Positivity Surpasses Potential

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah while early he was savage marine and begin the name of Allah whole praise and glory belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds and may his finest peace and blessings be upon the one whom He sent as a mercy to the world our messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam.

So it's not very difficult turning on the news or the news feed and getting the feeling that this OMA is just so weak and so behind and so pressed and so victimized and so disadvantaged.

Just feel like sometimes this OMA of ours has become a nonfactor. No will have its own kind of like a feather in the wind, no determination, no competence.

And if you keep watching, and if you keep scrolling, this could totally destroy your psyche, like your state of mind, or your state of heart. You can just become totally jaded by everything that you see.

And our religion, there's a very operatic concept and a very prophetic concept that shatters that, that I want to spend inshallah the next few minutes discussing, you know, some people inspirational speakers, they actually word this very same concept in a very clever way in English. And also I'll give that to you first. Maybe it'll help you remember it. They say it is actually your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.

Everybody got that?

So basically, what that means is, it's not really about your resources, your potential. It's not really about your talent, your skill, your aptitude, your ability.

Rather, it's more about your fiery ambitions, your unwavering resolve your positive thoughts of Allah, your firm trust in Him that will effect positive change in this ummah?

When the Sahaba came complaining to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam about the state of the ummah.

He said, listen, people before you were split in half, and their skin was ripped from their bones ripped from their flesh, and Allah who will fulfill his promise to this OMA, while I cannot come to stand alone, you're just being impatient. And this is very natural. Allah azza wa jal says, well, holy Collinson, or Abdullah, human being was created impatient, hasty. So it's part of our nature to kind of be fixated on the end goal. We want to fast forward to the last chapter in the book.

But if you don't control that, it could be extremely devastating. It could be extremely paralyzing. I heard a Muslim psychologist recently say if I had to diagnose the Muslim ummah, I would diagnose them with collective depression.

She said, Because in existential psychology, clinically speaking, depression is described as the gap between where you are, and where you think you should be.

And freezing there.

Like you're on top of a mountain that you don't want to be on. And you're looking where you think you should be the top of another mountain, and you can't help but just lock your gaze on the bottomless pit between those two mountains. And you just you're like, just what's the point? You become totally despairing, totally fatalist.

And your inner ability to look up causes you not to realize that there's a bridge right there.

That is the dilemma of our ummah. And so Allah azza wa jal protected us from the Achilles heel of human nature in this regard, by teaching us an attitude towards ourselves, and then an attitude more importantly towards him.

That can actually start getting the wheel to turn in the right direction

and attitude towards yourself. When Allah says, well as a you know, Walter has no, do not be weak, do not grieve. What do you mean, don't be weak? How is he asking me something, not an ability and my ability, you're right. Allah is not asking you something outside of your ability. Think a little deeper. When Allah tells you Don't be weak, meaning there's an aspect of weakness that's in your ability to put behind you to bury to stomp out, which is the feeling the attitude of

weakness, the feeling of being defeated. Just as our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said to us

if rissalah Malian Pharaoh was there in Villa he wala charges, be keen on capitalize on the things that would benefit you that which is fruitful and keep your trust in Allah and do not feel powerless. It is not allowed for you to feel powerless. That is what Allah is telling you. That is what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is telling you that attitude is haram. How's that?

Top of the Allahu Anhu used to warn that people are falling into this and he would say Don't you dare just sit there in your place and say Oh ALLAH provide for me because you all know that the sky does not rain gold and silver.

And hmm Acoma Rahim, Allah heard about a bunch of people that just sat in the masjid, saying, Allah will provide for us we have put our trust in God. He said, these are people that have no idea what knowledge is. They don't even know the smell of knowledge. He said, didn't they open the book of Allah and read in the Quran? Were Hosei Leakey big enough allottee to serve the poor alike Euro Tobin Jenia and shake towards you the trunk of the palm tree. Right edible dates will fall upon you. Allah is saying to Maria, Molly has Salam who just gave birth, even if she hadn't just give birth given birth. If she was a man, that was a bodybuilder in the world, strongest man competition, who

shakes up the trunk of a palm tree. This is a lesson for anyone to read the Quran to see crystal clear, Allah is telling you engage reality, you must refuse to become a person that just watches from the sidelines. Some of us many of us give up our duties. We don't fulfill our duties to ourselves or to the OMA because we think that flipping through the news and even pulling out a few tears is enough.

As if this OMA is a soccer game as if this OMA is a movie because we do that with movies as well don't we? Don't we drop a few tears sometimes. When this team wins in this team loses, and that character dies and that character is found and has a reunion.

Allah azza wa jal is telling you you're not allowed to treat the OMA treat reality this way to just be an bystander, marginalize on the sidelines of the real world.

You know, our issue as an ummah

is not the impossible things that we wish we could have right now. I will real issue as an OMA are the very possible things that we are distracted from that we are neglecting. It's not the impossible that we wish we can have. Syria will not come back overnight or we agreed or not. Burma will not be safe overnight, yes or no. And Masjid Al Aqsa will not be liberated overnight. Yes.

Apartheid against the ogre Muslims in eastern China will not end overnight.

Stephon Clark will not be the last one. systematic racism on the minorities, especially in the inner cities will not end overnight. But our contribution, incremental change our work towards these causes, cannot wait another night. That's what our deen teaches us. You busy yourself with serving people protecting the lives of the innocent and the vulnerable, protecting the faith of the Muslims that are doubting caring for the widow and the needy and the orphan. Educating the masses developing the generations of tomorrow, that is our duty, that we cannot have rosy dreams that distract us from the items at hand.

You know, as one of them said,

the key to a person's happiness and the key to escaping life's endless disappointments. And the key to actually being productive, not just settling for slogans and hashtags is for you to

find regular repeated tiny accomplishments to cause change to happen in things small things that most people consider insignificant but they are a huge deal to those that you're doing them for.

So what that means is that if you want to be happy number one, and you want to get the momentum going the energetic cycle to start and it might just as well as up after a while. Just go find your niche. Go find your circle of influence, go find the mist

opportunities. How did your Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasallam change the world anyway?

And so I had to because he says we lost our breath. And as young as the elderly Prophet SAW Selim in Medina, we lost our breath catching up with him when he ran to the house of that Jewish boy that used to serve Him, as the Jewish boy was dying. And he said to him, c'est la ilaha illa Allah.

And then a moment of parental compassion, a moment of honesty, the young boy looked at his father who is not a Muslim, and his father said to him out there about Carson obey Mohamed. And so he says, La ilaha illa Allah and he dies upon Islam, and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam walks out with his face beaming saying, Alhamdulillah he loves the anchor the human and now Praise be to Allah Who saved him from the fire. Think about that for a second, this young man for the Head of State to visit him why

he wasn't going to join the taxpayers list. He's not going to be paying Zika he's not going to join the Muslim army and defend this law. He's not going to be doing but it was a huge deal for the one it was done for.

You know, rock Bob naffaa Rahim Allah was of those credited for bringing the light of Islam all across North Africa, and paving the way to the Golden Age that would soon come in, under Lucia in Muslim Spain. You know what his attitude was expanding his all they say that when he got to a river, the river 10 year, he waited with his horse until the water was up here to his horse. And he said, Oh Allah, you know that if this sea was not here, I'd go further and further spreading your light to the world. Why did he do that? He knows he's not going to walk on water. Why doesn't he just say it from the shore? Why is he maxing out?

Mohamed Fatiha Rahima Hola. For 800 years people have dreamed and tried beginning with some of the Sahaba to be the fulfillment of the prophet, the prophet hood, the prophecy of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that Constantinople Istanbul would be liberated, who did it? It was on the hands of Muhammad Furter. Do you know what his mother says? She says come to see him Johanna 11. I used to feed him the wounds of his OMA along with the milk. In other words, when I was nursing him, she said I used to bring him to the shore that he would ride the sea. For that famous feat I used to when he was an infant, bring him to the shore and tell him the struggles of his OMA as I was

nursing him bedtime stories. Don't underestimate them. That is your capacity than that is your duty.

And there are so many examples of this until this present day.

You know Dr. Abdullah Montessori summit so many of you may know him he died a few years ago, a Kuwaiti physician spent the last 29 years of his life in the jungles of Africa, in the villages of Africa and downtrodden Africa doing trying to do his best.

11 million people are credited to have become Muslim because of him 5700 masajid and 200 Islamic centers and another 200 hospitals and clinics 9500 Wells 51 million muscle has most has been distributed. You can do more than you think.

It was told to me last year that one of the young blessed women that went to visit the Syrian refugees and came back determined to expand her all after seeing the camps. She by herself shocked herself. The brothers from Helping Hand were telling me she collected $500,000 on her own, you can do that and more. You're just selling yourself short sometimes. Our problem is that we let shape on tell us what are you going to do? What's the point no matter what you do? It's just another drop in the ocean. And our attitude is supposed to be and what else is an ocean but a pile of drops. Our attitude should be even if it's just a drop in the ocean, no harm, because our Prophet sallallahu

alayhi wa sallam gave us endless hope. He said to us if the Day of Judgment is starting, and you have a sapling, a baby tree in your hands, and you're able to plant it before the Day of Judgment starts then planted.

Think about that. That sapling is going to be gone in moments it's going to vanish, but it vanishing does not prevent it from showing up in your scale of good deeds does not prevent you from being liable or able to act on something because those moments were in your capacity.

So remember this app link.

And then these next three, four minutes because I have to close now, but check yesterday

Allah laid on he touched this on the lecture before your attitude towards Allah. It's not just your attitude towards yourself, your attitude towards Allah who will determine your altitude above and before anything else.

You know, if we look around too much we get consumed by the challenges, we get consumed by the negativity. And that's why Muslims way too often are busy talking about conspiracy this and conspiracy that and it's straight up paranoia sometimes.

That's because we're looking around too much. If we were just to look up a little bit, or look up through looking into the Quran, you would find a God that is most capable, a God that can change the world overnight and we are certain of that a God that is also most wise. A God that is the best of planners subhanho wa Taala we believe in him Jalla Jalla Allahu, that is our greatest asset. We believe that everything we do in the conference, and everything we get inspired to do from the conference this weekend. Perhaps if we connect right with Allah and assume the best of him, one dua in the depths of the night from a pure heart can outweigh it all can change the course of history.

Don't we believe that? We must absolutely believe that.

You know, the reason why we have to keep reiterating this

is because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said to us a kill haematocrit Allah right, like tie your camel and put your trust in Allah. They are two sides of the same coin by the way. So what you're going to do is expand your all while not believing that anything you do is ultimately going to be effective without Allah, like, I believe fire burns. So I'm going to do everything in my power to not burn myself. But I do believe at the end of the day that if Allah wants to fire not to burn me the same way it didn't burn, Ibraheem Alehissalaam it's not gonna burn me.

I believe that a knife is dangerous. I'm not gonna subject myself to a sharp blade. But if Allah Who wants that blade will not cut me the way it did not cut the smile out of his salon.

You know what that does for you by the way that liberates you, gives you so much tranquility and confidence to work when you're liberated from thinking everything is in your hands. That's a ruse, by the way. That's a fatal trick. You know, when people say if you just put your mind to it, you can get it done. We don't believe that as Muslims.

We believe if you put your mind to it, you will get it done in sha Allah.

Isn't that true?

One person said I used to believe in destiny. But now I believe in hard work.

Our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said Kulu che in Bihar had the largest Zuul case. Everything is destined by God, even your ability and your inability. So you work hard as if everything is in your hands, while fully certain that you and others are in Allah's hands subhanho wa taala. And remember the higit of your Prophet sal Allahu Allahu alayhi wa sallam. He did everything he could was thorough and planned and went the opposite direction. And they still got to the cave, didn't they?

But then Allah blinded their hearts from simply looking into the cave.

That's what we believe as Muslims.

You know, I read recently that life is like riding a bicycle. Albert Einstein says this, the way to keep your balance is just to keep going.

And there is some beauty to this and there is some truth to this.

But what if you keep going in the wrong direction?

And that's why I found more beautiful than Einstein statement is the hadith of Shuddha

Radi Allahu Allah and who narrated by Ahmed and others where the where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used to say Allahumma in Nia Celica. basophil amor will Azima Tala rush

put that in your toolbox. He used to say oh Allah I asked you for stability in affairs in matters and to be determined upon doing the right things. Subhanak Allahumma behandling shadow Hola Hola. Hola, Mr. Furukawa to like just like a local in everybody