Kamil Ahmad – Prophetic Parables – Parable #22-Our Endless Ambitions
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the challenges of achieving dreams and pursuing them in life, including the idea that dreams are real-life and not just dreams. They also discuss the importance of not missing deadlines and not living in misery, as it affets one's life and can lead to distraction and failure. The speakers emphasize the need for people to be prepared for death and reminding oneself of the concept of death to avoid unnecessary deaths.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam ala rockmelon Allahu Allah He urged marine. While earlier he was a busy woman today he had he was standing up soon at Eli Omi Dean
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mean, your bill, I mean, another had Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
We continue on the prophetic parables, the parables that were given by our beloved Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And so today we have
two more parables.
And the first one that we have today is
it is reported in Sahih al Bukhari
where Abdullah even Mr. Rude, or the long run, he narrates
a hot pan EBU sallallahu alayhi wa sallam hopped on murabaha
well hot the hot on Phil wasapi hora gentlemen who will have who to punch the horn. ILA had a lady if it was mean Johnny B he led Phil was up wirkkala sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has an insane
Lumo de la caja Hopper, he had a lady who are horrible. And Allahu wa How do you heal who to assume
the innocent or who has an usher who had or in a store or who had nurture who had
been Miss rude not to laquan
he says
that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
drew a square.
So, he drew a square in the sand.
And then he drew a line in the middle of it
that extended outside of the square.
And then he drew several small lines
attached to that central line.
And then he said, this is the human being. And this meaning the square is his life. It is his lifespan, in circling him from all sides, or it has already been circled.
And then this line which is outside of the square extending outside of the square, this is his ml, his
false hopes, his ambitions
in these small lines that are attached to that central line.
These are the calamities the troubles, the catastrophes which may befall men.
If one of them misses him, another one will get him. And if that one misses him, another one will get him.
And so we human beings, our human nature, is
that we like to wish and we like to dream and we like to have ambitions and aspirations
that we want to fulfill in our lives. And so we have these dreams and sometimes we, you know may go out planning to fulfill them. And other times, they're just simply dreams that we hope to one day achieve.
And so we spend our entire lives with these ambitions and these dreams, in hopes that we will be able to achieve them. Which is why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says in another Hadith in Sahih al Bukhari
Lai Zulu colourable cabbie Shaban fitna tiny,
few who be Dunia wakulla
that the heart of an old man.
A person who has aged he's senior, he's an elder.
His heart remains young with respect to two things.
And so, you know, obviously he's become old and
his body does not have the youth and the energy that
You know, younger youth have.
But two things that stay with him until his old age, the prophet SAW Selim said, his love for the dunya and His endless hope,
these ambitions, these hopes
of living forever, and wanting to do this in life and wanting to achieve this.
However, there's nothing wrong with
having dreams and ambitions, and aspirations in life.
But the problem is when we allow these dreams, to take over our lives, forgetting about our
wanting to only pursue our dreams in this world,
and not wanting anything to come between us and being able to fulfill those dreams. This is where the problem comes. When
we have these dreams,
and we're just our entire lives. We're just chasing after these dreams, forgetting about forgetting about the fact that
death is around the corner.
And so this is why Allah Subhana who tells us Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
concerning the kuffar
there whom Allah subhanho wa Taala says, though, to whom yet kulu why a tomato, were usually he will Emmylou
that, oh, Prophet, let them to eat. Allah says, Let them to eat let them to enjoy themselves, and let them to be distracted by these false hopes, for they will soon come to no meaning leave them to be immersed in their false hopes of living forever to fulfill their dreams in this life.
Let them to be diverted.
Let them to be diverted with that, from what is far more important than that, and that is getting ready to meet a loss of Hannah Montana and working working for the Acura.
And unfortunately, even though this is the case with the kuffar
unfortunately, even many Muslims today, they have fallen into this where
this is the reality of many of them, chasing after their dreams, thinking that they have a long life ahead of them.
And forgetting about the very purpose of why we're here, forgetting about the very purpose of why Allah subhanahu wa, tada created us and you know where we are going.
And so through this parable, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he wanted to wake us up to this reality.
He wanted us to realize that
our dreams,
and our aspirations and ambitions,
they are endless.
There's no limit to them, and that our lifespan is much shorter than our dreams and our ambitions. And so, how did he do this? How did the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasallam do this, he did it by drawing this image for the companions by by drawing this diagram for them.
And so, what is this diagram basically, it was a square that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam Drew. And this is basically what he drew here.
He drew a square
as we can see here, he drew a square
and this square basically, it represents the life of this dunya that we are locked in and we cannot escape from it.
So, you know, man, he is stuck in this in this box.
And he cannot leave it.
So we are surrounded by our lifespan.
And then he drew a line in the middle and that is this line that we can see here. He drew that in the middle. And he made this line to extend outside of the box outside of the square.
And so this represents our dreams that are basically it represents you know, first of all the line. It represents our our lifespan that
comes to an end over here.
This line that continues. These are our, our dreams, our ambitions, our false hopes, to have no end to the point where they surpass our life on Earth. Which means that the vast majority of our hopes, will never be fulfilled.
But we are blinded by these long hopes, not realizing that our death is closer to us than being able to fulfill those dreams. And then he drew these small lines that you can see
that are basically splintering out from that middle line.
And so he mentioned how these small lines they represent the calamities, the misfortunes,
the catastrophes that affect us in life. So he said, If we miss one of them, we won't miss the other
meaning, that if
if we are not, you know, taken away, if we are not
killed, if our life does not end by one of these catastrophes by one of these calamities,
and we survive,
then we will not miss another.
And if we survive another, then we won't miss another.
So, we we continuously, you know, we are continuously escaping death, but eventually, eventually, there will come a time when, when,
you know, death will take us. And so, we are constantly, we are constantly
being afflicted by these calamities in life,
you know, accidents,
you know, the various catastrophes and natural disaster, where so many people die,
but somehow you survive
illnesses like you know, obviously nowadays with, with with COVID, this is a very, you know, a very telling example of how, look at how
the pandemic has taken the lives of so many, but yet you have survived. So, although you may have survived it, there will be another calamity that will that will basically afflict you. And if you survive that one, then you then eventually you won't survive death, that is a point that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
wanted to mention here, and he, he basically mentioned these calamities, afflicting us, by using a term that is used to describe a poisonous attacked by a snake.
So, this shows us how venomous and how painful these calamities are, they will sting us and they will be very painful.
And so if we survive these calamities, we definitely will not survive the appointed time of death. Even if it is without a catastrophe. The point is that eventually here,
eventually we will die whether it is through a catastrophe to a disaster to a calamity, or whether it is a natural death.
And so this is the diagram that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Drew, as narrated by Abdullah even miss rude or the Allahu Akbar.
And so the point is the point that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wanted to make through this parable
is
look at us human beings. Our life span is so short,
and it is surrounding us from every angle, at any moment, our life will come to an end.
But before that, before that we are stricken with all kinds of calamities that are painful, and that threaten our lives and make life difficult for us. But yet, but yet, we still have these false hopes of living on forever. And we have these dreams and these ambitions, forgetting about that reality, that reality of death that will soon come at a time when we are not prepared.
And so among the lessons that we can learn from this very beautiful parable is first of all,
That we should be aware of what is known as today
endless false hopes.
And this is why there are so many statements of the seller warning against dual ml.
And they mentioned how you know such people who have
such false hopes.
They basically are people who become heedless.
Their hearts become heedless of a lot of the Acura, there are people who indulge in sins.
They are people who stray from the straight path. And that's because the straight path leading to gender
it is surrounded by
it is surrounded by Chahar by desires. It is surrounded by desires. And so
we are easily distracted, we are easily distracted.
The second lesson that we can learn from this hadith is that there is there is nothing wrong with having big dreams and ambitions
in life that, you know, I want to fulfill this. You go to school for a reason.
you aspire for a certain career for a reason. And there's nothing wrong with that Islam does not prohibit us from that. But the Muslim should not allow that. He should not allow his dreams and his ambitions and his aspirations to distract him from his purpose in life.
And so we are not here, a lot did not create us here for that purpose.
Allah subhanho wa Taala did not create us to live in this world, solely to fulfill those dreams of hours. Because if that was the case, then then life is pointless, because it's so short. And it comes to an end so quickly. So what was the point of all of that?
And so
the purpose of life is, the purpose of why Allah subhanho wa Taala created us is to recognize Him, to obey Him, to be obedient to Him.
Also, among the lessons that we learn from this parable
is that there will come a time that is destined for each and every single one of us, that will bring our dreams to a sudden end.
And that is, as Allah subhanho wa Taala says, calling in a little lady to rule I mean, who fell in who would
say to them that
the debt that you tried to flee from this death that you are constantly trying to escape from, it will eventually catch up to you, and you will eventually meet it.
And that shows us as a prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam shoulders perfectly in that diagram that we are heading, we are heading every step of our lives. We are heading closer, we are heading closer to meeting to meeting death.
And so the Muslim he should be prepared for that. The Muslim should be prepared for death at all times.
And so he should remember death frequently as a prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam advise us because
what is the purpose of constantly reminding yourself of death, not to make your life a life of misery.
That's the way people think that
you know, if I'm gonna constantly be thinking about death, then it means you know, my life is gonna be a nightmare. You know, I'm always worrying about dying the next second.
That's not the reason why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us to constantly remind ourselves of death.
But rather the purpose of reminding yourself always about death is the very purpose of it is
so that you can prepare for it. So that you are ready for it. At any moment, it will come. And so you'll be prepared for it. Not like the majority of people who death it takes them at a time when they were unprepared. unprepared for what? unprepared for meeting a loss of Hannah who, what?
And so that's a reality. Ask anyone
When, or, you know, they've already left this life, but ask them
were they ready for death when it came? And the answer would be no, they were not ready for it. And so
us constantly reminding ourselves of death,
it would make us to prepare for it before
the book of deeds are closed.
And then we can add anything to it.
And so compare, for example,
someone who,
he, he has a deadline to submit an assignment.
And he knows exactly when that deadline is.
He has to submit this deadline by this date, by this time. And if he submits it, even one minute after the deadline, it won't be accepted from him.
So what does he do? He prepares, he makes sure
that he does everything to
to submit that assignment on time. Even if he doesn't have much time left, he's gonna put all his energy into it. Even if he has a few hours left, he's gonna put all his time and energy into it. And make sure you submit it. Now compare that to somebody
who has an assignment to submit, but he has no clue when the deadline is.
He has no clue. Or he has an idea that it's soon. The deadline is soon but
he is negligent about it. Or we could say he knows when the deadline is, but he's negligent of it. He's heedless, he doesn't care, he doesn't pay attention.
That is the difference between those who prepare to meet a lot
versus those who are negligent, who are heedless. And who don't care about reading the loss of Hannah who went to high school, they don't prepare anything for it.
Finally,
the last point I wanted to mention here is
look at the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and what an exemplary Teacher He was.
And so the best teacher is the one who uses different kinds of teaching methods to teach the same concept.
All for what purpose in order to make sure that the concept, it sinks into the students,
it sinks into their minds, they understand it fully. And so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
drew this diagram.
And he gave many other examples of the life of this dunya as we're gonna see in the next parable,
using different methods.
And the whole purpose of that
is to make sure that this concept that I want to get across that I want to make sure that you understand that it gets across to you, and you understand it fully, without there being any ambiguity in it. Any unclear Enos in it.
And so this is, the parables that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he gave us concerning
concerning men, and His endless ambitions and dreams, and false hopes that extend and you know, basically go on, even past even past our deaths. And so we will definitely die before we're able to before we're able to achieve these ambitions and these dreams of ours.