Boost – Faith Through Hardship
Date:
Channel: Mufti Menk
Series: Mufti Menk - Ramadan 2024 - Boost
File Size: 28.62MB
Related
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- Mufti Menk – Who are your best friends?
- Mufti Menk – Wipe out your bad deeds
- Wael Ibrahim – Better Me Ramadan 2019 #20 – Proof that you are faithful
AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the challenges of relationships and the need for faith and contentment to avoid overwhelming emotions. They emphasize the importance of avoiding war and not let things happen in one's life. The success of Allah's plan to assist believers in achieving their dreams is also highlighted, along with the importance of investing in one's life and healthy living. The speakers emphasize the need for faith and knowing oneself to see the light of the day, as well as the importance of taking time to think and see the light of the day to fulfill one's potential.AI Generated Transcript ©
The prophet peace be upon him said, look
for lay little girded in the last 10
nights of Ramadan.
Amongst the last 10 days is a night
better than a 1000
months. Make the most of these auspicious nights
and multiply your reward.
Feed the hungry, shelter the needy, empower the
poor, and spread smiles amongst orphans.
Donate today, www
w.abdullahid.org.uk.
My beloved brothers and sisters, it is amazing
to be here in this beautiful month of
Ramadan
with such beaming faces.
Everyone
so happy, smiling insha Allah,
hiding
all the difficulty hardship that you and I
may be facing.
And that happens because the Almighty is the
one who favors us always.
I was in this beautiful
hall
before Ramadan
and there was a verse that I mentioned
and repeated.
And later when I left, I thought of
it
and it helped me in my own challenges.
You need to know every time someone talks
to you
about
goodness and how to overcome the challenges
and how to enjoy the comfort and the
contentment that the almighty has created.
That person
also faces challenges of their own.
And their own comfort and contentment
would definitely be
according to how much
they hear
themselves.
So if I were to adopt the goodness
that Allah has blessed us with, that I
talk about,
it would bring about a lot of comfort
in the midst of the biggest challenges
that we may face in our lives because
life is all about challenges.
And if I ignore what the almighty says
then
I will have to face the consequences of
that.
And one of those consequences is no matter
what happens on earth, even if your issues
are small, they will seem so big because
you haven't taken the guidance.
Who made you and who made I? Who
made me?
Allah Almighty made you and I
and Allah Almighty has told us
what to take seriously and what not to
take seriously.
And today
I want to remind yourselves and myself about
the same verse.
Allah says,
Two places in the Quran. Allah says if
you were
to try to count the favors of Allah
upon you, you would never manage to count
them.
If you were to count the favors of
Allah upon you, you would never manage to
count them. So I'm sure you've heard that
verse before
where Allah says try to count the favors
of Allah, you won't. And Allah continues
in Surat Ibrahim, Allah Almighty says
Indeed man
is not only oppressive but he is very
ungrateful.
Kafar
means one who's ungrateful,
showing ingratitude. Why am I ungrateful?
There are many explanations. Let me give you
one of them. In these verses Allah is
telling you about His favors upon you then
he says, but man is ungrateful because
we concentrate on those things we don't have.
That's what it is. We concentrate
on what we do not have so we
go wrong. Allah says try and count the
favors upon
you from us
and then see what happens.
So this verse is so amazing because the
reverse of it gives us the greatest hope
if we were to look at it. Allah
says,
if you try to count the favors of
Allah upon you, you won't manage.
So that means if you try to count
what Allah has not given you or taken
away from you or the challenges or difficulties
or hardships He placed in your life, you
will manage to count those.
Have you ever thought of it that way?
If I tell you,
how are you? Say, I've got a big
problem. Did you know what you just said?
I have got a big problem.
Means one major issue, right?
Or you got, hey, I've got a few
issues that I'm going dealing with at the
moment. What did you just say? I've got
a few. What about the rest of everything
else? You've just ignored everything.
Your breathing, your
mind, your family, your whatever else it may
be, your health, your wealth, your job.
Even if you don't have the job for
example so much more that you have that
others don't have.
Your deen, your iman,
the fact that you're focused, all of that
is amazing, isn't it? But people don't think
about it because the challenges are overwhelming
sometimes.
We are human. We need a reminder
to say, what's gone wrong in my life?
Well, this has gone wrong. What has gone
right? This has gone right. SubhanAllah.
Subhanallah.
In my life
and in all honesty,
if a 1,000 things go right, one thing
goes wrong. Because when we say go wrong
according to us it's a it's obviously a
hardship, a difficulty but a 1,000 things went
right.
Many of us stress and we're upset because
of one thing that goes wrong in our
lives. Yes, it's major. To lose a loved
one might just be the first loved one
you've lost but trust me it's very big.
It's not easy.
And it's only with closeness to the Almighty
that you'll be able to overcome that.
You know to be to go through a
divorce after you went through marriage. People say
my engagement broke and they are depressed
But what about the others? The engagement went
through, mashallah.
They spent a lot of time, effort, energy.
They invested in the marriage. The nikah went
through, the wedding went through and thereafter we
started not getting along. Now what? I'd rather
the engagement broke. But if the engagement broke,
we would have been stressed in a different
way.
Allah saves us sometimes from things we don't
realize.
Things that are
not going to happen
in our lives.
Had they happened,
Allah knows how they would have happened
and so
he doesn't want us to go through that.
He takes us out of it from the
very beginning.
But man is so stressed sometimes,
he only looks at negatives. Have you come
across
people
who no matter what happens, they think of
the worst possible thoughts?
They think of the worst possible thoughts. If
someone is crossing the road they start thinking
the most negative of thoughts.
If someone is walking and there is a
bulge coming from their pockets they start thinking
the worst possible thing that could be in
those pockets. SubhanAllah. What's it got to do
with you? Leave them. SubhanAllah.
Let them be.
If a person is greeting you, you know,
they're greeting me for a reason. There must
be something. I'm sure they're gonna use me.
I'm sure they they have bad intentions. Why
do that?
Let it be. You know Allah speaks about
war in the Quran
and Allah speaks about how important it is
to try and avoid war.
Allah says it should only be a last,
last resort.
And then Allah says and even if you
ended up fighting,
if
the enemy is inclining
towards peace,
Allah says inclined towards it you as well
straight away. But then there's a question. What's
the question? The negative question comes about. What
if these people are inclining towards peace in
order to con me, in order to deceive
me? So So let's listen to what Allah
says.
Amazing.
If they are inclining towards peace, you incline
towards peace as well and
rely on Allah.
So that's a bonus. I did what Allah
wants me to do. I made the peace
and on top of that, guess what I'm
doing? I'm relying on Allah. I am I'm
trusting Allah on this one. I'm trusting
in order for you to learn something great,
in order for you to cross a barrier
that you hadn't ever crossed before, in order
for you to arrive at a level of
closeness with Allah that you were never at
before. So Allah Almighty immediately after that He
says,
Still if they want to cheat you and
deceive you after you have laid your trust
in Allah, Remember Allah is sufficient for you.
Allah is enough for you. Allah knows. Allah
has assisted the believers before you
with His own victory. Look at the battle
of Badr.
Imagine Allah the Lord of the worlds,
He does not need you and I for
anything and if He wanted He could have
had Nabi Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
win every battle
and he could have had so much more.
But it was part of Allah's plan that
you may or may not understand.
It's part of Allah's plan.
When Abu Sufyan was asked
by the enemy,
tell us more about this man.
Do you guys fight with each other? He
says, yes we do. We've had a few
wars. Who wins? Well they win sometimes, we
win sometimes.
He said, well that's how it is with
all the prophets.
SubhanAllah. Did you hear that? He said, that's
how it is with all the prophets.
They win sometimes, these people win sometimes. The
ultimate win is always for the believers. Allah
says, a believer is in a condition where
he can never lose if he has that
faith. He's in a win win situation.
If it went your way,
you're happy.
If it did not go your way,
it went the way Allah wanted it anyway.
So you're a believer and you just take
it in your stride. Okay, that's fine. I
remember there's a couple
came to me and one of the 2
is asking, look we want I want to
end this marriage But what's the problem? We
don't have a problem but I want to
end this marriage. But I don't have a
problem. There's no problem whatsoever.
It's obviously
so stressful,
so stressful because
you and I know marriages break when the
2 parties don't get along.
But if they're getting along and suddenly someone
comes up and says, you know what? I
don't want this anymore. SubhanAllah. It is so
difficult, so hard.
And so to comfort this person I
said,
Allah knows best. Allah knows what the future
holds. Take it in your stride. See what
it is. Allah knows. Perhaps it may be
a means of some form of opening that
you never dreamt of that will happen. You
need great conviction to believe what I just
said.
You need great conviction to believe what I
just said because
without faith
you will just look at today. That's it.
You will look at today. How many of
us have cried to Allah as we grew
up
for passing the exams? Where are you today?
SubhanAllah.
Someone messaged me earlier and said I wanted
to come but
we weren't allowed with children who were below
10.
So I couldn't come and I'm saying, khair,
there must be some goodness in it. What
goodness can there be in it? Well, I
know that believing in Allah there must be
some goodness in it. It's okay. Maybe on
your way here you might have made a
big accent Astaghfirullah that's thinking negative. But anyway,
in order to think positive of why we
didn't come or why we weren't able to
come, let's think a little bit of what
negativity we were saved
from.
That becomes positive, right?
You're saved from negativity. Doesn't it become positive?
Come on. I know you guys are fasting
and I know it's the UK and I
know your fasts are very very long. I
flew in from Madinah Munawara and trust me
yesterday's fast was longer than all of you
guys' fast put together, man. Masha Allah. I
said, welcome to England. And they kept asking
me, are you fasting, sir? I said, yes
sir. Yes madam. I'm fasting.
Yeah. I hope we get to our destination
very fast. That's why I'm fasting, masha'Allah.
Yeah. May Allah bless all of us.
But So sometimes things we desperately want, we
ask Allah for and it doesn't come the
way we want it, but we lose the
bigger picture. Allah has given us a lot
of what we wanted from the time we
were young.
Think of the days you were at school,
how you called out to Allah, O Allah,
I need to pass this examination.
I need this needs to happen. O Allah
grant me this, grant me that. Where are
you today?
You might have failed once or twice but
the general picture, what happened? Where are we?
We have progressed in life. We have gotten
so far. Oh Allah, grant me this job.
Grant me that. I was working out how
much money has been spent on me from
the time I was born.
I was working out how much money has
been spent on me from the time I
was born.
I want you guys to thank Allah
by looking at what amount of money was
spent on you from the time you were
born. Just think about it. What does it
cost to feed you? What did it cost
to get you out of the hospital to
begin with? Masha Allah. And what did it
cost to bring you up and to send
you to school depending.
For for some people it might have been
less, some people more but 1,000,000. Trust me.
It goes into the millions. You wonder where
was all that money? What if they didn't
worry about me and just gave me the
cash today?
You wouldn't be here. That's the thing. Because
when you start looking at those figures, you're
going to thank Allah. You Allah. You Allah.
Imagine a £1,000,000
spent on me. A £1,000,000.
Did my folks or did the people even
have that money? No, they didn't. How was
it spent? Over time.
Over a long time the money was spent.
Think about what I'm saying.
Subhanallah,
how much money have you now forget about
how much was spent on you. How much
have you spent in your life from your
own money?
You'll be shocked
how much Allah has given you.
Your salary might be a few 1,000. You've
spent 100 of 1,000 if not 1,000,000 already
in your short life so far. You still
have a long way to go InshaAllah. May
Allah grant us goodness, good healthy lives that
He is pleased with us the day He
takes us away. Amen.
But man looks at the negatives.
We look You know in the month of
Ramadan usually what happens,
we have
a lot of giving, charity
because it's recommended in the month of Ramadan.
The reward is multiplied. We have all the
charitable organizations
reminding us, telling us
you need to do this and you need
to do that. All these reminders are good
and we give.
We end up giving.
Islam teaches us that your charity is never
depleted by your giving. In fact it is
increased.
It's increased. It's an investment when I invest.
If if I have say for example £20,000
lying around. Masha Allah. Lying around means you
got to be quite rich for that. Right?
What should I do with it? So you're
looking for an opportunity to invest. Opportunity to
invest.
Subhanallah. Allah tells you if a year has
passed and you're still looking for an opportunity
to invest, we're gonna force that investment out
of you.
We have to. 2 a half percent bring
it this way. You invested into your hereafter.
And you know what Allah says?
That's an amazing verse. He says, when you
give a little in charity, the small droplet,
a little seed. The ones who spend their
wealth in the in the good causes that
Allah creates for you?
The way I've worded that is actually important
because Pause for a moment and tell you,
do you know when there is an opportunity
to give? It's actually an opportunity created by
Allah for you to see. If it meets
If it actually catches your attention and if
your heart feels like giving, give. If your
heart feels soft, give. You know why? It's
your opportunity created by Allah. Allah will fill
it with someone else if you're not going
to fill it. It's not like the cause
is going to stop. The the it's not
like people are going to die before their
time. No. But it's just that we were
not quick enough to seize an opportunity. So
going back to this issue of what the
Quran says regarding
that spending.
The multiplication
of it is amazing because
he
makes it similar to a seed that is
sown, that grows
corn that has
all these, you know,
the ears.
The corn, subhanAllah
each one of them brings about so many
more of those seeds
100 to 700
and beyond.
SubhanAllah.
Allah is telling you your wealth is like
a seed, you sow it and move on.
You see what will happen to this. You
see what will happen to this. Many times
we have I know where I come from
in Africa, in Zimbabwe,
if you throw the the mango seed
on the ground,
do you know,
in a few weeks you'll see a little
plant there, you'll see a little tree there.
Even if no one gave it water and
no one cared for it, in a few
weeks you begin to see that
and you wonder how fertile the soil is.
Who looked after it? It was Allah.
Allah takes care of everything. He's going to
take care of you.
He's taking care of the seeds, the plantation.
A lot of the times even those who
plant trees intentionally,
they don't see the fruits of those tree.
They are doing it for others.
If you look at the huge trees,
fruit bearing trees, who planted them? Many times
they were planted by others.
People who've passed on. I remember reading a
story of an old man who took his
grandson to plant a mango tree and he
told his son this tree will give fruit
after 7 years.
And the grandson is saying you're wasting your
time, you'll be dead. He says, I know
I'm doing it for you because my grandfather
did
for us and the tree we all had
mangoes from was planted by a man who
didn't have a single mango from the tree.
And that's why Islam tells you when you
do something like that
it's the only time your reward keeps clocking
after you've passed on. It's called sadaqatunjariyah.
It's called a charity that will continue after
your death for as long as Allah will.
Sometimes it keeps on going for many many
years, sometimes centuries, sometimes
a few years. It's still called sadaqa jariyah.
You, for example,
were involved in tree planting and after you
passed on the trees lasted 20, 50, 100
years, your reward lasts that amount of years.
In fact,
if
from that tree, other trees
were planted
because of the seeds that came from the
trees you planted,
you do definitely do have a share of
that reward. You know, Allah works in amazing
ways.
So Allah Almighty tells us how He multiplies
the goodness all the time, it's always multiplied.
My brothers, my sisters,
did you know when you're facing challenges,
when you're facing challenges in this life,
Allah Almighty
helps you through that by reaching out to
others who are facing a similar challenge.
For example,
you have a health problem.
If you try to assist others who have
a similar health problem,
you'll find Allah will help you in your
issue. That's the hadith of the prophet Muhammad
peace be upon him. That Allah will continue
to assist his worshipper for as long as
that worshipper is busy assisting others.
So you begin to feel content and happy.
When I help someone, the contentment
I achieve
by helping them is unmatched.
Try it.
It's unmatched.
You will actually feel
a certain part of you
grow
and you know it's addictive.
Once you've helped a few and you see
the goodness and you see what it's doing,
you want to help more and you want
to help more and you want to help
more and you you keep going. What are
you doing my brothers, my sisters? You are
helping yourself. That's what you're doing. You are
helping yourself. You are being a human and
part of the way Allah has created you
and I is I will achieve contentment and
ease
by assisting others.
So for those who don't reach out to
others no matter what you have you will
be lacking
something.
And that's why we say my brothers, my
sisters,
look at what
Allah has bestowed upon you. If you concentrate
on what He has not given you,
if you concentrate on what Allah has not
given you,
you definitely
will not be able to
taste the beauty
of the contentment that Allah has created.
When I say created, Allah creates contentment.
Contentment is a condition that Allah creates within
a person.
You need to be happy with what Allah's
put in your path. Take it in your
stride.
Bad days do not last.
Bad days do not last but they have
to come to you.
If you're going through an issue, others have
been through the same issue because we're all
human. You look at my life,
people might be looking and say, what what
challenges does this guy ever face? He's living
the life as they say, right? That's not
true.
You would never ever
want to live my life.
Not for a day.
Trust me, not for a day. Allah gives
everyone
a certain capacity to take things.
I remember one of our sheiks,
and I'm gonna end on this note, I
think,
I have a bit more time? Okay. A
little bit more time, Don't worry.
One of our sheikh said that a student
of his came to complain.
Sheikh, I have problems, big problems. So he
was explaining exactly the way I was today
to say look at the favors of Allah
upon you. If you have difficulty, hardship,
you know, it's it's it's limited but if
you have goodness it's unlimited.
Whatever you have count the good and count
the bad. How many things have gone wrong
in your life? You can count 10 things.
How many have gone right in your life?
You will not count them.
Okay. So he kept on saying, this young
man complaining, saying, no. I've got the most
difficult life from everyone. He says, okay. We
will do something tomorrow in the masjid. Says,
okay.
The following day, as the people were entering,
he gave everyone a pen and a paper
and said, right. I want you to write
10
of the most difficult things
in point form that you are going through
in your life.
Every one of you. So they all sat
down, a few 100 of them and they
wrote 10 of the most difficult things they
were going through. No names, no nothing. And
what happened is they put it into a
bucket.
So each person's little piece of paper was
in a bucket.
And
then he shook up this bucket and he
told the people, right.
All your problems are in this bucket.
All your issues are in the bucket,
right?
I want you to pick up
1 paper each
or keep on picking up papers until you're
happy with one that you would like. Did
you hear that?
I am saying I have more problems than
all of you. Okay? That's what this young
man was saying. So what we've done, we've
taken all of your problems, put them in
a bucket, bring the young man and tell
him pick up
any one of these. It's a combination of
people's problems.
So the people started.
And they pick up 1.
Oh, no. Put it down again because there's
2, 3 things I really can't go for.
Pick up another one,
put it down. Pick up a third one,
put it down. Pick up a 4th one,
put it down. Until they picked up enough
to say, you know what? I need my
own paper back.
I just want my own paper back. Why?
Because I've realized
Allah put you through issues and has given
you the power and the ability to go
through that. If you knew what others were
going through you would just thank Allah for
the nothings
that are going on in your life in
terms of hardship. I'm not belittling your problems
but remember
issues are relative. When you start knowing what
others are going through, you begin to thank
Allah. You begin to say, Oh Allah, I've
got it easy man. You know, I had
a car crash, 2 hours I was there
and mashaAllah,
know, at least they took the car away.
The other people, the guy lost a limb.
What are you gonna say?
That's why Muslims are taught to say, it
could have been worse.
Could have been worse.
May Allah bless you. So I said I
was going to end with that, brother Ohi
told me you can go on, you know,
a little bit more. So I thought of
one more thing.
My brothers and sisters,
remember,
it's not like you're not going to go
through challenges in life, you will. We just
came out of COVID hopefully.
People are still being affected
but we've come out of it.
We've learned from it. It has evolved and
we have evolved.
And subhanallah, we're
we've lost loved ones, some of us have
lost a lot, some of us have gained
as well. Pick up the pieces and keep
going. If you're going to pity yourself, you're
going to go nowhere. You have to be
strong, you have to get up in the
morning. There's no chance you have to get
up, you have to start off with that
prayer in the morning, you have to move
and you have to make sure you made
an effort through the day, the Almighty will
bless the rest of it.
If you're going to be lazy and worrying
about, oh no I can't even get out
of bed. Force yourself to do a few
of those things and the rest will be
done by Allah. In the sense that see
how Allah opens your doors.
But But if you're gonna pity yourself, I'm
struggling.
Even even if you don't have a cough,
you start getting a cough. Imaginary one.
Even if you don't have a fever, you
start feeling, oh I've got a fever.
Imaginary one. Even if you're not your bones
are not aching, you start feeling, hey my
bones are get up and take a walk.
SubhanAllah
do something and see how Allah Almighty
blesses you because Allah has created you for
movement.
Allah has created you to move. Your heart
beats all the time. Imagine if that heartbeat
had to stop
even for a moment.
So please feel
good about yourself. Don't think that Allah hates
you, doesn't like you. No.
Are you trying?
Are you turning to Allah? Are you improving
bit by bit, inch by inch, millimeter by
millimeter? If the answer is yes, you're heading
in the right direction. You might want to
pace it up a little bit and that's
why we have Ramadan and that's why we
have the last 10 nights and that's why
these are the most beautiful nights. If Allah
wanted, He could have kept laylatul qadr in
the first part of Ramadan and told us,
listen it's on the 7th of Ramadan. The
rest of Ramadan people would actually stop fasting
sometimes depending on how weak they are. Astaghfirullah.
But Allah says, you know what? We're gonna
keep it hidden and we we're gonna keep
it towards the end. The end of all
the things,
That's what becomes exciting including football, subhanAllah. The
last few moments are the best. If you
have missed the match but you you you
just caught the last 5, 10 minutes. Everyone's
screaming and yelling and especially when when they
haven't yet scored properly, you know.
Jacob the smiles here.
Front. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.
Football. Especially in
in the UK, what do you guys call
it? Soccer?
You call it football, okay.
So I got it right.
Oh it's called Arsenal, okay.
I was gonna say something but it's Ramadan.
I don't want to argue. They say when
people say things, just say
you know, if someone wants to insult, you
just say I am fasting. So I'm just
saying brother, I'm fasting. It's okay. Insult you
just say I am fasting. So I'm just
saying brother I'm fasting. It's okay.
May Allah bless us. But the excitements towards
the end because you know one goal can
change the whole world. Do you agree?
Look at all the nods. I think it
was 4 goals, that was the problem, right?
May Allah grant us ease. You must be
wondering how does this guy know?
Well I'm a human being just like you,
isn't it? So, yeah, mashaAllah, it's been very
nice to talk to you guys and I
pray that whatever we've said can actually motivate
us to to do better
and at the same time to feel that
we are indeed blessed by Allah. Because this
feeling,
when we have it, it helps us get
closer to Allah.
When you feel that you have nothing, you
feel distant from Allah, that's a major problem.
You actually do have a lot. You have
more than what you think you have. It
just needs someone to help you to look
at these things and to see. You think
you have issues,
perhaps
I have bigger issues than yours. I wanna
tell you the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon
him, had the biggest difficulties,
the greatest hardship. And that's why one of
the most soothing soothing ways of remedying
your sickness and illness
is yes to go through the Quran but
together with that go through the life and
the biography of Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
step by step and see how it will
change you. It will move you. It will
renew
a lot within you that needs renewing. May
Allah bless everyone of us.
The prophet peace be upon him said, look
for lay little girded in the last 10
nights of Ramadan. Amongst the last 10 days
is a night better than a 1000 months.
Make the most of these auspicious nights and
multiply your reward.
Feed the hungry, shelter the needy, empower the
Donate today, www.abdullahid.org.uk.
Donate today, www.abdullahid.org.uk.