Mustafa Khattab – Top 5 Regrets Of The Dying
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AI: Transcript ©
I bear witness that there is none worthy
of our worship except Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
and I bear witness that Muhammad salallahu alayhi
wa sallam is the seal of the prophets
and the final messenger
to all of humanity.
Whoever Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala guides, there is
none to misguide,
and whoever
Allah leaves astray, there is none to guide
Ayat.
In a couple of days we'll be receiving
a new Ishli year, and if you claim
you obeyed, and went there,
and Hijriy, and kadimat, when I stopped, and
Hijriy, and jadeel,
So in a couple of days we'll be
saying goodbye to,
the old hijri year and we'll be receiving
a new year. So this is a good
time to think and sit back, and reflect
on this past year if we have been
doing the right thing, or we need to,
to improve.
And the thing is, every time we say
goodbye to a year and receive a new
year,
there's something happening in our lives.
We should think that now 1 year is
gone from your life,
and maybe,
you know, another year is going by, another
year is going by, and before you know
it,
you are now 70 or 80, and you're
ready to go to Jannah. And because you
were not paying attention, these years are going,
you know, from your life.
Sometimes we need to sit back and think,
what have I achieved? What happens if I
die today and I don't make it to
the next year? So this is the time
to think about the priorities of our lives.
As I mentioned before, I've been doing counseling
counseling for so many years, and the top
two reasons why people have problems in their
lives. Number 1, because the priorities of their
lives are messed
up. And number 2, because people ask for
the rights, and when it comes to their
obligations, quite frankly, they don't care.
So today inshallah, I'll be focusing on the
priorities in life
from a quite,
unusual,
perspective. I'm gonna talk about the priorities in
life from,
a non Muslim who wrote a book about
the priorities in life from an interesting
point of view. But I will talk about
priorities in Islam first before we give this
perspective,
and I don't see the slide. Maybe the
brother, can help us show the slide
insha'Allah.
We know in Islam, know all things are
the same. Ya'limathal, and we have 5 rebadas
in Islam,
Sala, Zakah, Hajj, and so on and so
forth.
When it is the time for rebadas,
you have to do the Say for example,
praying Salatul Jum'ah today
is fun,
so what if we are praying the 2
rakah for Jum'ah,
and there's a brother or a sister who
sits in the back,
to read Quran? They don't want to pray,
they feel like reading Quran now.
This is Haram.
Yes, reading Quran outside this time is an
excellent rebala, it's a good thing, but when
it is time to pray Salatul Namaaz or
Salatul Jum'ah, you have to pray.
And so on and so forth.
Someone, for example, at this time, begins like,
No, I want to use some money to
buy,
you know, to buy a yacht or go,
have a vacation in Hawaii or Las Vegas.
No.
You have to do the Ibadah when it
is the time to do the Ibadah. We
also know that in Islam,
there are haram things, but they are not
at the same level. Some haram things are
more serious than others. So for example, saying,
lies about Allah
is the highest form of lying.
Lying about the people is
less. Say for example, when people say that
Allah has children. This is the biggest lie.
Right?
Or if I say that this brother has
3 kids and it turns out that he
has only 2. Right? So this is not
as a serious of a sin in Islam
just like this one. So in Islam,
we prioritize.
First things come first.
And I remember before Ramadan when I was
talking about priorities in our lives as Muslims
There are 4 categories
So when you have a conflict, when you
do something, you have to look at the
4 categories to see what you need to
do first
I said that any activity that we do
in our lives will fall under 1 of
4 things.
Number 1,
urgent and important.
The second one, not urgent, not important.
The third one, urgent, but not important. And
the 4th one, important but not urgent.
And please don't ask me to repeat them
because they can't.
So what happens, say for example,
when it is time for salatul Jummah,
this is urgent and it's important because it's
done in a certain time.
Say for example, I need to play Jum'ah,
and in the same time I would like
to play video games.
Playing Jum'ah on time is urgent and important.
Playing video games is not urgent, is not
important. You can't delay it. So this is
what happens. You always
look at the priorities and, plan your activities
according to this.
For example, if a sister wants to buy
clothes for her baby to be born soon,
Insha'Allah, she is only 3 4 months pregnant.
This is important, but not urgent. You still
have 5, 6 months to buy the clothing.
Plus, you're not sure now if it's a
boy, if it's a girl. Yes. It's important,
but it is not urgent.
And so on and so forth.
The problem is when
we disagree on what is important and what
is not important, or what is urgent and
what is not urgent. And this happens sometimes.
For example, when your wife
wants to go and visit her mom,
so for her, this is urgent and this
is important.
For you,
it's not urgent, it's not important. So this
is where conflict happens. Right?
But in
Islam, the priorities are very clear cut, they
are very,
definite, so people should agree on what is
halal, and what is haram, and what is
important, and what is not important, and so
on and so forth.
In in Usul Al Safa, for example, we
studied this.
So for example, if someone is drowning,
or in the Lake Ontario, for example. I
gave this example before. You go to save
the brother, or the sister, or actually the
brother, and they are wearing a golden ring.
The brother is wearing a golden ring. This
is Haram in Islam. You're not supposed to
wear gold.
Are you gonna stand there and give them
a lecture for 45 minutes about all the
hadith and bukhari and Muslim about how gold
is Haram in Islam? Or should you save
them first,
then give them the talk?
Prioritize.
Yes salah on time is a priority in
Islam. We know in the books of if
there is a house next to the masjid,
and there's a fire, and someone is dying
in this fire, even if we are praying
salatul goor in Jannah, we have to stop,
go save them, and come and do the
salah again.
The fiqh called priorities.
Because salah can wait for a few minutes,
but saving someone's land cannot wait. So these
are the priorities in Islam.
If you have $10,000
with you,
and
you owe $10,000
to the bank, and you need to make
renovations in your basement, like paint it, and
put,
chandelier, and a fan, or something, what should
you do first? Pay off the loan to
the bank, and get get rid of the
reba, or
renovate your basement.
Of course, you need to pay off the
Riba to the bank of Khalas. Close this
door. It's not acceptable. Khalas. Finished. So these
are the kind of priorities
we, we have in Islam.
So the different perspective I'm giving you today
is from a an Australian
nurse.
Her name is Bryn Ware.
She wrote a book a few years ago,
about the top five regrets of the dying.
So she works basically
in palliative care.
She's a nurse and she takes care of,
people with very serious illnesses and they're very
close to death. So she stays with them
in palliative care in the last few days
or the last few weeks of their lives,
so she can serve them and so on
and so forth. What she did basically,
she interviewed
these people. She used to talk to them
and take care of them and stuff, and
she used to ask them, what are the
top regrets you have in life?
So she came up with the 5 top
regrets that most of these dying people had
in life, and she put them in a
book.
These regrets,
like if I give you each and every
one of them,
they are regrets Islamically.
Although we have the we have a different
perspective from, you know, from an Islamic perspective
because according to the Quran,
when a Muslim is dying
According to the Quran, there are some regrets.
For example, Rav Birjirouni
La'ali a'amalusalayhamfima
tahit. When someone is dying, they say and
they see, you know, the angels
of death, they're coming to take their lives.
They say, number 1, You Allah give me
more time because I wanna fix all the
mess that I left behind. And this is
mentioned at the end of Surah Muminun.
In other places in the Quran, laumla akhartani
ilaajalinqaribin
faasaddaq.
The person will say, you Allah, give me
more time. I will make
I will give zakah. I was not paying
my zakah, but if you give me more
time, I'll pay my zakah.
This in the Quran.
We know from the Hadith of the Prophet
SAW.
He passed by the grave, it's an authentic
Hadith, and the prophet said, do you know
the person in the grave? They said, yeah,
it's this person.
And the prophet
said, so meaning, that if this person comes
to life
after his death, the first thing he will
do, he will make salah. Because now he
knows the significance
of salah.
So these are the regrets from an Islamic
perspective. Of course, number 4,
in Surah Al Khan,
the person will cry on the day of
judgment and will say, You Allah, I wish
I never took this evil person, this bad
person as a friend. He ruined my life.
My friends, they were taking me to places
and so on and so forth.
But from an Islam from, the perspective of
this lady, Bronnie Ware, who wrote this book
after interviewing a lot of people who were
dying in palliative care in Australia,
The top regret
of the dying was,
I wish I lived a true life
based on what I wanted to do, and
based on what my creator wanted me to
do, none of what based on what people
expected from me. They're 2 different things.
Because most of the time,
we do things to please people, even if
they are haram, we're not acceptable in our
religion.
It happens all the time. I'll give you
a few examples.
Some of the youth,
they smoke, and they do drugs and stuff,
not because they want to do, but because
their friends do the same thing, and they
want to blend in, they will feel alienated
if they don't copy their example.
It's a social
thing that they do to blend in,
and so on and so forth. Although this
is not acceptable Islamically.
So, in some cultures, what people do, they
go by the concept of what we call
aib in Al Arabi.
So in Islam we have the concept of
Haram, but in our cultures we have the
color, the concept of Ayb. Ayb basically is
something that is not acceptable socially.
Even if it is halal in their religion.
For example,
in some cultures like in the village culture
in Egypt where I came from, in my
village,
it was
for someone to give,
his sister a share of inheritance from her
parents' land. Say for example, the father died,
then the brother will take the land, and
he doesn't give his sisters her share or
their share of inheritance from their parents. Why?
Because in the village culture, it's haram
to take the land, or actually, to take
the land of your parents and give it
to a stranger,
your brother-in-law
This is how they think in the village
Also,
if someone is proposing to marry a sister
from a different culture
And I've seen so many cases
Someone
wants to marry a sister from another culture,
although both of them were born and raised
here
The father will say Allah juussehti
mirraver Mustahilaat
No, I would never do this, I would
be damned in my grave What people are
gonna say about me?
So the brother is from this country, the
sister from this country, both of them were
born here, they were raised here, they speak
English, they live here in the Canadian society.
When the brother is proposing, the father will
say, No, because he's from a different culture.
And sometimes, subhanAllah,
I've seen some cases where the brother and
the sister,
their countries
the 2 countries they used to be one
country in the past, like, 70, 80 years
ago, but they split back in 19 forties,
eighties. It happened in many places.
Used to be one country, speak same language,
have same culture,
they lived here, they moved here, and when
one proposes to marry the citizen, no.
They are different. What do you mean different?
They speak the same language, same culture, same
everything, they eat the same food, very spicy,
same culture.
I mean, what it's not Haram because the
brother is a good brother, he goes to
the Masjid, he prays namaz,
the sister is good, you shouldn't make it
difficult for them. But what people are gonna
say about me?
They say, It's Ay. Why? It's acceptable Islamically.
It is not haram, it's acceptable Islamically.
So it is about a time that we
should live by what is halal and what
is halam, and forget about the a for
a second. And there are so many examples,
I don't want to take much of your
time.
So again, a lot of people,
they just do things to please other peoples,
even if they themselves are not convinced.
There's a a good example in Surah and
Kabut, where Allah
mentions the story of Ibrahim
alaihis salam. He's talking to his people, he's
trying to talk them out of the idol
worship, and he said,
He's telling them, deep down there I'm sure
that you're not convinced that these idols, al
Islam,
can benefit or harm you. I know this.
Because you yourself say the same thing. Haliam
fa'ulakum hai yadurun lis Surah sharah. Do they
harm you? Do they benefit you? They say
no.
Can they talk? They say no. They can't
talk.
Why do you worship them? They say
We saw our parents doing the same thing,
so we follow them. We know that they
are worthless, they are insignificant, but we want
to do the same thing to honor the
legacy of our parents,
and also this is what everybody is doing.
Because if we don't worship the idols, we'll
be alienated.
It's aib in our culture. Right? So that
was the concept
that they did the same thing, so they
have this bond of harmony, this social harmony
they had, although they didn't believe it was
the right thing.
So again it's about time to stop thinking
this concept of Ayb, and do the things
that are pleasing to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Plus,
the concept of Ayb in a culture keeps
changing all the time, But the concept of
haram in Islam doesn't change.
In Islam, theft
is haram at all times, in all places.
It doesn't change.
Zina is always haram, and so on and
so forth.
But when you follow the culture every now
and then, the culture changes. I'll give you
a an example from the Western culture, from
the North American culture.
Marijuana.
10 years ago, 5 years ago, it was
illegal.
Now in some places, marijuana is being legalized.
You can buy it, you can use it,
and so on and so forth.
Abortion
was not acceptable.
Now it's being legalized.
Same marriage,
same * marriage. It used to be forbidden
here, it was not allowed, but now,
some places they are legalizing
same * marriage. It's acceptable.
Because the what is acceptable culturally or socially
keeps
changing.
So people do what they think is best
for them, and so on and so forth.
But in Islam, the concept of halal and
ham doesn't change.
And this is,
the, again the concept of halal and hamam.
So we should live our lives. Our main
priority in life is to please Allah Forget
about what people like and what people dislike,
because again, it is not being governed by
what Allah teaches and the Prophet SAW teaches.
It's based on the culture,
the social life, and basically the desires and
the lusts of the people.
The second one,
the top
the second top regret that these people said
was,
I wish I was able to say the
truth. Most of the time they saw haram
things happening all the time,
but they didn't have the concept of Amirk
Maroof and Nayyal Al Mukher, and they kept
quiet.
Although the haram things were happening, and some
people, they didn't like it. They hated it
in their hearts, but they were not able
to stand up and say the truth because
they were afraid that they would be alienated.
We have a hadith in Al Mundari,
tariqul tariqulil Mundariq, and some of them have
questioned the authenticity of the hadith, but the
meaning is acceptable.
On the Day of Judgment, Allah will ask
the servant,
and he saw people doing Haram things openly
in broad daylight, and he didn't say anything.
Why didn't you stand up and speak out?
What was wrong with you? He said,
Yeah, Allah, I was afraid of the people.
I was shy.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will say,
You should have been more ashamed of me.
You should have
from me, not from the people.
So you should be able to stand up
and say the truth, and don't sugarcoat.
Right? Islamically, what is halal is halal, what
is haram is haram.
But if people do the haram and you
say it's okay because everyone is doing it,
or someone is opposed to haram and you
say it's okay because everyone is doing the
same thing, this is not acceptable Islamically.
Number 3,
the top
3rd top regret of the dying was, I
wish I worked less
and gave more time to my family.
And I think all of us do the
same thing, including myself. Sometimes we get overwhelmed
with work
that sometimes you forget about the riots, and
your duties to your family. Yes, I understand.
We moved to this country. We have to
put food on the table.
Rent is very high. It's crazy here in
Mississauga.
You have to pay your bills, taxes,
insurance, and so on and so forth. And
on top of that, you have to send
money to your mom back home, and your
brothers, and so on and so forth. Because
we know, and this is something we all
share,
that although
some of our families and our brothers and
sisters, they live a better life over there,
maybe they have more money over there, but
as soon as someone puts their foot in
the plane, they think, oh man, this guy
is the Prime Minister of Canada, he makes
a $100,000
every month.
They walk in the streets, and they take
money, and they put it in the bag.
This is how they think of us.
Although you struggle every month to make the
ends meet, to pay your bills, and you're
pulling your hair off, and no.
So, I understand the challenges, but we know
if I ask any one of you, any
one of you, what is the most important
thing in your life? You will say my
family and my kids.
So if they are the most important thing
in your life, why don't you give them
any time or at least quality time? Right?
So we need to give them time.
Yes, alhamdulillah, we make money, we live a
good life, but at least give them some
quality time. If not on a daily basis,
maybe on a weekly basis. When it is
your day off, Saturday, Sunday,
whichever day, give them some quality time, take
them out, cook for them.
Even if your cooking skills are in the
basement, it doesn't matter, but at least show
them that you care. Give some time to
your family.
Why?
Because before you realize it,
after you are close to retirement or you
retire, you look around, your kids are gone,
they got married, or they moved somewhere else,
and you can't give them any time anymore.
They always send you a postcard and Eid
al Khas. You don't have them around you
to talk to them.
Yes, you're sitting with your mom over there,
and you're playing with your phone on Facebook
or iPad, and your mom is talking to
you, and you don't even look at her
because you're busy talking to your friends.
You have 3,000 friends on Facebook, when but
when you die, no one will come to
your janazah, except for your mom. Right? And
she's sitting with you.
When you realize that you didn't spend a
good time with your mom,
and you look around, so
you take care of her, you spend time
with her,
she is gone.
She is dead. She is in akhirahas,
and now you regret and you cry, I
wish I spend more time with my mother.
I wish I spend more time with my
dad. They are not here anymore and I
miss them. So take advantage of this reminder,
inshaAllah, spend quality time with your family and
friends.
The last 2,
regrets.
Number 4, they say, I wish I connected
with my good friends.
Because I know, as I said,
we get busy in life, we move to
different places, and we don't connect with the
good friends.
And by the good friends, I mean the
people who always direct you to Allah, the
people who always give you nazeehah, the people
who,
don't keep your company because you need something
from you,
and want to say, Take it their gun.
So I'm talking about the people who all
of a sudden they come to you and
they say good things, We love you, give
me a hug, and all these things.
What do you want? Oh, can I borrow
10,000 from you?
Or the guy who starts hanging out around
you,
all of a sudden, and before they never
gave you salaam, but now, because they want
to marry your sister,
they're all over you.
I'm not talking about these people, I'm talking
about the people who take you to the
Masjid, the people who call you like 5
in the morning to wake you up for
fajr, the people who give you nasiha, and
so on and so forth. These are the
good people.
And as I mentioned before,
these good people, as Ibn Al Qayyim said,
they are like
they are like the air you breathe, the
water you drink, and the food you eat.
They are very essential in your life, you
have to remember them and keep their good
company.
And this also goes for the alhamah.
You should keep the company of the alamah.
There's a harakah, you can watch on YouTube
if you don't have time to learn from
them. These are the friends.
These are the people who should keep their
company.
And again, I'm not talking about any scholars,
I'm talking about the good ones. Because not
everyone has a long beard and a short
close is a scholar. Right? The real scholars,
the people who direct you toward Allah and
bring you closer to Jannah.
So all you saw, all you say in
the Urdu name Hakim Khattrajan, name Mullah Khattra
iman, not everyone is a scholar. So they
say basically, half a doctor is dangerous to
your life,
and half a skala is dangerous to your
iman. So you should pick the people you
hang out with, and the people you learn
from, and the people you take your deen
from.
And number 5,
one day, I'll dedicate one more footba to
choosing friends because they they're gonna impact your
life in this dunya de la'har. The last
point,
they say,
I wish I understood the meaning of happiness,
Because sometimes we chase a delusion.
We think that this is the best way
to achieve happiness, to make more money, to
buy the biggest house, to buy the biggest
and fanciest car in town, and so on
and so forth, and forget everything else. Forget
our relationship with Allah, our relationship with the
people, and so on and so forth. So
money is not everything.
Yes. Money is important. And as I said
before, more than half of the Tel Sahaba
Al Ashleimu Bashirim Bin Shanna, they were millionaires.
Usman ibn Affan, Abdur Rahman al Nahf, they
had money.
They lived a decent life, a comfortable life,
they were helping the community, and so on
and so forth. But money should not be
like God for you, or money should not
be the end for you. Money is just
a means to live a decent life, but
it is not the end.
Alhamdulillah.
So you can use money to buy food,
but you cannot buy health. You can buy
a bed or a car with money, but
you cannot buy a good health or a
comfortable life, and so on and so forth.
We know in Islam
that happiness is in connecting with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. Alhabidikri
lahi takmainu puroo. Only in Allah, and remembering
Allah, do hearts find comfort in life.
We know that serving others will bring you
happiness and comfort in life. We live, we
know that
by connecting with Allah and trying to get
close to Him will give you happiness in
life. Allah says it in Surah
Alaihi.
Allah says it in Surah Al Ahi.
If you live a decent life, you do
halal, you stay away from halal to the
best of your ability, we will give you
a decent and a happy life, whether it's
a male or a female, as Allah says
in the eye.
So it is not like a lot of
people think that only money will bring you
happiness.
If this is true, how come
that suicide rates in the richest countries in
the world are the highest? In Japan, in
some European countries, in the US,
suicide rates are through the ceiling. They are
very high. And subhanahu wa, in some poor
countries, like in the Muslim world, not because
they are poor, because they have big big
chores, big thief, because other countries back home,
they have the riches in the world who
got everything,
but because of corruption and so on and
so forth, most people are living under 1
or $2 a day.
But still, our poor people,
they don't shoot themselves, they don't commit suicide,
just like in rich countries. So in our
countries, we don't kill ourselves.
Our rulers take care of this.
Right? So money is not everything. It's a
means to live a happy life, there's nothing
wrong. You leave good money for your kids
alhamdulillah, but it is not everything. There is
more to life. So please remember these 5
things,
that you should live your life
as what is pleasing to Allah,
not as what people expect from you. Say
the truth, give more time to your family,
connect with your good friends, and also understand
the concept of happiness salah in Islam, we
ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us
the best in this life and the best
in Allah to come, subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So inshallah, I'm gonna conclude with the announcements.
The top announcement today inshallah, as you know,
I spoke about this before, nakhota before, the
Canadian government
is willing
to,
to if someone attacks Islam or says something
about the Prophet SAW,
so the government of Canada is willing to
accept this as a form of
Islamophobia
and a hate crime.
But for them to do this, you have
to sign the petition,
petition 400.ca.
Go to this website. I did it, like,
over a month ago. It takes less than
1 minute to finish the petition.
So if they get 100,000
votes,
then they will take it will pass in
the House as a law,
and Muslims will have this protection.
So if you are mad about people attacking
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam or Quran
all the time, and the sisters who walk
in the streets with hijab, and people attack
them physically and verbally,
if you want this to stop, we have
to sign this petition.
If we have time, I would have asked
you to take out your cell phones and
vote it right now. But insha'Allah promise me
that after you go home today, not tomorrow,
not next week, because this petition will end
on October 6th.
So we have less than a week to
make this happen. So far, we have around
50,000 votes, and this is shameful.
So this is our chance, insha'Allah,
to have respect in our communities, just like
the Chinese people, just like the Italians and
the Jews, and so on and so forth.
This is our chance.
People in the US are fighting to have
a petition like this, and they can't.
So this is our chance, insha'Allah.
Promise me, raise your hand, say, I promise
insha'Allah that today I'll sign the petitions. I
only see 2 hands. I want to see
everyone's hand. They already signed. So inshallah
today, we need to sign this petition. Go
to petition 411.ca
and sign it inshallah. Get to your wife,
your kids,
call your,
mother-in-law
in back home. Not back home because you
have to be Canadian living here, okay? To
be able to vote, insha'Allah.
Please note parking in the front,
because we need the, the 500,
hydrant to be clear. If we need an
ambulance,
they'll be able to come in, because people
park on
both sides, the entrance, so insha'Allah the entrance
here, the area in the front would be
only reserved for people in the masjid, and
we need to keep the entrance clear insha'Allah.
Next Jum'ah, I'm starting a new halakha in
the masjid, Fridays after salatul al Isha, starting
October 7th,
reflections on the hereafter, the grave, life in
the grave, Jannah, Jahannam, Hissa'a, all these things.
So if you are interested, insha'Allah, attend,
Fridays
starting next week, after Isha'Allah.
And finally,
we're starting a youth program inshallah.
It's gonna be on Saturdays,
starting Saturday, October 8th inshallah next week.
For the youth, we'll go to Frank McKinkney
Community Center, then they'll play games, win a
Islam for salah and pray, we'll give them
short talks about Islam, and provide an Islamic
environment insha Allah. And once a month, we'll
bring them here in the masjid for Qiyam,
we'll give them talks and so on and
so forth, so we'll provide Islamic environment for
them. We ask Allah
to give us the best in this life
and the best in the life to come.
Give us sincerity in everything we say and
do.