Husain Sattar – Trying hard to fail

Now,

I remember a few very funny things from

the course.

I remember one thing, one line that I

always use with my students when I teach,

actually not, I don't have the to teach

those types of courses, but I teach medical

school. So, one of the funny things that

he said in the very beginning of the

course, he said,

this is the course, this is the background

of the course, and he said that, and

there will be an exam at the end

of the course.

There will be an exam at the end

of the course. And then he read, the

Mufti was reading because it was written in

the manual, in the manual of the course,

which was like the text of the course

notes. It said, and you will have to

work very hard to fail.

Not only every teacher would say, what? You

will have to work very hard to pass,

right? Or you will have to work very

hard to get an a. But subhanAllah, this

is the Islamic teaching, right? You will have

to work very hard to fail. You will

have to try to shoot yourself in the

foot and actually, you know, wanna fail this

course. Same thing with the way Allah subhanahu

wa ta'ala treats us on the day of

judgement. You know, in deen, you have to

work very hard to fail. You make wuduwuduwuduwuduw

wipes away your sins. You pray prayer, prayer

wipes away your sins. You make a

lifetime worth of mistake, Hajj wipes away your

sins. You make Tawba wipes away your sins.

You have to try. You have to try

to not receive the mercy of Allah. I

mean, you enter into Ramadan, it wipes you

clean. I mean, how many opportunities Allah subhanahu

wa ta'ala has created for us?

The only way to get to jahannam is

to try to go to jahannam. You have

to take yourself and force yourself into jahannam,

almost.

That's the extent of, the way the deen

is the the foundations of the deen. And

so, you know, every teacher in my life,

every teacher in my life has said, you'll

have to work very hard to do well.

Nobody has ever said to me, you have

to work very hard to fail.

Yet, I remember and that's why I remember

that line so vividly in my mind. You

have to make every effort possible if you

wanna fail.

Okay.

That was one important thing and that's the

initial part of the course. And then there's

one thing I remember from the very end

of the course.

At the very end of the course,

Sheikh Zulfkar called the people who were helping

with the course into the room. Now, you

know, there were the course attendees who were

all, yeah, olema,

and then there were the people who were

helping, you know, just making sure that the

course went smoothly. So he called them all

into the room,

and he said that, there's gonna be an

exam at the end of this course,

and,

after the exam,

we're going to hand out awards to all

of the attendees.

And then he looked at us and he

said,

you have to come up with one award

for each person.

It doesn't matter what. You have to come

up with one award for each person, and

you have to make some excuse that there

be some award for everybody.

Some aspect of that person has to be

rewarded.

So,

we started thinking that how can we reward

everybody? You can say, okay, you were the

top in the class, you were the 2nd

in the class, you were 3rd in the

class, you were the one who read in

the class, but you can't reward everyone.

So we made a list that okay, like

this was the top in the class, he

was 2nd top in the class, he was

3rd top in the class, these were the

top 10 in the class, this was

the person who read in the class, this

was the person who set up the class,

this was the person who organized the class,

this was the person who sent up the

flyers about the class, we made a whole

list.

Then they took it with somebody took it

to Sheikh Zulfikar and he started looking and

obviously you could not include everybody in the

list. Maybe we had included 20 for awards

and the other 20 we couldn't figure out

how to award. So he said that, okay.

He was the heaviest in the class. Give

him one award for that. He's looking at

the names. Then he said that he was

the most smiling in the class. I remember

that he smiled the most in the class,

so give

him one

award. Then he said that, you know, this

one was the tallest in the class. You

didn't you didn't give him an award. So

1 by 1 by 1, everybody got covered.

And then I started thinking, actually, it didn't

hit me until today. When I was having

this discussion with that person that, subhanallah, that

scene that's still embedded in my brain is

this, Ajib, how these things pop up out

of nowhere. That's exactly the scene of the

day of judgment.

Yani, plus

will make every excuse to put somebody in

jannah.

Every excuse to put somebody in Jannah. Now

you know the extremes of it, the famous

example that we've that we've mentioned multiple times

that comes in hadith, where there was a

woman who basically was selling herself,

yet on one occasion she saw a dog

that was thirsty and she used she got

the water for the dog and gave it

to the dog and that was sufficient to

put her into jannah.

Yani, Allah

will seek a

reason

to reward

every person that has any ounce of sincerity

within them.

This is the beauty of our Deen, and

this is the way by which our scholars

and our Mashiach and our elders, this is

the way that they understood the Deen.

I remember on one occasion I was sitting

in a talk of Shaykh Zulfukar and also

I read this in hadith as well, that

on the day of the extremity of Allah's

mercy on the day of judgment, how he

will make any excuse to reward each and

every person.

On the day of judgment, 2 people will

be brought to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. 2

people who were who who were basically sinners,

they will be brought to Allah subhanahu wa

ta'ala.

Both of them will be banished to the

hellfire.

Both will be banished to the hellfire.

After being banished to the hellfire,

one of them will hear the pronouncement of

Allah that you are banished to the hellfire

and he will start running, running, running, running

towards the hellfire,

Running just as fast as he can towards

the hellfire.

And another one will hear the pronouncement of

Allah of Allah's being banishing him to the

hellfire and will drag his feet and look

back.

And then will walk forward and then look

back. And then drag his feet and then

look back.

So both of these people will be returned

to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And it will be asked of the, of

the first one, that I, you were banished

to the hellfire, so why did you run?

So that person will say, oh Allah,

I spent my whole life disobeying you. I

thought that at least I could close out

this circumstance by obeying your command that I

should run to the * fire. So you

said go to the * fire, so I

ran as fast as I can to obey

your command. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgives that

person and puts them into jannah.

For for some excuse

puts that person into jannah.

Then the second person is asked that,

you know, you were banished to the *

fire. You dragged your feet. You looked back.

You dragged your feet. You looked back. You

dragged your feet. You looked back.

So, you know, why?

So that person will say that,

yeah, Allah, you banished me to the *

fire. But your mercy is so overwhelming

that I was walking towards the hellfire thinking

maybe you might call me back from your

mercy. Then I walked forward, then I looked

back thinking you might call me back from

your mercy. Then I walked forward, then I

looked back thinking you might call me back

from from your mercy. And then based on

that, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will say, yes,

my mercy overrides my wrath, and Allah subhanahu

wa ta'ala will put that person into

into jannah, into jannah as well.

So

this is the extent

of this

excuses

that will literally the excuses that will be

made on the day of judgment

to put people into

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's jannah.