Mirza Yawar Baig – Be among the grateful
AI: Summary ©
The transcript discusses the importance of gratitude and being grateful for blessings, as well as the success of Subhanabodder in increasing health and happiness. The conversation also touches on the decline of the European population and the loss of knowledge and technology, as well as the destruction of books and libraries by the church. The speakers emphasize the importance of technology and AI in achieving modernity and efficiency, and the sad event of the loss of knowledge and access to knowledge.
AI: Summary ©
الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على أشرف
الأمليين والمرسلين محمد رسول الله صلى الله عليه
وعلى آله وسلم تسليمًا كثيرًا كثيرًا My brothers
and sisters, you can see here the temperature
right now is about minus six Celsius.
I am in Metuniyu Park on my walk
and you can see the beautiful patterns of
the ice that is covered this stream.
The stream flows through the park and goes
out and eventually reaches the Connecticut River.
But you can see this amazing, fantastic patterns
of the ice and how the ice crystals
form and all that has to do with
the differential temperature of the water.
First of all, the whole stream doesn't freeze
solid.
What actually happens is that the water right
on the top which is in contact with
the cold air freezes first and when the
ice forms of a particular thickness then below
that the water doesn't freeze so it continues
to flow.
So that's one of the interesting things about
water apart from many other interesting things.
So now that Allah SWT said وَإِن تَعُوذُوا
نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ لَا تُحْسُوهَا إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَقُولُوا رَهِيمٌ
in Surah Al-Hijr and Allah SWT said
in Surah Al-Raheem وَإِن تَعُوذُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ
لَا تُحْسُوهَا إِنَّ اللَّهَ إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَذَرُونَ كَفَارٌ
So in one place Allah SWT said that
you cannot count the blessings of Allah SWT
no matter how hard you try but human
beings are they are zalim and they deny
to their transgressors and rebellious and they are
deniers of the mercy of Allah and in
the other place Allah SWT said وَإِن تَعُوذُوا
نَعْمَةَ اللَّهِ لَا تُحْسُوهَا إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَقُولُوا رَهِيمٌ
that Allah SWT that you cannot count the
blessings of Allah SWT there are so many
but Allah is the most forgiving, the most
merciful so Allah is saying effectively that even
though sadly the nature of a human being
is such and we ask Allah to change
our nature and to make us on those
who are the shakiri and those who are
grateful to Him despite this and despite the
fact that Allah has blessed us and we
do not count those blessings we cannot even
count the blessings so obviously we do not
express gratitude for them because the idea of
the blessings of Allah and the idea of
being aware of them is not simply to
count them or keep a list but to
thank Allah SWT for everyone Ya Allah, you
gave me this, Ya Allah you gave me
this, Ya Allah you gave me this and
making shukr of Allah Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah we
don't do that but said Allah SWT said
despite that Allah is the most forgiving, the
most merciful I always remind myself of the
beautiful hadith of Rasulullah S.A.W. who
said that if a man wakes up, if
a person wakes up secure in his property,
meaning that he has a house to live
in he has a roof over his head,
secure in his property secure in his health,
his body works and he has enough food
for the day enough food for the day,
enough for the one day enough food for
that day if a man wakes up in
that, a man meaning man or woman wakes
up in that state then Rasulullah S.A
.W. said it is as if the entire
world and everything in it has been gathered
for him how can he want anything more
than that now imagine, this is the level
of gratitude that we are expected to have
that if we are secure in our dwellings,
secure in our homes and we have, our
health is fine, Alhamdulillah and we have enough
food to eat then what is there to
complain about Rasulullah S.A.W. is saying
it is as if the whole world and
everything in it has been collected for you
Subhanallah may Allah grant us the ability to
constantly and constantly and constantly thank Him for
those who thank Allah S.W.T. Allah
S.W.T. said that Allah has announced
Allah S.W.T. has announced, Allah has
declared that the one who is grateful to
Allah the one who expresses gratitude to Allah
S.W.T that Allah S.W.T.
will increase him in goodness will increase the
blessings on him, on this person and the
one who is ungrateful Allah S.W.T.
said let him beware of the punishment of
Allah so we ask Allah S.W.T.
to keep us always, always, always among those
who are grateful and never be ungrateful so
anytime there is a word of or a
thought of complaint any time, and usually you
know it is may Allah have mercy on
us for us it is like a Takiyah
Kalam almost that every sentence has to begin
with that with a word of complaint say
how are you?
I am ok you know I am groaning
oh I am ok what happened to you?
you know your back is broken, your leg
is broken why are you groaning?
what is the problem?
Subhanallah I mean really ask yourself this question
how is the weather?
it is always something is wrong with the
weather it is too hot, it is too
cold, it is too this, it is too
rain, it is too dry it is never
perfect that is why I come out in
this cold just to remind myself that Subhanallah
I am standing here in this forest it
is completely, except for these coniferous trees and
even these look like they have taken a
beating because the temperature last night was minus
10 and here it goes to minus 20
so we are nowhere near, we are just
about at the half point now but when
I come out in the morning the air
is so beautiful, it is so clean and
pure I just take a deep breath of
air and I say Subhanallah this is a
privilege this being able to breathe this kind
of air is a privilege you see that
tree and you see the bird right on
top of that tree there is a single
bird sitting on top that is a blue
jay I don't have the, this camera can't
get there I can't take you close to
that but I will post a couple of
pictures of blue jays when Umair sends out
this video Inshallah so the point is that
it is a question of focusing on the
benefits focusing on what we have, the beauty
of what we have and what we have
as far as the beauty is concerned is
that we have this clean air absolutely pure
air that we can breathe and I know
that, you know I come from India where
there are jokes about the quality of air
in Delhi and other places there was somebody
sent me a note from the Oberoi Hotel
in Bangalore it's a very nice hotel, I've
stayed there several times but they have, they
advertised and they said that inside the hotel
you can breathe clean air because they have
you know cleaning air filters and stuff now
imagine if you have to if breathing, ability
to breathe cold and clean air if that
becomes now a differentiating factor for sales what
kind of terrible situation that is but Alhamdulillah
here where I am it's a very rural
place so absolutely pure air I thank Allah
SWT I mean imagine how ungrateful and wretched
I would be if I didn't do that
I thank Allah Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah the cold
itself yes it's cold but if you walk
briskly and if you walk for a little
bit then you don't feel the cold anymore
and of course as the Norwegians say there's
no such thing as cold there's only inappropriate
clothing so if you have the right clothing
you don't feel the cold, Alhamdulillah I have
the right clothing so it's the, the question
is your attitude just think about this you
know I was reflecting the other day I
think one of my lectures I mentioned this
also I'm not talking about ancient history I'm
talking about my own lifetime and people of
my age will recall every single one of
these things I remember a time when there
were no refrigerators we had something called the
Hawadan which was a cupboard with which was
on all four sides it had mesh Hawadan
so any food that was eaten after dinner
and so on if anything was left and
one of the blessings of not having refrigerators
was that you cooked enough for the day
and also you gave it away so you
know poor people they benefited so but sometimes
there is more food and there's no one
to give it so this would be put
in the Hawadan to keep it fresh no
refrigerators we had no running hot and cold
water you could be living in a palace
and for the Hyderabadi think about Iram Mandir
Palace Iram Mandir has completely gone to pot
they have destroyed it it was a beautiful
palace built by Fakhr-ul-Mulk Bahadur it
had 600 rooms and 150 of those rooms
or so were furnished with Louis XV furniture
French furniture from Louis XV's time to give
you an idea of what that means if
you want to go and buy a chair
today in the market a Louis XV chair
the price ranges from $2,500 to $24
,000 so I'm not saying that Fakhr-ul
-Mulk paid $24,000 for each chair but
certainly he paid a lot of money so
there were 150 rooms furnished with this furniture
it had big drawing rooms and so on
imagine the whole full dinner set full drawing
room set and so forth in that fantastic
palace called Iram Mandir but guess what it
was built in 1898 Iram Mandir had no
hot and cold showers so no matter how
much money you had no matter which kind
of magnificent palace you lived in and this
applies to all the palaces in Hyderabad Jamaila
had no hot and cold running water Falaknuma
had no hot and cold running water and
so forth so it was not a question
of money the technology didn't exist so even
if you were Fakhr-ul-Mulk himself and
you owned and you built Iram Mandir and
Iram Mandir was his second residence his first
residence is now what is the ESI hospital
yeah ESI hospital no the TB hospital in
Hyderabad just after you know before Sanjeeva Reddy
Nagar colony that was his actual residence that's
where he lived and next to that is
his tomb he and his wife are buried
there a very beautiful sandstone tomb that is
there red sandstone which is Fakhr-ul-Mulk's
tomb which was built in the garden of
his house garden of his Deodi so this
is the tomb that is built that's where
he is buried and from there if you
stand and look towards Panjagutta you will see
Iram Mandir on a hill and the reason
for that is because at that time Vakhar
-ul-Mulk Vakhar-ul-Umrah the Prime Minister
and who was the brother-in-law of
the Nizam Mir Mehwadi Khan the 6th Nizam
Vakhar-ul-Umrah built Falaknuma so when Vakhar
-ul-Umrah built Falaknuma Fakhr-ul-Mulk in
competition built Iram Mandir which is bigger much
bigger so it wasn't even as if you
know he was homeless and he was building
a house for himself no it was we
are talking about and this is the nobility
of the Nizam they are not royal princes
these are the nobles the reason I'm saying
all this is that today when you stand
under a hot shower thank Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala Ya Rab I can say in
my own lifetime if you are younger than
me not your lifetime but your parents lifetime
there was a time when people who had
I mean there is not even a comparison
between Fakhr-ul-Mulk and Vakhar-ul-Umrah's
wealth and you know whatever I have or
people like you and I have the Fakhr
-ul-Mulk's dog was more wealthy than I
was than I am the point is not
that the point is that despite all that
wealth they did not have hot and cold
running water forget Fakhr-ul-Mulk forget Vakhar
-ul-Umrah Akbar Shah Jahan who built Taj
Mahal had no more hot and cold running
water in his palace just something as simple
as that right they had brocades and silks
and they had gold and silver and diamonds
and all kinds but they did not have
that they had ice they used to bring
ice down from Kashmir and put it into
what they call Tehkana beautiful Urdu and Farsi
such descriptive languages Tehkana is something it's a
room which is underneath so in the underground
palaces had underground cellars in which ice was
put and then they would get you know
iced not ice cream but things like ice
cream and so on so on so anyway
that's a different thing the point I'm saying
is that the most normal things that we
take for granted they didn't have they could
not flick a switch and turn on lights
they could not turn the light and then
move the light directly or manually or remotely
to shine on whatever they were reading they
couldn't do that not because they didn't have
the money but because the technology did not
exist right they had magnificent horses magnificent horse
carriages but tell me how many of you
are are ready to exchange a magnificent horse
carriage with four horses for a you know
at least in America it's not considered to
be a luxury car say a Toyota Corolla
I'm not even talking about Mercedes and BMW
Toyota Corolla how many of you are this
is a choice you want this or you
want this the other one is the horse
carriage is organically sound the horse carriage is
environmentally better so do you want this or
you want a brand new Corolla we have
that we have that we are not asking
for it do we thank Allah SWT do
we thank Allah that He has given us
this today we are living in luxury the
kind of luxury that even the most powerful
and wealthy monarchs of the past didn't have
I'm not even going into what Europe was
like and so on because Europe was a
slum compared to the East compared to India
to China Europe was to the Middle East
right Europe was an absolute slum and they
said life was nasty, brutal and short and
that was the description of good old days
in Europe nasty, brutal and short life here
life was not nasty, brutal and short it
was very luxurious, very beautiful but compared to
today we are living a life which is
much better with far more conveniences amazing conveniences
all kinds of options and I'm not even
going into you know all kinds of technical
details and advanced technology and AI and the
rest of it, no there's no need there
is no need look at the normal things,
everyday things shampoo that you put out of
a bottle you know conditioner for people who
use conditioner on their hair the precondition is
you need to have hair right and soaps
of all kinds all sorts of perfumes of
course they had perfumes in those days but
believe me people like you and me would
not be able to afford them these were
not things that ordinary people could afford or
could use today we have all of that
and more access to education great universities you
know what proliferated for example people ask this
question they say what happened to the Arabs
how come all the scientific development that was
the hallmark of the Abbasid period in Andalus,
in Cordoba in in southern Spain all of
that suddenly it's almost like somebody's turned off
a switch and darkness descended and nothing so
what happened to the Muslims it's very simple
what happened to the Muslims of course was
the two things simultaneously one was the the
decline of the patrons for all of this
kind of scientific work which was the king
and so on and then of course the
very violent ending of the empires both in
Baghdad and in Andalus under Isabella and Ferdinand
Castile and Aragon the two Christian Catholic states
when they finished and then the in the
next almost 200 years the complete because of
the Inquisition what's called the Spanish Inquisition later
on it went into the rest of Europe
as well the complete eradication literally I think
that's the terrible word to use but it
was the most efficient ethnic cleansing that you
can imagine the complete eradication of the Muslim
population of Spain which was done very brutally
mercilessly but what that is a causal factor
but a bigger causal factor was that scientific
learning and knowledge and the dissemination of scientific
information was never a public thing it was
never an everyday thing it was never a
standard thing taught for example in the schools
now this is the reason why it all
disappeared and disappeared so so completely because the
number of people involved in it were were
so few and so when they were killed
so when they were killed and their lorries
destroyed their books were burnt and it was
almost the most the most efficient destruction of
knowledge knowledge of millennia not just centuries knowledge
of over a thousand years was completely wiped
out because of bigotry by the church which
ordered that to be done and strangely enough
it was also what got saved was also
thanks to the priests and the monks because
this job was given to priests and monks
and they were told to completely destroy and
burn all the books in the libraries of
Alhambra and the libraries of libraries of Cordoba
of Granada and so on just to give
you an idea the largest the biggest library
of the church the church was the only
institution which had any knowledge and any access
to knowledge the kings were illiterate they couldn't
even write their own names so forget about
books but the largest library in France at
that time had 900 books 900 books and
in Granada and Cordoba there were merchants and
they were you know people who worked for
the royal family and so on for the
king ordinary people what would be today's bureaucrats
and things like that there were people whose
libraries had half a million books so that
was the level now when this order was
given to destroy these books and to burn
them in from the libraries of Baghdad nothing
was left because the destruction was done by
the Mongols and they just burned everything they
threw them they threw the books into the
Tigris into the Euphrates and they said the
river ran black with ink because the parchment
books were not paper but with ink so
this was the state of that so nothing
happened but in Europe, in Spain a lot
of that survived and today when we say
that this knowledge benefited and empowered the Renaissance
that is true, some of it was given
and taken willingly by the people who came
to learn from the Muslim scholars but the
others was the books that were saved by
the priests themselves so these people were learned
so they realized that here is stuff which
we have never seen before and if you
just burn it it's going to go and
nobody will ever know and that's a terrible
thing to happen so what they did was
that they would look at a book and
if it was something that they knew that
they had somewhere and imagine that kind of
encyclopedic knowledge they had I'm sure despite that
a lot of stuff just went and we'd
never know because we never know but what
they felt was probably was something they had
not seen before they hid it they hid
it and this was at a cost of
their lives if they had got caught they
would have been slaughtered so they hid it
and then they saved it and that's how
that knowledge got saved so the point I'm
saying is that we are, so therefore what
happened was that when all this was finished
they were literally there was no one to
take the tradition and take the knowledge and
the learning of science and technology forward because
all the knowledge had been destroyed and the
people were just too few because the teaching
and learning of science and technology was not
common, was not general as it is today
today with no matter what level what school,
in every school, every college it is taught,
in a primary school it is taught, in
a secondary school it is taught so even
if somebody said today let us eradicate it
there's no way you're going to do that
because it's so widely spread but with the
Muslim civilization even though it was very impressive
for the time and for all time it
was narrow so it didn't happen so my
point is that when you go to school
when you go to college and you're studying
things and you're learning things and so on
be cognizant of that that Alhamdulillah Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala caused us to be born
in a time when knowledge is so wide
and so easily accessible this includes of course
Islamic knowledge Islamic knowledge is also very easily
accessible now sometimes this is a problem because
people just pick up something and they read
it and they think that they know everything
and they start acting like as if they
are the Mufti of the place and this
is a terrible, terrible danger so don't do
that, don't fall into that trap just because
knowledge is easily accessible it does not mean
that you know what to do with it,
it's like you found the keys of your
father's car and you start driving, you never
learned to drive you don't have a license
and because the car is easily accessible you
get in the car, you start, you drive
and next thing you know you crashed it
and you killed yourself or killed somebody else
worse than killing yourself and you are in
trouble, so the point is that just because
something is accessible it doesn't mean that you
know what to do with it you find
the greatest Damascene sword in the world which
has a blade the edge of that blade
is so sharp that it can shave the
hair from your arm but if you don't
know how to use that sword your adversary
will use the same sword to kill you
he won't even need a sword he will
use your sword to kill you because he
knows how to use a sword and you
don't so just because something is easily accessible
it does not mean that we should access
it that easily and treat it as if
it has no value at it, as if
it has no no worth and use it
as we please know knowledge demands respect, it
demands adab, it demands respect of accessing it
so the point I'm saying and I want
to end with that which is, let us
be grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
let us thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
jalla shanuhu for all that he has given
us and all the his ni'mat which surround
us and consciously think about every single thing
that we are saying and doing which is
a normal everyday thing for us but it
is from the ni'mat of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and which people before us, even
though they had huge amounts of wealth and
huge amounts of power and authority and what
not and we don't have that they did
not have access to some of the most
simple conveniences that we use today, we ask
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us
and keep us among those who are always,
always, always grateful to him