is spoken in the heavens and the earth.
He is all-knowing, all-hearing.
They say, nay, these are confused dreams.
Nay, he has forged it.
Nay, he is a poet.
So let him bring us a sign, even
as the messengers of the past were sent
with signs.
The people of the past used to mock
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that way, and
mock the ayat that way, and interpret them
in their own way.
And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, I
and the last hour were raised like this.
And he pointed with his two fingers like
this.
Meaning that there is not much long before
the last hour comes, and my prophethood coming
out.
And it also means you got no other
religion and no other prophet after me.
It's me and the last hour, that's it.
So you better follow it.
It's the end, it's the last one.
It's the final Quran, the final message, the
final words, the final Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
That's it, no prophet after me.
But after all that, وَلَا تَزَالُ طَائِفَةٌ مِّنْ
أُمَّتِي عَلَى الْحَقِّ But have no doubt about
it.
There will always be a faction of my
ummah dispersed in the world.
That they are always still maintaining and standing
on the truth.
The truth of what the Quran and the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam taught and came with.
Properly, the way he came with it.
They will always be manifested and they will
be seen.
They always come up.
They are not hiding in caves.
Subhanallah, look at social media now.
We have ulama popping up so much.
People in my days, we used to think,
Sheikh so and so, I dream to ever
meet this person.
Subhanallah, now they are popping up on social
media.
Do you remember in the past, we used
to look at those who are my age,
actors and performers on TV.
And we think, wow, imagine seeing them.
And then now they all pop up on
social media.
They don't really mean anything.
They are like everyone else, like popping up.
And then ulama are popping up.
So Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam tells us, Those
people on the truth, they will pop up.
They are not hiding and you will hear
them.
These types of people, anyone who betrays them
or calls them a liar, can never harm
them.
You can't do anything to them.
They will always be on the truth.
And Allah SWT therefore will keep this deen
and this Islam and Muslims till the end
of this world.
Nobody can ever take them away and the
teachings of true Islam will never ever go
away.
Try to make another Quran.
Just try and make another surah or one
more ayah.
Can't do it.
People have tried and some of them converted
or reverted to Islam by trying.
I end this with an advice of how
to stay on the right track and in
good health mentally and religiously, spiritually in the
times of conflict, confusion and triumph and tribulations.
Remember we said tribulations, triumphs and trials, they
come in many ways.
But the ultimate way is when people start
to harm each other and you don't know
the truth from the false and then you
are stuck there and you don't know which
way to go.
Number one.
So I will give you how many.
I will give you.
I won't say numbers anymore.
So I will just give you and you
count them.
Number one.
Learn and stick.
Learn from a qualified shaykh, imam, scholar.
Not just from any person.
From somebody who is qualified and known for
their knowledge or grab a book that is
written by someone who is endorsed and qualified.
Learn your tawheed in belief and in practice.
First one is tawheed.
Your monotheism has to be right.
Otherwise everything else is lost.
Number two.
Maintain your connection with the Qur'an.
Maintain your connection with the Qur'an, my
friends.
If you don't know how to read, learn.
It doesn't matter.
It's a very valuable time that you are
wasting.
Some way.
Go online.
Find out who is teaching Qur'an Arabic.
It doesn't matter.
Pay a bit of money.
Not a problem inshaAllah.
At least learn how to read.
And live with it everyday.
Reading even if it's 15 minutes.
Maintain the Qur'an in your life.
Number three.
Dua.
And I'll teach you at least one dua
to say in the times of calamities and
confusion.
Allahumma inni a'udhu bika minal fitani maa
dhahara minha wa maa batan Repeat after me.
Allahumma inni a'udhu bika minal fitani maa
dhahara minha wa maa batan So, oh Allah,
my Lord, with all your lofty names and
glorious attributes, I seek refuge in you to
protect me from all trials and tribulations and
confusions.
What I manifested in front of me and
whatever is hidden.
Number four.
Maintain love and following the Messenger salallahu alayhi
wasalam.
Because it and the Qur'an keeps you
on the straight path.
And what really matters in the end.
Also, remember what I told you before.
What the loving of the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wasalam means and how to build it.
Finally, two more things.
Number five.
Staying away from misinformation.
Ambiguous ideas.
Following anything you hear or read without knowledge,
advice or investigation.
Stay away from that.
لا تقف ماليس لك به علم Don't follow
on with things that are ambiguous and you
have no knowledge about.
Just go ahead with it.
Avoid acting on self-derived interpretations.
Don't just read and say something and go
to your friends and try to say this
is what it means.
And you start fighting about it as if
you know.
No, we don't know.
I get very careful to talk about things
I don't know about.
And when I do, I suffer.
Because it's happened before.
It never happened before when someone expert comes
up and refutes what you had said.
So be very careful inshallah.
And lastly, number six.
But if the issue is clear as the
sun to you.
Clear as the sun.
That you're an expert and knowledgeable about these
ambiguous matters.
And you know how to see the right
from the wrong truly.
And able to affect a positive change, then
do so.
But if you cannot, then don't get into
it.
Don't waste your time, your breath and your
energy in your fights.
So my brothers and sisters, finally, I ask
Allah SWT.
Finally, finally.
How many times did I say finally today?
Five times?
Four times?
Okay, finally.
Brothers and sisters, always ask Allah.
We ask Allah SWT with his glorious names
and attributes.
To protect us from all kinds of tribulations,
confusions and trials.
May Allah SWT keep our hearts steadfast on
the truth.
May Allah SWT protect our brothers and sisters,
the ummah.
From the outside enemy.
And the enemy from within.
And from the calamities that befall them.
May Allah SWT show us the right from
the wrong.
And may Allah SWT show us the right
that brings us closer to paradise.
And the wrong which brings us closer to
hellfire.
And assist us in following the one to
paradise.
And staying away from that.
Which takes us to Jahannam.
May Allah SWT forgive your sins and ours.
Young people, youth.
Wallahi, you are in our hearts.
Young people.
I want to talk a lot today about
young people.
But we changed the topic.
But I really wanted to say young people.
Oh elders, oh parents.
Please my brothers and sisters.
Show them compassion.
Show them mercy.
Look after them.
Don't say to them bad words.
Don't denigrate them.
Don't tell them you are good for nothing.
And all those words.
They have challenges far beyond my generation and
yours.
Wallahi, there are times, I swear to Allah,
I tear.
Because they go through a lot.
And you know this generation, they show you
sometimes that they are playing games.
And they are laughing.
It is their way of hiding and covering
up for the pain that they are going
through.
I get DMs and messages from young people
all the time.
And you think to yourself, they are just
being obnoxious or rude.
But Wallahi, in truth, they are suffering.
So brothers and sisters, if you are a
parent, share with your child.
Start to sit with them heart to heart.
Support them.
Be with them.
Listen to what they have to say.
Acknowledge what they are going through.
Try not to judge them.
Understand them.
Share with yourself, with them, your stories, your
vulnerabilities.
Don't just block it and it is all
just instructions and rules and lectures.
Go and do things that they like.
Know what their interests are.
And sit with them and do it.
What, they like to play games?
Okay, play with them a few games.
Sometimes, you know, just doing that helps.
Talk to them like very open.
And tell them, say anything you like.
Wallahi, I won't judge you son, daughter.
Respect their privacy as much as you can.
And let them know that you are not
going to shun them.
That is how the Prophet ﷺ taught us.
Brothers and sisters, wallahi, our children, subhanallah, Rasul
ﷺ told us to look after them and
he commanded us and he bequested us.
The way he dealt with the young people
was gentleness.
And I know some of our children and
youngsters, they are obnoxious.
I know that.
We have to be patient, my dear brothers
and sisters.
Patience and firm at the same time.
So I am not saying, you know, just
let them do what they want.
So may Allah ﷻ protect our youngsters and
keep them away from the false and challenging
ideologies.
From the temptations that lurk all around them
in and out.
آمِن يا رب العالمين And forgive their sins
and have mercy upon them and all of
our ummah.
هذا وصلى الله و نبينا محمد والحمد لله
رب العالمين