Nadim Ali – Service To Others
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And, again, one translation, indeed,
all praise belongs to Allah, the most high.
We thank him. We seek his aid. We
seek his forgiveness, and we seek refuge with
him from the evil of ourselves and from
our bad actions.
Whoever Allah guides, then there's no one who
can mislead him. And whoever Allah causes to
go astray, then there's no one to guide
him. I bear witness that there's no deity
except Allah who is unique and with our
partners, and I bear witness that Muhammad is
his worshiper and his messenger. May the peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him and
his family and his companions and those who
follow them with good intentions
until the day of judgment.
All you who believe, fear Allah as he
should be feared and don't die except as
Muslims.
Oh, mankind, be careful of your duty to
Yorab who created you from a single soul
and from it created its mate, and from
the 2 of them, he spread forth many
men and women.
Be careful of your duty to Allah whom
you demand your mutual rights and be careful
of your duty to the wounds that bore
you indeed. Allah is over
you. All you who believe, fear Allah and
always speak the truth. He will cause your
deeds to be beneficial, and he will forgive
for you your sins. And And whoever obeys
Allah and his messenger, then he has truly
achieved a tremendous accomplishment.
Indeed, the best speech is the book of
Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance
of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And the
most evil of all affairs are newly invented
matters, which has no precedence in Islam, and
indeed all innovations are astray, and each asrays
in the hellfire.
Oh, Allah.
Accept our du'a. Oh, Allah. Save us from
that.
And in Hadith,
on the authority of Abu Huwaida,
who said that the messenger of Allah said,
Allah,
the mighty and sublime,
be he, will say on the day of
resurrection,
oh son of Adam, I fell ill and
you visited me not.
He will say, oh lord,
and how should I visit you when you
are the lord of the worlds?
He will say, did you know did you
know not that
that my servant so and so had fallen
ill and you visited him not?
Did you know
do you know that had you visited him,
you would have found me with him?
Oh, son of Adam, I asked you for
food and you fed me not. He will
say, oh lord, how should I feed you
when you are the lord of the worlds?
He will say, did you know that my
servant so and so asked you for food
and you fed him not? Did you know
that had you fed him, you would have
surely found found that that reward for doing
so with me?
Oh, son of Adam,
I asked you to give me drink, and
you gave me gave me not to to
nothing to anything to drink. He will say,
oh, lord, how shall I give you to
drink when you are the lord of the
worlds? He will say, my
servant so and so asked you to give
him drink and you gave him not to
drink. Had you had given him to drink,
you would surely found
found that with me. This was related by
a Muslim hadith.
And when we look at
this,
particular
hadith,
you know, it talks about
the importance
of
being of service to others, being of service
to others.
We and and and Allah
has throughout the Quran talks about the importance
of service, of of us giving service. Even
the prophet, peace be upon him, he would,
have people check on his neighbor,
and and it was a neighbor who was
hostile towards him. She was probably,
you know, early version of the Karens. You
know, she would harass the prophet. And one
day, she didn't harass him and say, well,
you know, go check on my neighbor and
then just to make sure she was okay.
And in this particular ayat, a lot talks
about in Surah Ta Ma'un. He said, has
thou
observed him who believeth, belieth religion?
That is he who repelleth the orphan and
urges not the feeding of the needy.
I woe unto the worshipers who are heedless
of their prayer
and who would
be seen at worship yet refuse
small
acts of small kindness. And this, again, is
sort of to. It's just talking about the
people who practice their deen from a superficial
perspective.
As Muslims, we have to be of those.
If we're submitting to Allah, we should be
of service to people. You know? And again,
it's not about worshiping people. It's not the
fact that, you know, we're, you know, engaging
in shirk. But when we are kind to
creation, then we are doing the work. We
as as the hadith says that if you
feed somebody, if you give them drink, you
know, if you basically help somebody else, it's
as if, you know, you are basically doing
the work that Allah is is just so
fond of. He says you will get a
special reward for that. It doesn't say that
you're feeding Allah. It's saying, again, if you
take care of creation,
then you will be loved by the creator.
And just like if you neglect and and
destroy creation,
then you will be neglected and destroyed by
the creator as well. It's an inversion as
well. So we have to begin the work
of doing,
being in submission to Allah.
You know, if we go, again, go through
life engaging in self centered pursuits and just
basically
just
just concerned about ourselves,
then we're not serving Allah. We're not being
of those who are in service to Allah.
We're only serving our nafs, and our nafs
is the again, our lower self, our desires.
And as the law says that have you
not seen the person who takes their own
desires as their lord? You know? And, again,
so we can worship anything. So we have
to be of those who are worshiping Allah
through the service of others. You know, what
are some of the ways we can help?
As Muslims, we need to be involved in
dealing with the the the the people who
are dealing with homelessness, people who are dealing
with hunger. We have an inordinate amount of
violence in this society. We have to be
of those to
be involved in the activism to reduce the
violence. You know, we have domestic violence as
well. And so we have to find our
niche and when we where we can give
service no matter what our career choice is.
Our vocation is just one thing. That helps
us get fed. That helps us get clothing.
That helps us get housing and and and
drink. But the the vocation is just something
that you do. Allah has given us all
168 hours in a week. If we're only
working 40 hours and sleeping 30,
then what are we doing with the rest
of that time throughout the week? How are
we serving Allah? All he asks is, what,
2 and a half hours just for the
5 prayers for the week, just for you
know, the the he he gave us everything.
As the last and it says in the
Quran,
which of your favors do you deny? He
gave us everything. And all he asked for
in return. We fast once a year if
we can.
But 2 and a half hours a week,
if you add all the prayers up, if
you're just doing the basic prayers, comes up
to 2 and a half hours out of
the 168.
We have to start doing the work, and
doing the work is a means of serving
Allah. You know, because if we are so
stuck on just serving our own vain desires,
then shaytan
has us. He will he will be able
to, you know, pull you into the hellfire
with him
as he was given respite until the day
of judgment.
And, you know, he would he would take
people who will take him, you know, for
the most part as as their lord. So
we have to be of those who minimize
the self centeredness and be selfless.
You know, again, you want to take care
of yourself first, making sure that you're engaging
in self care, exercising, eating right, sleeping right,
taking care of your family. The prophet, peace
be upon him, said that the best charity
that we give can be the charity to
your family. You know, you take care of
yourself, your family, those outside your family. But
a lot of times, we do an inversion.
We wanna look good and be seen of
men outside of our family unit, but yet
our family is suffering mentally, physically, and spiritually.
So we have to be of those who
are engaging in
service to others,
you know, and, again, avoid avoiding self centeredness.
And, again, what what
caused shaytan to to basically
get the punishment that he got is because
he was so self centered. He was so
egotistical.
He was really the first racist. He said,
you know,
you know, he looked at Adam and said,
you know, he's made out of dirt, and
I'm made out of fire. You know? And
so, you know, basically, I'm better than him.
You know? So we have to not feed
into that shaitonic type of desires because it
blinded him, and we don't wanna be blinded
again by our own desires. We have to
basically
be of those who are visionaries and be
of those who recognize that even though
things may look dim at times,
Allah got this. You know? But if we
basically worship him, then what will happen is
he will he will basically give us all
of the rewards that we strive for because
he says you get what you strive for.
If you strive for nothing, you'll get nothing.
If you strive to make the the society
around you better, then Allah will give you
that. You know, if you're striving for wealth,
then, you know, he'll give you that. But
wealth is a test because imagine,
again, on the day of judgment, any wealth
that you have can be like a weight
around your neck. You know? And so if
we have wealth, we want to basically make
sure it's moving throughout the society and benefiting
the people, making sure that the wealth is
of service to others. Again, if I've said
anything that's inconsistent with what Allah has given
us and the prophet, peace be upon him,
teaches us, I take responsibility
for that. And if I've said anything in
which you have gained some new insight, all
praise is due to
Again,
we have to be of service
to others,
being of service to others. There's one of
the, quotes that I like from Muhammad Ali.
He said that service to others
is the rent that you pay for your
room here on earth. Service to others
is the rent that you pay for your
room here on earth.
And, again,
when we look at that, you know, we
see that,
you know,
what we give, even if we give charity,
giving out charity is like, you know, said
in the Quran, just like planting 1 seed
of corn. And what's the return on that
one seed of corn? You get, again, a
stalk of corn, which has several ears of
corn, and each ear has probably about a
100 seeds.
And and that's the return that we get,
you know, from, you know, the, the planting
of that one seed. So that's what that's
the similitude of charity. Each act of charity
that we do, we will get multiple, multiple
blessings from that one act of charity. These
are some of the things that we have
to recognize that, you know, what we do
here on earth counts. This is just, again,
our middle womb, our middle womb. Our true
life begins in the hereafter. But Shaitan will
blind us to the fact that, you know,
again, that that that that, you know, they're
thinking that this is it. You you know,
you have people say, well, this is it.
There's nothing after this. But can you imagine,
basically, just eternity, no more time? Time is
killed.
Death is killed. You know? So that's what
we're looking forward to. It doesn't mean that
we can't strive
to to attain certain things here on earth,
but we can't allow those things, the the
goal of attaining things, to be our god,
to be our object of worship. So we
have to be of those who are recognizing
the hereafter,
but also,
as as we say in our du'a, you
want the best in this world and the
best in the hereafter. And so we want
to continuously
strive, you know, for that.
Our lord, take us not to task if
we forget or fall into error.
Our lord, lay not on us a burden
such as you did lay on those who
have gone before us. Our lord laid on
us a burden which we do not have
the power to bear and overlook our faults
and forgive us and have mercy on us.
You are our protector and grant us the
victory over the disbelieving people.