Husain Sattar – Unmarked Fruit

So in this gathering, what I wanted to

do is actually share 2 pieces of advice.

And these two pieces of advice I heard,

Sheikh Zofokar give

to me and to other individuals.

So I thought that why don't I just

pass them on to you? Actually, the I

don't know why they just sometimes they just

pop up in in your mind, but so

I just wanted to share those 2 pieces

of advice.

Okay. The first piece of advice

is that he used to say to us

that

don't be like unmarked fruit.

Don't be like unmarked fruit.

So, obviously, that requires some tafsir. What does

it mean to be unmarked fruit?

So if you look at,

people who are into

growing fruits like grapefruits,

the farmers who grow the grapefruits,

they know

the lineage of each tree from which the

fruit arises.

So for example, there's

I mean, let's take oranges. Right? There's clementine

oranges. There's navel oranges. There's this orange. There's

that orange. And people who are very into

this I don't know if if you ever

gone to these websites where they sell fruit.

You They sell you the very expensive fruit

and they send it to your home, not

the one that you buy in the grocery

store. Individual farms.

They have particular trees.

Right? So they say, okay. This is Texas

citrus grapefruit. It's from this lineage of this

type of tree, and then it produces a

very valuable fruit.

So what they do is

when they're preparing

to send out these gift boxes of fruits,

what they do is they package the fruit

according to the lineage of the tree.

Then they mark on that box that this

is from this tree and it takes on

a particular value. This is from this tree,

it takes on another particular value. This is

from another tree, it takes on that particular

value.

So that's called the marked fruit.

And marked fruit has a very high value.

Now at the same time what happens is

as they're collecting all the fruit from the

trees, inevitably there's going to be some fruit

on the ground.

That's the fruit that fell by itself or

some birds came on the branch and the

fruit fell down or something knocked it off.

And what happens is the trees are so

close to each other that sometimes they can't

tell when they see a piece of fruit

on the ground which tree it came from.

So they have they put that in a

separate crate and they don't mark that. So

that's unmarked fruit.

Now, unmarked fruit has a much less much

lower value as compared to marked fruit. Alright.

So how does that apply? That's just the

background. Right? So he used to say, don't

be like unmarked fruit.

Now what does that mean?

That means that

you should always recognize

that we have a lineage from which we

took our Deen.

We have a lineage from which we took

our Deen. It really this is something that

really, unfortunately, plagues people from the subcontinent

especially.

So everything that we take from our Deen,

all this knowledge that exists in our forefathers,

all of the efforts that our forefathers have

made from this Deen, this is all lineage

based.

Right? So we come from a very special

tree.

We're not just unmarked fruit just laying on

the ground. Nobody knows where we came from.

We come from a very special tree

and that tree traces

itself back all the way to the Prophet

Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.

But in this day and age, what happens

is people become very confused about their lineage.

Even people from the subcontinent see, people from

the subcontinent, they assume that Arabic is not

the mother tongue. Right? So therefore,

knowledge is somehow deficient in the subcontinent

and it must be proficiently present in the

Arab countries because in the Arab countries you

find that everybody speaks Arabic as their mother

tongue, but that's not the truth.

There are very incredible scholars that came from

the subcontinent.

And those scholars from the subcontinent, they represent

our forefathers. They represent our heritage. That's why

we have the din that we have. When

you go around the United States and you

see the activity that's present in the Deen,

in every place you're gonna find a strong

component of people from the subcontinent

influencing Islam in that part of the world.

Now, you think about it. The people from

the subcontinent, right, Pakistan and India, they're converts

into the Deen in the end. They weren't

the original people upon whom the Deen was

revealed. In the end, they're still converts into

the Deen. And you see that

so much of the Deen is being held

up by their efforts, right? As was present

if you go back a 100 years on

the Bosnians

and other different communities and even continues till

this day. But you'll see the prevalence

of the subcontinent,

that didn't come out of nowhere. That's not

just unmarked fruit that fell on the ground.

We have a very strong tradition. And if

you go through and you read about that

tradition, you'll begin to see that these scholars

were incredible.

They represented the pinnacle of knowledge, and they

preserved the Deen in a way that left

the world envious.

That's the way that they preserved the Deen.

So unfortunately, in this day and age, we

find ourselves very much

unmarked.

Now why is that a problem? If you

know anybody, I know a couple of people

like this and I'm sure everybody has someone.

If you know someone who their parents left

them when they were young or their father

left them when they were young or let's

say they somehow lost their parents when they

were young you'll see that they are very

uncomfortable with themselves.

And sometimes you read in the newspaper for

example that there's this person, he lost his

father when he was 3.

Then he spends 10 years trying to find

his father, He'll go on this long, long

journey. He says, I just couldn't live in

peace. I just couldn't be comfortable with myself

because I wanted to know who my father

was. I wanted to meet my father.

So people who don't know their lineage, it

makes them very uncomfortable about themselves and it

leaves them with a void within themselves.

And then, that void is never satisfied until

they discover who they really are.

So, in the same way,

we should recognize that we have a very

strong lineage.

We come from a very strong lineage and

unfortunately, we come into an environment like America,

we get very confused about who we are,

we don't know who our forefathers are, we

don't know who our elders are, we begin

to leave the path of our elders and

instead of tying ourselves to this

this valuable lineage, we become lost and we

become confused about who we really are.

So it's very important

and we should make a habit out of

this. In fact, Sheikh Zobkar used to tell

us to make a habit out of this

that we become very familiar with our Akavadin.

He used to sit down, and he used

to tell us about the various Masha'ach that

passed through the Silsula.

Right? The purpose wasn't necessarily to tell stories.

Oh, look. If this type of person came,

this type of person came. It was to

connect us back to our lineage, to show

that, look. The people before you were very

deep in their dikar of Allah, and that

you're coming from the same nisbah, and that

this isn't what's expected of you as well,

and you should live up to your lineage.

Sometimes people say that to their children as

well. Don't you know that you're the son

of Mr. Smith? You should live up

to the Smith name. That's what they'll tell

their child.

What do they mean by that? They mean

to look back at your lineage. Look how

respected it is.

You too should recognize that you come from

this lineage and you should live up to

it. So in the same way, it's very

important that we study

the lineage of our knowledge which goes right

through the scholars of the subcontinent

and we should study their lives, we should

read about their lives, we should

understand what they went through to get the

knowledge and you'll begin to see what a

great tradition it really is. Alright? Number 1.

Number 2, the same thing with our Moshiach

that came before us. We should read about

their lives. We should know who they are.

We should study what they did because that

makes us back ties us back into our

lineage.

So that's the first piece of advice.

And that actually advice is sufficient. But the

second piece of advice

was that he used to say

that you should recognize that no gathering is

established to be permanent.

No gathering

is established to be permanent.

Now the example of this and the pinnacle

of it is basically the

revelation of Idaja Anasulullahhiwalfat.

Okay? When this Surah of the Quran was

revealed which basically is giving the glad tidings

that this hard work of the Prophet Sallallahu

Alaihi Wasallam over so many years will now

result in people coming into the Deen

in large, large numbers.

So basically, this verse or this actually Surah

is giving the glad tidings of the success

of the message of the Prophet

and its final culmination in tons of people

coming into the Deen.

Now when that was revealed, the Sahaba all

rejoiced. They said, SubhanAllah,

years years of sacrifice, years years of effort,

years years of devoting ourselves to this mission,

and now Allah is giving us the glad

tidings that people will come in crowds into

the Deen. Everybody was rejoicing,

except 1,

Hazrat Abu Bakr

When that Surah was revealed, he sat crying.

So people, they were shocked.

They said, You spent so many years sacrificing.

Look at all of the work that we've

put in. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is giving

you the glad tidings that people are now

going to come into this message and worship

Allah the way they were supposed to worship

Allah. Why are you crying? He said, Because

now I know that the mission of the

Prophet is complete.

If the mission of the Prophet

is complete, it means that he too will

no longer remain.

This actually, while it seems like a glad

tiding that so many people will come into

the Deen, it actually on the other hand

is a warning that the Popesite is to

be taken up away from this earth very

shortly.

So this was the depth, but see there

was an understanding

that no gathering is created to be permanent.

They knew in the back of their mind

that this was not gonna last forever. Right?

That there will come a day when the

Popsalh Shalom will be separated from the community

in that way.

So

that's the basis and the principle upon which

we take advantage of our gatherings. They used

to say to us, no gathering is permanent.

Take advantage of these opportunities. I'm sitting here

with you now. You have the opportunity to

do the work you're supposed to do, to

put your time into the thick or to

be regular in your attendance because see, these

days will not last. And I'll tell you,

people go back in their life and they

say, you know, I have regrets. Somebody says,

okay, I was gonna buy this house. I

didn't buy the house in 1997. I should

have bought it in 1997. Now the housing

market is doubled. Oh, I regret that. Right?

So people will come up with all these

regrets as they reflect in their life. I'll

tell you, I look back at my life

and the biggest regret

biggest regret that I have is that those

moments that I had the opportunity to take

advantage, I didn't fully take advantage.

Now those those moments are just dreams in

my mind, you know, they'd exist as if

they were just never even occurred. I sit

back and I think, subhanallah, I had that

this opportunity to spend time with my shayef,

this opportunity to spend time with my shayef,

and I didn't max out on it. Right?

I did whatever I could or whatever I

understood at that time, but now in retrospect,

right,

I look back and that's a huge regret

because those gatherings are no longer,

those opportunities are no longer. He used to

say that he used to tell this to

his, there used to be like a small

gathering similar to this type of gathering in

the very beginning stages when he started training

people.

And maybe the 1st 2, 3 years while

he was in this initial stage of training

people when he had just obtained his Khilafah,

he used to regularly sit in a small

gathering in his town like this.

And then what happened was as he became

more busy, he began to travel, he got

more there were more students coming to him,

etcetera. Then he started having to travel and

he was very rarely at home. In fact,

he would spend 2 weeks in that city

in a year as opposed to the 52,

53 weeks that he used to spend. Right?

So

then people used to say later on, they

used to say, oh, we made a big

mistake. Oh, we lost out. We didn't take

full advantage. It used to be that every

single week we used to sit here, now

that opportunity no longer remains.

So see these gatherings, they they are never

designed to be permanent. They are never designed

to be permanent. People take advantage, you take

what you can take, you put your full

effort in, try to take as much as

you can out of these gatherings because they

will not be there tomorrow.

They just will not remain. And it's interesting

because I'll meet people who

met other, you know, like my Sheikh Sheikh.

Right? And then, they'll say, Oh, you know,

he came to me and he came to

my Masjid and he used to regularly be

there and I didn't take advantage of it.

I didn't even know what was going on.

Now, those opportunities are gone. I regret that

so much.

I hear them telling me these stories and

I think, If I was him, if I

had that chance, I would have been there

constantly, right? But who knows if I would

have been there constantly, you never know. The

Sahaba, they took advantage of the Prophet

That's the thing that you have to learn

from the Sahaba,

They took full advantage of the Prophet

And when he left them, they were totally

trained and totally prepared to do what they

needed to do. Although, they had their sense

of loss, but they I mean, you think

about it this way,

They were he was able to stand in

front of them and ask them, did I

not complete what Allah

sent me to complete? And all of them

were able to say, yes, we testify that

you have completed your spread of the message,

and then the Prophet made Allah

the witness that they testified.

That's very rare. That's very unique. Right? There's

no place in history where you're going to

find that an individual can say that, I

did everything I wanted to do.

Ask and pick up the biography, the autobiographies

of people. Right? They'll say, oh, I had

so many other great ideas but I became

weak and I couldn't write and I couldn't

think and I couldn't this and I couldn't

that.

Everybody in the end, they are limited. But

here, you have an example, the prophet is

standing in front of everybody and saying, have

I not delivered the message that I was

supposed to deliver to you? And everybody is

saying, Yes, you completed your message. And then

he's making Allah

his witness that he has completed the spread

of the message that he was that was

placed on his shoulders.

So

SubhanAllah,

they took advantage of that. They were able

to fully max out on what the Prophet

brought them but that's because they recognized that

these gatherings were not permanent. So, you have

to recognize

this point as well.

In this limited time which we call life,

take full advantage. Don't assume a moment to

be without value. Every moment has value. Every

gathering has its purpose. Every time we sit

together, there is some benefit to be taken

whether it be from the fact that I'm

talking or whether it be from the fact

that you're meeting other people around you or

whether it be from the fact that Allah

rewards us even for just making the effort

to come to the Masjid.

So the whole gathering is blessed. There's

benefit upon benefit upon benefit, but you have

to max out on it because these opportunities

don't remain. Who knows where ICC will be

200 years from now. Right? Who knows where

each of us will be 10 years from

now, 5 years from now? Life just changes.

Life is made that way. It's always dynamic.

It's never static.

So

advice number 1,

don't be unmarked fruit. And I advice number

2, take full advantage of the opportunities as

they present themselves to you because

they don't last.

They're made to move. They're made to change.

They're made to go to different places so

that other people can benefit as well. So

may Allah

give us a Tawfiq to take advantage of

these few,

words of advice.