The Best in Islam #01 – Age

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. I'd like to welcome you dear viewers, to this the first episode of our series, the best in Islam, in which we'll 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 will 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 wasallam as saying pyrocam At one LUCAM Amara, well, AXA Nukem, UCLA aka the best of you are those who live the longest, and are best in character. This hadith is collected by Achmed 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, in this hadith 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 Allah 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 lot 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 we live 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, it's too little to me Mama Garimella clock, I was only sent to

perfect for you the highest of moral character traits. So he summarized Islam, all of Islam in

the topic or 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 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 of 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 Allah is not going to reward you for living long, simply because you live 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 blessing be upon him is about character. So this is what ultimately makes that person the best. Having lived a long life, but leaving 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, the 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 want to 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, alive 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 ourself and our fellow human beings with regards to God, with regards 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 have good character, then you should

let them marry you

You should let them marry.

He stressed this issue of good character a person may be religious in the sense that okay, he prays five times a day. He fasts, 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.

A Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

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Cry they calm. Welcome back to this episode of the best in Islam, where we began looking at age. What did the Prophet sallahu wa salam 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 Hadith

the prophet is recorded by Jabir ibn Abdullah, as having said pyrocam at walakum Amara, where I said, Oh, come on Allah, the best of you are those who live the longest and our best in deeds. 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 Allah subhanaw taala. 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

Job that have nabbed Allah, 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 to small Prophet Muhammad Salah Ahmed 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 or 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 tried to do all the good that we can. Because we can never know ultimately, what is really a big deed.

And what is really a small deal, because many deeds we may consider to be big, Allah 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 deeds 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,

our 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 are the best good deeds, it means then, that you have 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 deed too small to do, where the prophet Muhammad Salem 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 deed. 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, you know, Allah is gonna forgive us no problem. We're doing a lot of big things. Is that a 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're 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 deeds, which are evil, now created a huge bonfire. So is the warning

that we should not consider or scorn minor or small, evil deeds, 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 Bacara in which the Prophet was quoted as saying, credo NASS man Tala Amaru waha. sunnah Emmylou was Sharon NAS, man Tala Amaru, who Osama who 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.

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

there are viewers

combining

our initial hadith of Abu Huraira in which the Prophet sallahu wa sallam 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 aleikum wa rahmatullah.

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