Mirza Yawar Baig – Taqwa Wa Tawakkul
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Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen,
wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal
mursaleen, Muhammadur Rasulullahi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam wa
ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, tasliman kathiran
kathiran.
Amma ba'du, my brothers and sisters, Allah subhana
wa ta'ala jalla jalaluhu wa amma nawaluhu
jalla shanhu sent us for a purpose which
He declared as follows.
He said, wa maa khalaqtul jinna wal insa
illa liya'budoon.
In surat az-Zariyat, Allah subhana wa ta
'ala said, I, Allah, have not created the
jinn and the humans except that they should
worship Me alone.
By worship, it means obey also.
The foundation of ibadah, of worship, is the
attitude of bondage, which is the result of
a state of the heart called at-taqwa.
Taqwa is to be concerned about the pleasure
of Allah subhana wa ta'ala in all
matters because we love Him and look forward
to our return to Him.
Allah subhana wa ta'ala declared and commanded,
ya ayyuha alladhina amanut taqullaha haqqa tuqati wala
tamutunna illa wa antum muslimoon.
He said, O believers, be mindful of Allah,
have taqwa of Allah in the way that
is His right, haqqa tuqati, that He deserves,
that is His right and do not die
except in a state of full submission to
Him jalla jalaluhu.
I remind myself and you, the issue with
rights is that if we do not fulfil
them, we are liable to be questioned.
The question is, how can we have taqwa
of Allah subhana wa ta'ala unless we
know Him?
We know Allah subhana wa ta'ala in
two ways.
One, by reflecting on how Allah subhana wa
ta'ala introduced Himself so that His awe
and majesty permeates our hearts.
And the nur of His khashiyah drives away
all darkness.
Nobody can introduce Allah subhana wa ta'ala
the way He introduced Himself.
I remind myself and you and I invite
you and myself to reflect on the different
places that Allah subhana wa ta'ala described
Himself in His glory and majesty in the
Quran.
For example ayatul kursi, for example the last
ayat of suratul hashr, for example of suratul
ikhlas, for example the beginning of suratul mulk
and so on and so forth, suratul rahman
and so on and so forth.
We are already familiar with these ayat.
Let us reflect on how our Rabb jalla
jalaluhu described Himself.
And think about this and say that every
single one of His glorious names and attributes,
His asma wa sifat that He chose to
mention is designed to comfort and support us
that we are the slaves of the One
who is ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.
And He is in complete and total control
of our entire lives.
That is what we must reflect on and
appreciate and work to strengthen our connection with
Allah subhana wa ta'ala jalla jalaluhu.
We also know Allah subhana wa ta'ala
through our experience of His blessings in our
lives.
Again Allah subhana wa ta'ala mentioned His
blessings on us in many places in the
Quran.
Please read them and reflect on them.
Imagine life for insomniacs for example.
Imagine living as a homeless person through the
winter in the shade of a shop awning
or in the New York subway tunnel.
They live there because the tunnels are heated
but the rails that they sleep next to
are electrified.
So in your sleep if you turn over
and your hand or leg touches the rain,
goodbye.
Before they go to bed, these homeless people
who live in the subways, they need dinner.
Guess where they get that from?
In the garbage bins of Noho and Soho
and Hudson Yards and Greenwich Village and Billionaire's
Row.
I asked a New Yorker about this and
I said, why?
I said, why?
He said, because the best garbage is in
the most expensive districts.
Now when your imagining session is over, take
a look in the mirror and remind yourself
and I remind myself that the only thing
that separates you and me from the person
eating out of the garbage bin is the
mercy of Allah.
There is no difference between me and that
person eating out of the garbage bin except
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose not
to put me in that position.
We need to do some very serious personal
reflection in our lives to see which of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's blessings we enjoy
the most and what life would be without
that.
And then thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
very privately, very personally and very sincerely for
these blessings.
My brothers and sisters, give yourself time to
reflect.
Time for tadabbur and tafakkur.
We cannot keep leading our checklist lives on
treadmills that we are terrified to get off.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala called this life
nothing but deception.
As technology develops, the ability to deceive develops
and gets weaponized.
Anyone who doesn't reflect, who doesn't think, who
doesn't take charge of his own life is
the victim.
There are no neutral positions in this game.
No spectators, no armchair critics.
You are in the game.
We are all in the game.
I want to recite for you a poem
that I wrote this morning.
And the title of the poem is, We
know you O Allah by your bounties uncounted.
We know you O Allah by your bounties
uncounted.
By the rays of the sun, by the
light of the moon.
By the vast empty space and the stars
that live therein.
By the rain and the snow that helps
our gardens grow.
By the trees, by the fruits, by joys
and sorrows.
We know you O Allah by your bounties
uncounted.
By the flowers in spring, by the dew
on the rose.
By the summer, by the color of fall,
the herald of winter.
By the music of the brook as it
plays on the rocks.
By dark skies, by falling stars, by wisdom,
by stupidity.
We know you O Allah by your bounties
uncounted.
By the rain to give life, by sunshine
likewise.
By the dew drop on the thorn in
the light of the dawn.
By the fire of sunset as it lights
up another land.
By the bugle of the stag, by the
beating of my heart.
We know you O Allah by your bounties
uncounted.
By dreams that came true, by dreams unfulfilled.
By prayers answered sometimes in unexpected ways.
By prayers unanswered for which we thank you
today.
By parents, by siblings, by children, especially teenagers.
We know you O Allah by your bounties
uncounted.
By the silence of the forest at the
grandeur of mountains.
By the depth of the ocean hiding treasures
unknown.
By the fish, by the birds, by the
black-capped chickadee.
By the cardinal in the snow, by the
waiting blue heron.
We know you O Allah by your bounties
uncounted.
By the malin as he rises on his
tail and throws the hook.
By the song of the loon on the
night of the full moon.
By the storm, by the typhoon, by COVID
and still being alive.
By waking every morning, by sleeping every night.
We know you O Allah by your bounties
uncounted.
By a future that looks dark, promising dawn
very bright.
By our values, our compassion, our courage.
By Islam, by those who lift us when
we fall and fight for us when we
can't.
By knowing you, loving you, thanking you and
worshipping only you.
We know you O Allah by your bounties
uncounted.
My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and
you that we are all in the game.
You are in the game, I am in
the game.
The game called life.
There are no spectators.
We are in the game either as pawns
and victims or as conscious players and masters.
The choice is ours.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala defined our situation
very clearly and he said Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala said every soul will
taste death and you will only receive your
full reward on the day of judgement.
Whoever is spared from the fire and is
admitted into Jannah will indeed triumph.
Whereas the life of this world is no
more than the delusion of enjoyment.
I remind myself and you that the winner
is decided only at the end of the
race.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us about
the race.
The criterion of winning and the trap.
The race is called life.
It will end when we die which is
the qiyamatu sohra, the small day of judgement
for us.
The criterion of winning is to be protected
from Jahannam and granted entry into Jannah.
Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala this for
all of us.
The trap is the life of this world.
We know.
So now we must act.
If one is not aware and falls into
a trap it is understandable.
But if one knows the trap, he can
recognize it but still walks into it, then
he is responsible for his own fate.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala save us
from ourselves.
The trap is very elaborate and deceptive.
It is aided by society that we have
created where we constantly mention and praise and
extol the trap and those who are the
bait.
They call them influencers, I call them bait.
Because one who influences you to fall into
a trap is the bait.
Monitor your conversation for one day.
We will answer for what we chose.
Our conversations, ask yourself, what do you speak
about and hear the most?
What do you watch?
For most of us, apart from the Quran
that we listen to in Salah, there is
almost no mention of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala in our lives.
The rule of life is that what you
mention assumes importance and vice versa.
What you don't mention goes away from our
consciousness.
As for Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, there
is no mention of him and his life
which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent us
as a guide, except when we listen to
a khatira in the Masjid.
Add up all this time.
Five Salahs, take ten minutes per Salah if
you like.
Time yourself and see how long it takes.
Take ten minutes for Salah, fifty minutes.
Plus khatira, five minutes.
You still have five minutes of change in
one hour.
When we add up the total mention of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in our lives
in 24 hours, we are left with minutes,
not hours.
For the rest of the day, we are
talking about and listening to talk about work
and politics and sports and the share market
and the glory of billionaires and may Allah
protect us.
For some of us, backbiting and slandering.
Our minds, therefore, are conditioned to be in
awe of money and power and those who
have it and not in awe of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Our role models are billionaires.
We don't care or look at anything about
them other than their net worth.
It doesn't even matter to us that the
money they have is ephemeral and illusory and
not real and concrete.
It is their portfolio value, subject to the
rise and fall of the share market which
is the biggest illusion in the world.
It is based on investor sentiment and not
even on asset value or the kind of
business or management or sales or anything which
can be seen and measured.
The latest in this whole gamut of imaginary
wealth is Bitcoin.
A sequence of numbers which someone told you
has value.
Something which you can't use to buy anything
useful.
And which you must convert to cash before
you can use it by finding someone dumber
than you are to take it off your
hands at a profit.
Is there anything that illustrates what Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala called mata'ul ghuroor better
than this?
If you don't believe me, ask Warren Buffet
what his opinion is about Bitcoin.
He doesn't own any.
That should tell us something, right?
So which camp are we in?
We need to assess and take action before
the angels come.
To know which camp you are in, ask
yourself where you feel most impatient.
In dhikrullah, in listening to the Quran in
talawih, in a khatira or lecture on Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala or his Rasul a
.s. Or watching a basketball or soccer or
cricket or whatever sport you have, that much.
The truth is easy to see but difficult
to swallow.
But on the day of judgment, it is
only the truth which can save us.
This is our modern culture and the result
of it is stress and depression and despair
and suicide.
While the culture of Rasul a.s. and
the sahaba found comfort and support in the
dhikr of Allah.
Salah was the coolness of their eyes, the
Quran was their resource.
And reading it and listening to it was
their joy.
They were connected to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala while we have lost that connection.
To lose that connection is to lose everything.
As they say, if you lose everything but
have Allah, what have you lost?
And if you gain everything but lose Allah,
what have you gained?
Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala never to
allow our connection with Him to be weakened
or severed.
This won't happen only by wishing for it.
We must work on it constantly to ensure
that it always remains strong.
Now if you want to know what somebody
considers important, what somebody values and enjoys, see
what they spend the most time on.
See where they spend the maximum amount of
their time.
The average person, as I mentioned to you
today, spends up to 6 hours a day
on social media.
Lionel Messi and Ronaldo spend 4-5 hours
a day, 6 days a week training and
practicing their game because they think it is
important for them.
That's how they make their millions.
Kobe Bryant used to spend 6 hours a
day, 6 days a week for 6 months
in his off-season training.
So we can safely say that these gentlemen
love their game and consider it important.
Now, as I mentioned before, let us see
how much time we spend with Allah.
Taking an average of 10 minutes per salah
and a 5 minute khatira at the end
of the day, you still have 5 minutes
change left over from one hour.
Do we think this is enough to get
into Jannah?
I remind myself and you that peace of
mind is tawakkul, which is the reward of
taqwa.
When the slave knows Allah, he relies on
Him and that frees him from all fear.
Allah says, وَمَن يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْنَهُ مَخْرَجًا وَيَرْزُقْهُ
مِنْ هَيْثُ لَا يَهْتَسِبْ وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ
فَهُوَ حَزْبُهُ Allah s.w.t. says, And
whoever has taqwa of Allah, He jalla jalaluhu
will make a way for him to get
out of every difficulty.
And He will provide him from sources that
he could never imagine.
And whoever puts his trust in Allah, then
he will be sufficient for him.
Khashatullah plus shukr equals taqwa.
Which is the reward, the reward of which
is taqwa.
Let us assess our progress in deen.
Do I have khashatullah?
Proof of khashatullah is obedience of Allah by
following the method, the sunnah of Rasulullah s
.a.w. This life is a journey and
a test.
We must constantly assess ourselves to see how
we are doing and make course collections.
It doesn't matter how wrong we may be
from time to time, as long as we
return to the Siratul Mustaqeem by making istighfar
and tawbah.
So let us take stock.
It begins with knowing Allah s.w.t.
and reflecting on His blessings and thanking Him
for everything and loving Him until you love
Him more than anyone and anything else.
To love Allah s.w.t. and to
love Rasulullah s.a.w. is a part
and measure of our iman.
It is not optional or discretionary.
It is the very essence of being a
Muslim.
You cannot love a stranger.
That is why we must know Allah s
.w.t. Reflect on His glory and majesty.
Remember His blessings and thank Him for them
constantly.
That is how we will be able to
love Him jalla shanuhu.
That is what differentiates us from everyone else.
Because we love Allah.
Allah s.w.t. said, والذين آمنوا أشدهم
بالله He said, but those who believe love
Allah s.w.t. more than anything else.
And He said in another place in Surah
Tawbah in a different tone, قُلْ إِنْ كَانَ
آبَاءُكُمْ وَأَبْنَاءُكُمْ وَإِخْوَانُكُمْ وَأَزْوَاجُكُمْ وَعَشِيرَتُكُمْ
وَأَمْوَالٌ اِقْتَرَفْتُمُوهَا وَاتِجَارَةٌ تَقْشَوْنَا كَسَادَهَا وَمَسَاكِنُ
تَرْضَوْنَهَا أَحَبَّ إِلَيْكُمْ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ وَجِهَادٍ فِي
سَبِيلِهِ فَتَرَبَّسُوا حَتَّى يَأْتِيَ اللَّهُ بِأَمْرِهِ وَاللَّهُ لَا
يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الْفَاسِقِينَ Allah s.w.t. said,
which means say, if your fathers, your sons,
meaning your sons and daughters, your brothers, meaning
your brothers and sisters, your wives, meaning wives
and husbands, your kindred, your family, the wealth
that you have gained, the commerce in which
you fear a decline and the dwellings in
which you delight are dearer to you than
Allah s.w.t. and His Messenger s
.a.w. and striving hard and fighting in
His cause, then wait until Allah s.w
.t. brings about His decision of torment and
punishment.
And Allah s.w.t. does not guide
people who are al-fasiqoon, who are rebellious
and disobedient to Allah.
Once the mu'min has accepted this, that the
love of Allah supersedes everything and everyone else,
then he submits to Allah s.w.t.
with total and complete trust.
Trust is the result of knowledge about the
power and glory of Allah and knowing that
Allah s.w.t. is in control and
wishes the best for us and has the
capability to deliver it.
That is the essence of at-tawhid.
The thought of Allah s.w.t. fills
our heart with His awe and His majesty
and reflecting on His bounty fills our heart
with gratitude.
With that we submit.
Allah s.w.t. said about Ibrahim a
.s. when his Rab said to him Jalla
Jalaluhu submit, that is be a Muslim, he
said, I have submitted myself as a Muslim
to the Rab of the alameen, Rab of
the worlds.
This is the position, the stance and the
status of the Muslim, I have submitted.
Inni aslamtu, not I will submit, I have
submitted and then you see the effect of
tawakkul.
Ibrahim a.s. made his dua when he
left his infant son and his wife, our
mother Haja a.s. in the barren valley
of Mecca.
He says Rabbana inni askantu min dhurriyati biwadin
ghayri dhi zar'in inda baytika l-muharram
Rabbana li yuqeemu s-salat fa ja'al
af'idatan min al-nas tahwi ilayhim wa
rzuqhum min al-thamarati la'allahum yashkurun.
Allah said, O our Rabb, I have made
some of my offspring to dwell in an
uncultivable valley by your sacred house, the Kaaba
at Mecca.
In order, O our Rabb, that they may
establish as-salat.
That they may establish as-salat, iqamat-e
-salat.
So fill some hearts among men with love
towards them.
And O Allah, provide them with fruits so
that they may give thanks.
Now think about this dua, you don't hear
any panic in it, or uncertainty or fear
in the voice of Ibrahim a.s. because
he knows who he is dealing with.
I can imagine that he must have actually
been excited and thrilled at what he had
been asked to do.
And that is why he has no anxiety
about the safety of his family.
His dua shows total trust which is why
he is not even asking for safety and
protection for them.
He is asking Allah s.w.t. to
use them for His work.
To give them influence and the power of
leadership.
And he is asking them for tertiary benefits,
fruits.
He is not asking them for bread and
butter.
That they will survive is a given.
There is no doubt about that.
After all, he a.s. took them there
because Allah s.w.t. told him to
do that.
So how can they perish?
That is why when you encounter those who
have tawakkul, it is as if you are
watching someone who is in another world, marching
to a different tune that only he or
she can hear in their heart.
And therefore, I remind myself and you, and
I ask Allah s.w.t. to grant
us the tawfiq, to seek only His pleasure,
and to dedicate our lives to the only
thing which matters, His obedience in the way
of His Messenger Muhammad s.a.w. Wa
sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa
sahbihi ajmain.
Birahmatullahi rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.