Bilal Philips – Age

			Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. I like to welcome you Dear viewers, to this the first
episode of our series, the best in this lab, in which we will be looking at what Allah and His
Messenger have declared to be the best in all aspects of life
		

			and human affairs. This is a base on a compilation of Hadith and Quranic verses, which I put
together in a book called The best in Islam. And we'll be following basically an alphabetical order
of matter. In this episode, we will be looking at age. What did Allah and His Messenger have to say,
on age, we have a hadith which has been narrated by Abu huraira, in which he quoted the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as saying CARICOM at one lucam. Amara
		

			arsenicum. Allah aka, the best of you, are those who live the longest, and are best in character.
This Hadith is collected by Ahmed and is declared authentic. Now, the implications of this hadith we
hear Hadith. And oftentimes, we might use them quote them, without really understanding what is the
actual meaning of what is being said. And this heads we have two points.
		

			The first point focuses on length of life.
		

			And the second point, deals with good character. Now,
		

			if we look at the issue of the length of life, one would have to say that this is not our choice,
that the law would make some people's lives long, and some people's lives short, and then declare
them to be the best, because they had a long life or a short life would seem to be unfair, since
this is something beyond our control. However, the point is that when we look at the length of life,
and the time that we had to live,
		

			when a law speaks about that long life, it is a long life. In good character, it's not just a long
life, meaning simply because you had a long life, he lives to 110,
		

			you are the best? No, because there are many people who may live to 110, who are evil, very bad
people. So the statement of the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, is clarified is
not left, merely in terms of length of life, but its length of life, which is filled with good
behavior. Why? Because the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him himself, summarize the
essence of the message of Islam in terms of good behavior, he said, in the Bible is too little Tell
me Mama Carmela, I was only sent to perfect for you the highest of moral character traits. So he
summarized Islam, all of Islam in
		

			the topic are based on the topic of morality, good character. So, this gives us significance real
significance to this statement of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. It stresses for us how important
character is. So if your length of life was only 20 years, but in the five years or eight years, in
which you are classified
		

			As an adult, after puberty, you're classified as an adult, in which your deeds are now recorded, and
you're held accountable for them.
		

			You only had eight years, from the time you were 12, to the time you were 20, and you died at the
age of 20.
		

			That's eight years out of the 20. So for the person who lives to the age of 80, who has had 68 years
of adult life, his proportion of good have that 68 years,
		

			maybe the last 20 years of it was actually good. So 20 out of 68, is not a very high percentage,
whereas that person who died at the age of 20, he had only eight years, but all of the eight years
were good, then, who had the better life, the young person who died at the age of 20. So this is how
in the end, it is calculated, that long life it is really the, the good part of that long life in
relationship to the life as a whole. Because a lie is not going to reward you for living long,
simply because you lived long, because he is the one who determines whether you live long or you
live short, your life is short. So Allah is most just so we don't need to feel jealous of those who
		

			end up living longer, or who die earlier. All of it is balanced in the scheme of things which Allah
has created for human being in his life. And the biggest emphasis in this statement of the Prophet,
may God's peace of blessing be upon him is about character. So this is what ultimately makes that
person the best. Having lived a long life, but living it with good character. This is now stressing
the importance of that which we have control over ourselves, what type of people we are how we
relate to other human beings, how we relate to the world around us, how we relate to God, because
when we speak about good character, a good character is not just restricted to how we deal with our
		

			fellow human beings. It begins with how we relate to God. If we obey God's commands, then we have
good character with regards to God's commands. With regards to God. If we disobey God, if we worship
others besides God, though, we may be doing the best of things, relative to fellow human beings, we
might be very charitable, etc. But we don't worship God.
		

			We don't believe in God, we have rejected God, or we worship others. Besides God, all of that is bad
character, which destroys the value of our life, with regards to the life to come.
		

			In the sight of those people in this world, our life may seem to have a lot of value.
		

			But in the sight of God, the value is
		

			minimal. So this encourages us to work on what is essential in our life,
		

			our character, to make ourselves better human beings, to always focus on what is really important
with regards to ourselves, and our fellow human beings, with regards to God, with regard to the
environment in which we live, our character is expressed in all of these various areas. So looking
back at the statement of the Prophet, may God's peace and blessings be upon him, that the best of us
are those who live the longest, and have good character. This is an encouragement for us to be on
our best behavior as much as we possibly can. And this is the criterion which makes people good in a
variety of different perspectives. Even the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, had
		

			stressed that if somebody comes and wants to marry your daughter, and they are of good character,
religious, God fearing and I've got
		

			character, then you should
		

			let them marry, you should let them marry
		

			his stress this issue of good character a person may be religious in the sense that okay he prays
five times a day, you fast Ramadan, he does all the basic things that are required of him. However,
he is not good character. So what does that mean? It means that those religious values are not
impacting on his or her character. We'll be taking a short break here now. And we'll be continuing
after the break with the best in Islam with regards to age.
		

			Sound white, a calm welcome back to this episode of the best in Islam, where we began looking at
age, what did the Prophet sallallahu wasallam have to say about the best with regards to age. And
the first part, we looked at age with regards to character, and how having a good character and a
long life made one the best, the next headies
		

			the profit is recorded by job ID and bin Abdullah, as having said he article at walakum. Amara
Arsenal comm Amala the best of you are those who live the longest, and are best, indeed, the best of
you are those who live the longest, and are best in deeds.
		

			So we discussed about the issue of living longest, and how that is in the control of a loss rantala.
So we're not actually rewarded because we live to the oldest age since he was the one who determined
it. But to the degree that in that period of time, which he has given us, the proportion of good
that we have done in it is the greatest. So on one hand,
		

			the best is determined by character. And in this narration
		

			of Jabba Jabir ibn Abdullah, Companion of the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, the
best is determined by having done the best deeds. Now, there is a relationship between the two,
because a person who has good character should be a person who does good deeds. These two are
inseparable, because to say that a person has good character, but his deeds are bad. That's a
contradiction in terms, how could you possibly have good character and be known for evil deeds, so
the two don't go together. Having good character is what drives a person to do the right thing to do
what is good to do what is best. So this statement of the prophet may God's peace and blessings be
		

			upon him, encourages us to be engaged in righteous deeds, whatever time he has given us, we should
try to maximize the good that we can do. And we should never consider any good too small Prophet
Muhammad, Solomon said that, that we should not consider any good deed too small, not to do, it's
insignificant, it's of no real value. No, every deed has value and what you are, I may consider to
be a very small and virtually meaningless deed.
		

			Allah may consider it to be a very great deed. Its impact may be tremendous, though you thought or I
thought that it was only something very small, so we don't
		

			gauge deeds. This is a big good deed. Let me do this one. This is a little deed. no point doing
though. No, we try to do all the good that we can. Because we can never know ultimately, what is
rarely a big deed.
		

			And what is rarely a small deal, because many deeds we may consider to be big. A law considers them
to be small, and many that we consider to be smaller law considers to be big. He has given them
greater impact. So it's not our job to grade these
		

			And choose to do them if we think they're big enough to earn us a particular reward know, whenever a
good deed is presented to us, we should be the first to do it, we should never, never bypass an
opportunity to do good, because ultimately,
		

			I judgment is based on our scale of good deeds, the number of deeds and the value of those deeds,
		

			the greater the chance for us to succeed in the life to come. Similarly, we should try our best
because when the Prophet sallallahu wasallam, may God's peace and blessings be upon him said that
the best of you are those who live the longest, and do the most or the best good deeds, it means
then, that you've also avoided evil deeds, because that is the opposite, you would be the worst if
your deeds were many and evil. So when we're encouraged to seek good, find the good deeds, do them
not consider any
		

			good deeds too small to do, where the Prophet Mohammed Salim had even said that among the deeds of
faith is removal of harm from the road that we walk in a broken bottle, a stone that somebody makes
chip on a banana peel that somebody may slip on, just removing that from the way that people walk is
a good thing. And it's a part of our faith. So we should never consider also
		

			any evil deed too small or too insignificant to worry about. This is part of the problem that many
of us get caught up in. We may be doing evil things, but they're small things we consider them to be
small things. And so we figure well in our lives, gonna forgive us no problem. We're doing a lot of
big things, a lot of good things. So the little things, no big deal. But the reality is that those
little things can add up. And the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, warned us about
this. He said that those scorn minor evil deeds.
		

			They are like twigs that people gather, seeking to create a bonfire, they go around
		

			the valley,
		

			gathering twigs here and there. They want to make a bonfire and cook some bread. They don't have
enough, but when they go around the valley and they gather up the little bits and pieces of wood,
twigs, put them together. Now they have a huge bonfire, those little insignificant these which are
evil, now created a huge bonfire. So is the warning
		

			that we should not consider or scorn minor or small, evil deed, we should try to avoid them as much
as possible. And the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him had put this together. In
another Hadith narrated by Abu Bakr Ah, and which the Prophet was quoted as saying, hydro NASS, man
tala amaru waha. Suna Malou was shadow NASS man tala amaru was
		

			the best of people is he whose life is long, and his deeds are good. And the worst of people is he
whose life is long, and his deeds are evil. So
		

			the worst of people, and that is the state that we seek to avoid, or those who live long lives, but
their deeds are evil, the product of their faith is a corrupt fruit, it is rotted, so the value of
their life has
		

			been lost last.
		

			So this hadith
		

			brings both sides for us to reflect on.
		

			Striving on one hand, to do as much good as we can. Whenever the opportunity presents itself. We
should also strive to avoid as much evil as we can, no matter how small that evil may appear to us.
So
		

			Dear viewers,
		

			combining
		

			our initial hadith of Abu huraira, in which the Prophet sallallahu wasallam said that the best of us
are those whose lives are long, and our character is good, combining that
		

			with good deeds, and avoiding evil deeds, we have a program for life, a program that we should
strive to follow to
		

			guide ourselves with. And it is based on the prophetic guidance
		

			which came in the explanations of the prophet
		

			may God's peace and blessings be upon him, as well as in the verses of the Quran, having good
character. This is the essence of Islam and truly good character should produce good deeds and
should cause one to minimize one's evil deeds. Of course, as human beings, we will all commit some
evil deeds, some wrong some sense, and that is why we have within the scope of Islam repentance, by
which we may remove the consequence of our evil deeds. But our good character is what is going to
keep us on the right path. Keep us in doing as many good deeds as possible. And with that, we'd like
to close this episode of the best in Islam, understanding that the best lies in good character,
		

			good deeds, and avoiding as much evil as we possibly can. And in the next episode, we'll be looking
at the best in Islam with regards to other aspects of human life and human endeavors. Salaam Alaikum
warahmatullahi wa barakato. Si.
		

			Si.
		

			Si.
		

			Si
		

			pray when you
		

			pray, praise him ever
		

			say