Husain Sattar – Trying Hard to Fail
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
For each particular,
time and place,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has written that which
He has written, and we are
essentially subjects to what He has written.
This, somewhat interesting I had in my mind
maybe an hour before a week I came
here, and sometimes days before, I will plot
out in my mind exactly what I wanna
talk about.
I don't usually write a talk. I don't
usually make notes, maybe just minor notes sometimes.
But at least in my mind, I have
mapped out that, you know, I'd like to
talk about this topic or this particular
issue
I feel is important or has come up
that particular week And all the way up
until about an hour,
you know, before maybe it probably even till
6:30, 6:45,
I was
had a completely
I had an idea in my mind completely
mapped out that I wanna talk about this
and that the derivative of that point is
this, and this is an important thing that
we need to take home from that message,
from from the entire lesson.
And then,
I was,
sitting down, actually,
I had the
Tawfiq of Allah
to recently complete a very big project, not
complete, but partially complete a very big project
that I was working on. And I was
sitting down and I was just,
talking over with someone,
you know,
you know, the how many people were involved
and how this project would not have even
been able to get this far unless each
of these people was involved. And I was
listing the people, and I was saying, and
this person helped, and person x helped. And
then,
you know, the someone asked me that, what
do you mean person x helped? Person x
doesn't have any expertise in this field and
didn't do anything. I said, well, but this
person one day helped this way. So
all of the people who, in any way,
shape, or form helped, they started coming to
my mind.
You're not gonna understand what I'm saying because
I'm being very vague. I'll give you another
example, which is a much better example.
Maybe
maybe 5, 7 years ago, Sheikh Zulfaguar,
he held a very unique gathering in California,
and maybe 7 years ago. I don't remember
the exact date, but he came for one
whole week. I mean, he came for longer
than 1 week, but he dedicated 1 week
to do a something called the foundations of
faith or foundations of fic. I I always
think of it as foundations, foundations class,
where he gathered together the olema from America,
about 40, 50 olema from America. And then
some people who don't know as much, me
and a few other people, we just tagged
along, but his focus really was on the
olema and we were just kind of there
watching the event.
And he gathered them all together and the
purpose of this course he designed this course
and the purpose of the course was to
instill within the olema the tradition that they
should
be attached to, the tradition that they should
be guided by. Because even the scholars require
reminders, and we all require reminders. We're all
human beings. So the goal was to remind
the scholars of the foundations of the deen.
Not that they necessarily need reminding, but it's
a beneficial gathering to get people together and
we all remind ourselves, each other, about the
foundations of the deen.
So he,
he gathered together these 40 olema
and there was a reader. There was a
reciter. The reciter was a very, very top
Mufti in America.
He was the one reciting the book. They
would recite a few lines of the book
and then Sheikh Zulfikar so if Sheikh Zulfikar
would be sitting, the Mufti would be sitting
reciting, and every time the Mufti would recite
a few lines, Sheikh Zulfikar would listen, listen,
he would say stop. And whenever he wanted
to stop him, then he would make a
commentary. And the commentary was so deep, so
deep. It's actually a recorded series, and I
think it's available on the.org
for free just to listen to download.
But it's very, very deep, very deep. Sometimes,
you can just listen to a few lines,
and it will take you for months for
months. There's just so much you can learn
in that set. Anyway, so the mufti would
read, read, read, read and then sheikh Zukar
would stop him, and then the mufti would
read, read, read and then sheikh Zukar would
stop him. Okay. So, anyway,
they he would read and then sheikh Zukar
would stop him, etcetera. 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'll 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 the course notes. It
said, and you will have to work very
hard to fail.
Not normally 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
treats us on the day of judgment. You
know, in deen, you have to work very
hard to fail. You make wudu, wudu wipes
away your sins. You pray prayer, prayer wipes
away your sins. You pray jummah, jummah wipes
away your sins. You make a lifetime worth
of mistake, Hajj wipes away your sins. You
make Tawbah 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
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
want to 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 Zofkar called the people who were helping
with the course into the room. Now, you
know, there were the course attendees who were
all
the,
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
it you have to make some excuse that
there'd 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 second top in the class. He was
3rd top in the class. These were the
top 10 in the class. This
was the 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,
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,
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.
Will make every excuse
to put somebody in jannah.
Every excuse to put somebody in Jannah. Now
you know the extremes of it, the one
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 Zulfiqar 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
2 people who were who who were basically
sinners. They'll be brought to Allah 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
And it will be asked of to 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 hellfire. So you said
go to the hellfire, 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 walk forward, then I look
back thinking You might call me back from
Your mercy. Then I walk forward, then I
look back thinking You might call me back
from Your mercy. And then based on that
Allah
will say, yes, my mercy overrides my wrath
and Allah will put that person into into
into Jannah as well.
So this is the extent
of the
excuses
that will literally the excuses that will be
made on the day of judgment
to put people into Allah's
Jannah.
This is what our Masha'i Haqq they taught.
They found any excuse to reward each and
every individual,
and we should be the same. We should
be full cognizant of any
assistance
or help that anybody has given us, and
we should be thankful for it. You know,
you're in a difficult situation it's very easy.
It's very easy when you're in a difficult
situation to go and say, Can you make
dua for me?
But it's very once that difficult situation ends,
how many people remember to go back and
say, Thank you for making dua for me?
I mean, I would say that if 20
people that's not 20. Let's say a 100
people come and request that I'm in this
difficult situation. Can you make dua for me?
I would say, of those 105 people come
back to me and say, my situation alleviated
itself.
Just even come back and tell you that
the situation got better. Most people don't even
do that. And how many people say jazakAllah
for the dua that you made? No. Nobody
says that. Very few.
Just a handful.
We are people who are cognizant of each
and every effort that a person makes. We
recognize that effort, and we thank each person
for that effort. Why? Because we want Allah
to also recognize our efforts.
So we recognize
we make every excuse we can to find
a reason to recognize the goodness in people.
Everybody has goodness in them. And when this
type of attitude develops in a Muslim, then
it makes their life so easy. Because even
if they could find 10 mistakes in a
person, they'll find a 100 good things in
that person.
You know, a husband and wife can easily
find each other's mistakes, but or they can
easily find each other's good points. It depends
on how they want to look at life.
If they want to look at life criticizing
one each other all the time and criticizing
all the people around them, they'll just sit
and find each other's mistakes all day. But
if they learn to overlook the mistakes and
instead find the good within one another, then
they'll be much more successful and happy.
For the same way that we want Allah
to overlook our 50 mistakes and accept the
one good deed that we did, we should
also be willing to overlook the 50 mistakes
of other people and accept the few good
deeds that they do.
But, anyway, this is a very important lesson.
It's, Ajib, you know, how life teaches you
lessons and how it paints pictures in your
mind, and sometimes you don't appreciate
that picture until many, many, many year late
years later. I would say that, you know,
that picture was so vividly painted in my
mind, but I never thought about it this
way until I was sitting down and thinking
myself that, you know, I just finished this
project. How many people actually assisted and how
been able to do it if this person
didn't do this, and this person didn't do
this, and this person didn't make dua? And
I'm sitting and thinking, this person made dua.
I remember this person made dua. I remember
this person made dua. Remember I was thinking
and I was making a list, and I
was saying that, you know,
I even remember that I randomly bumped into
my one of my relatives.
I ran not even my relative, a relative
of my wife. I randomly bumped into a
relative of my wife, and, that person said,
you know, how is your project going? They
knew I was working on this day night
because they're in the family, so they saw
what was going on. So they,
so I said, oh, there's still
this is a killer. You know? There's still
a lot left. This is not some small
fish. You know? This is some big thing.
It's it's really, really a lot of work.
And they said, oh, but once you're done,
it'll just be easy after it'll all be
downhill after that because you'll spend your whole
life just making small changes and improving it.
You know? And so I,
I remember that
that couple of words was sufficient enough to
push me that night to be able to
do something, you know, because when you have
such a heavy blood on your shoulders when
you're carrying trying to do something so big,
it weighs you down. It weighs you down.
It's almost impossible to do by yourself. Then
I started thinking that, even
those words, you know, I should thank that
person. I'm making a mental list in my
mind. I said I should even thank those
persons for that person for those words. Because
even if they didn't recognize what an effect
it had, it certainly had an effect. And
even if it didn't have an effect, it
was still a positive. It was still a
push forward rather than a push backward.
So we should be if we hope that
Allah
will accept
what little we've done, I mean, our deeds
are paltry in in the end. But we
want Allah
to accept them,
so we should also be accepting and willing
of the for in in the case of
the deeds of others. So may Allah make
us amongst those whose
some deed is accepted and rewarded by him,
and he make may he make us among
those who are overlooking of others' mistakes and
accepting of the, of whatever good they have
to offer.