Mirza Yawar Baig – Its my Life
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the devastating impact of mass migration and the rise and fall of civilizations on society, emphasizing the loss of human beings and the need for individuals to hold onto their values to benefit from the process. They stress the importance of trusting oneself and rebuilding faith in order to live in a constant state of fear. The speaker emphasizes the importance of learning to do 2 things, keeping one's focus on Jannah's pleasure, and avoiding speaking and actions that will result in punishment. The importance of following the messenger's instructions and avoiding giving up on actions is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Allah
My dear brothers, sisters, elders,
I remind myself and you
that we live today in a paradoxical world.
We are knowledgeable about the Earth,
but we are burning it up at a
pace which is out of control.
We are knowledgeable about health,
but disease,
especially mental illness, is rampant
all over our society.
We collectively
have enormous wealth,
but its distribution ensures
this that vast populations are deprived,
even starving
while a few live in luxury.
We have moved
from physical conquest of countries
to proxy wars
which can provide never ending ROI,
return on investment
for weapons manufacturers manufacturers.
It is not a war
to conquer land,
but to achieve macroeconomic
goals
while making profit for both sides.
The devastation of cities and nations
is an opportunity for contracts to rebuild,
which means more profit.
The deaths of civilians
doesn't matter.
It's called collateral damage,
burned only by their families.
The fastest
spreading religion in our world
is materialism,
and its presiding deity is money.
It runs on the illusion of fiat currency,
its temples are banks,
and its high priests are those who manipulate
interest rates
to enrich and polish people and nations at
will.
In our world,
sin is good,
Greed
is virtue.
Cruelty
is nobility.
Anything that makes money for those in control
is good.
Lying
is the biggest talent,
and truth
is evil.
We are living in a stupor
in a 3 d surround sound theater
wearing virtual reality glasses, and anyone who tries
to wake us up to the reality of
our lives
is brutally silenced,
so that it becomes a salutary warning
for others.
We have assets.
We have lost
our moral compass.
We are like a very powerful
car speeding downhill
without brakes.
Our speed is
exhilarating
but the end is obvious
and inevitable
if we continue
the way we are.
The rise and fall of civilizations
is not based on how much wealth they
have,
but on how it is used.
And that depends
on their values.
Values decide how assets are used.
That
is called destiny,
and that
is in our hands.
The biggest casualty
of this state of affairs in our brave
new world
is the almost total
collapse of credibility.
Today, we trust nobody.
We believe nobody, and we suspect everyone.
Politicians,
religious leaders,
business heads, teachers,
media,
doctors, attorneys,
parents, spouses, children, elders.
We don't believe anybody.
We are constantly looking for second opinions in
the name of trying to be accurate.
The truth is that we do it because
we don't believe anyone.
Our society feeds us a constant diet of
bad news,
usually exaggerated.
We never hear
or think about the enormous good that there
is in our world today.
The result of this way of life
is stress and anxiety and depression
because you cannot live
in a constant state of fear
and its effect shows.
There is a solution to all of this
and that is to rebuild our faith,
to return to the standard that was taught
and exemplified
by our beloved prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
A standard of life that was birthed
in a society very similar to ours
with similar materialistic
motivations,
but he taught us how to deal with
it in practice.
His life and time
were the pilot project,
proof of concept
that Islam
works.
His way, the sunnah, proves that Islam is
not merely a theory,
a philosophy, or a concept, but Islam, like
judo or aikido,
is a practice.
Like all practices,
it must be practiced
if you want to benefit from it.
Merely knowing about it
or having academic discussions about it
is of no use.
Allah
drew our attention to it and he called
and his way
the best choice
for everyone or anyone who looks forward
to meeting Allah
and the day of judgment. Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala said,
Allah said, verily for you, a good example
the best example is the life of the
prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
For anyone who looks forward to the meeting
with Allah and to the day of judgement.
If we follow him,
we will benefit.
So do values matter?
Think of values
as a life jacket.
The time you need to hold on to
it and wear it openly
is when you are caught in the flood.
When you are on dry land, it doesn't
matter. But when you are caught in a
flood, in danger of drowning,
that's when you need those values the most.
We need to hold on to our values,
especially
when things are difficult.
Sometimes people ask, why should I do it
when no 1 else is doing it?
And my answer is, I should do it
especially
when nobody else is doing it. Because
if I don't, then nobody else will.
As they say,
if not me,
then who?
Because in the end,
it's not about them.
It's about me.
Because it's my life
and only I will answer
for my actions.
Allah defined our life in this world
and our goal in the hereafter, in the
akhirah, very clearly.
And Allah said,
Which means, every soul,
every living being
will taste death, will die.
And you will only receive your full reward
on the day of judgement.
Whoever is spared
the punishment of Allah, who is spared from
the fire
and is admitted into paradise, into Jannah,
will indeed
triumph, will be finally successful.
Whereas the life of this world
is no more
than the delusion
of enjoyment.
In this Ayatul Kareema, Allah
mentioned 4 things.
That this life
is finite
and we will all die.
Whatever
material we have will be left behind,
But how we got it
and what we did with it, the actions
associated with that
will go with us.
That the final reckoning
will be on the day of judgment.
And no matter who thinks
that they got away with murder and
worse, will not get away. They will pay
the price
in full.
And likewise,
for those
who seem to lose out
because they were truthful
in this life,
they will receive their reward
in full on that day.
And finally,
the criterion of permanent success or failure
is only 1,
that the 1 who is saved
from punishment
and gets admittance
to Jannah will have succeeded.
And final point is beware.
This life
is
deception.
Following this
advice
from the Quran
means
that we must learn to do 2 things.
Firstly,
always keep our focus on the final goal,
which is Jannah, which is the pleasure of
Allah
in paradise.
And know
that how
matters more
than what.
How you acquire something, how you do something
matters more
than the material stuff that you acquire.
We must think about
all our speech and actions
in terms of the of their effect in
this life
and in the Akhir, not in this life
alone.
It is possible to benefit in this world
by lying.
But is it a benefit
when the result
is punishment in the hereafter?
It is possible to rule by oppressing others,
but is it worth paying for it on
the day of judgment
when those you oppressed
will ask Allah for justice?
And we know that it doesn't matter who
you oppressed,
whether you oppressed a Muslim or a non
Muslim,
whether you oppressed a Hindu or a Christian
or a Jew or an atheist.
In Islam, injustice is injustice.
If a Muslim oppresses a non Muslim, the
Muslim will be punished.
When the non Muslim cries out for help
against the oppressor,
Allah hears him even though the 1 crying
out does not worship Allah.
The hadith of Rasool
is very clear on this.
So our speech and actions must never violate
the laws of Allah
or the rights of people.
We must factor Allah
into our equations
because he is in it anyway.
He cares,
he sees, he hears,
he knows.
Nothing is hidden from him in the heavens
and the
earth. And to him is our final return.
This helps
us not to become discouraged and distracted
when it looks like honesty, integrity,
compassion, kindness,
the courage to speak the truth and so
on are all not only not practical,
but painful and attract punishment
in our world today.
And we see that those who do the
opposite of all these things become wealthy and
powerful.
This is a severe test because in a
materialistic world, we have been conditioned to define
success in terms of what
and not
how. We are told to measure human worth
in dollars,
not character. We are conditioned to look up
to those who have the most toys
and the ostentatious
lifestyles
of those people are role models
for us,
driving us to incur Allah
anger.
Secondly,
it helps us to remember that everything we
have will be left behind when we leave
this
world. Nothing goes with us
even if it is put into our graves.
It helps us to remember
that nobody's
life is free from trials.
Everyone
without exception
will be
tested. Only the kind of test differs.
It is impossible for everyone
to live without stress and worry,
especially
in today's world.
It's only the cause of the stress
and the nature of the difficulty
that changes.
For us, Muslims,
our biggest worry, not a stress, but biggest
concern
should be
the day of judgment
and the awareness
that it can come at any time.
Our day of judgement starts
the minute our eyes shut.
We have the hadith of Rasulullah
where a group of people came to him
and they said, You Rasulullah,
O Messenger of Allah, when is the day
of judgement?
Rasulullah
looked at the group.
There was a little boy with them.
He said,
if this boy lives long enough,
every other person in this group would have
met his day of judgement.
And that is why mouth is called
the small
The reception of Shaytan
is that he tells us that the way
to escape your fear is to ignore it.
Completely illogical.
The way to escape your fear is to
ignore it. Allah
tells us the truth,
which is that if you want to escape
what you fear, prepare for that.
Allah helps anyone who prepares
and seeks his help.
I know that we are taught to have
life goals,
but my question to myself in you is,
do we have a goal for our soul?
In our materialistic world, we are concerned about
our body's weight and shape and BMI and
fashion and all the rest. But are we
concerned about the state of our soul
or the state of our kalb, our hearts,
which Allah
said incidentally is the only thing which matters
when we meet him. He said,
Allah said on the day when neither wealth
nor children
will be of any benefit,
Only those who come before Allah
with a pure heart will be saved.
I ask myself
if I am satisfied
with the state
of my heart,
the state of my cult.
If not, then what am I doing
to at least try to have a pure
heart?
A heart pure
and free
from shirk,
from joining partners with Allah, from hatred, from
greed, envy, jealousy, stinginess, cruelty,
and the host of illnesses of the heart
that we are victims of?
Or am I going to continue to be
misled
by my environment and its influences
who try to convince me that all these
evils are good and must become my life
goals.
The name of that cancer is
materialism.
To believe
that the winner is the 1 who died
with the most toys.
Our role models are the Ambia, the prophets
of Allah
and Allah
ordered us to obey them.
And he said,
We only send the messengers to be obeyed
by the will of Allah.
About Rasulullah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
mentioned many times in the Quran
that we must obey him and we must
obey him without question.
1 of those places is where Allah said,
Allah said, whatever
the messenger gives
you, take it and whatever
he forbids you from,
leave it and fear Allah and surely Allah
is severe in punishment.
Allah
commands us to obey Rasool Allah SWALLAM
in everything
without exception,
to do or stay away from whatever he
tells us to do unquestioningly,
Not because we follow blindly,
but because we follow with the knowledge that
he, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
commands only
what Allah
commanded him and so when we obey him,
we are really obeying Allah
And Allah confirmed this and he said,
Allah said whoever obeys the messenger
has truly obeyed Allah but whoever turns away,
then know, oh Muhammad that
we have not sent you as a keeper,
as a security guard over them.
The Anbiya, alaihi, Musallam, the prophets were usually
they were usually the only ones among their
people initially who were on the values of
truth and fidelity.
They had no support.
They stood out.
They didn't blend in. They were not hypocritical
or politically correct.
They knew the consequences
of their actions.
They did not do them because they were
mistaken.
They did them out of a deep seated
conviction
about what is right and what is wrong.
They didn't compromise their truth because they knew
that truth is an absolute value.
It doesn't come in grades. You can't be
partially or slightly truthful,
just as you cannot
be slightly pregnant.
You are or you are not.
There are no gray areas about truth. The
Muslim
knew this in the core of their beings
and they lived by that and they paid
the price
and harvested the rewards
in this life,
and they will have the highest honor in
the akhirah.
We must weigh everything
in the true scale
of the akhirah and not get deceived
by the glitter of dunya
when someone sells something
with permanent value
to buy something with temporary value.
When someone does that in this life, if
someone sells something
of permanent value to buy something
with temporary value, you don't call that smart.
You call that stupid.
So what should we call our actions?
If you gain the whole world
but lose Allah,
what have you gained?
And if you lose the whole world
and gain Allah,
then what have you lost?
The beauty of Islam is that you don't
need to lose anything.
You do not need to lose anything
to gain Allah.
You can have the whole world
and you can have Allah.
The only condition is take that world
in the way that Allah
told you to take it and that way
is the way of Muhammad
My brothers and sisters, in conclusion, I remind
myself and you
that it is always about me, about you,
about the individual men and women.
All change begins with the individual.
Nobody can force us to change
and nobody can stop us from changing
if we decide to change.
That is why
we are solely responsible
for ourselves.
We are still in the month of Hajj
when Ibrahim
and his family
decided to obey Allah SWT,
it was not easy.
How easy is it? Think about it. Put
yourself in that place. How easy is it
to leave your wife and infant baby in
a desert valley and leave not knowing when
or if at all you will ever see
them again?
How easy is it to see your husband
leaving you and walking away
without a backward glance?
How easy was it to have a father
you were seeing for the first time
asking you what you thought about the idea
of being slaughtered,
sacrificed for the sake of Allah.
Yet they all submitted.
They submitted because they knew
who was asking.
They had a connection
with him, jalla jalla luhu, the glorious and
the magnificent Allah.
They knew him and had the best
expectation
from him.
Needless to say, Allah never lets you down.
He immortalized
their actions
and made them the the
rituals of the highest form of worship,
Hajj.
The Hajj is the commemorative
story of Ibrahim
and his family.
Allah made
them and their story
immortal.
Choose wisely
because our choices
are permanent.