Nadim Bashir – Top 3 Useless Things To Avoid Epic Masjid
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I came across, a very interesting,
piece of information regarding Ibn Qayyib
from his book from his very well known
book.
And he writes in there about 10 things,
And he does actually mention 10 things that
are completely useless to each one of us.
We always talk about the things that are
very useful to us, things that will benefit
us,
but there are things in our life that
are absolutely useless that you and I, we
are spending so much time upon,
that because we're giving time to the useless
things and we're paying attention to the useless
things,
we are missing out on the things that
are actually useful in life.
And so this is why Ibn Qayyim, hamdullalli,
he mentions in his book, 10 Things That
Are Absolutely Useless. And he takes those 10
things that he loops some of them,
together. So in essence, they're around 6 or
7 altogether.
The very first thing he says that is
absolutely useless to a person is knowledge
and 'ilm
that is not applied in one's life.
He says that knowledge is absolutely useless.
Now let me say one thing about this.
You know, there's a phrase that you and
I, we have heard many times in our
life. You will see this in many schools,
in colleges, in universities, and so forth.
And that is that knowledge is power. How
many times you've seen this? Right?
Knowledge is power.
Knowledge is not actually power.
Knowledge has the potential of power.
And you will see people who are big
CEOs
of companies and so forth, they all say
this,
knowledge is potential
power. But when you can take that knowledge
and apply it, and make something out of
that knowledge,
only then that knowledge becomes what?
Power.
Think about it for a moment. A person
can go and study
business
for 4 years, 6 years in a university.
But if they cannot put together
and construct
a business
that is a successful
and fully operational,
business,
then guess what? That knowledge
was potential power.
But because they could not take that knowledge,
and create something out of that knowledge,
hence, is just only knowledge
and that's all it is.
And this is why even in our deen
also,
'ilm and knowledge
that does not push a person to pray,
to commit sins, to commit haram,
to neglect the orders of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta'ala
Really what is the point of that knowledge?
And this is why there are many scholars,
many scholars of Tuskiya,
And when their students would come and say,
You Sheikh, You Imam, give us some kind
of advice.
They would say that there is no point
of acquiring knowledge if you're gonna if you're
not gonna apply in your life. So this
is why there's a lot of times, there's
a lot of moments in our life where
we are so obsessed about just acquiring the
knowledge in itself,
but knowledge is not power in itself.
Knowledge has the potential of power. But if
that knowledge can motivate you and push you
to make something out of that knowledge,
then that knowledge has become power. So that
is why the very first thing that Ibn
Qayyim Muhammadullah Alaihi mentions
is that knowledge that is not applied in
one's life is absolutely useless.
Number 2, he says that action
that has no sincerity
is absolutely useless.
And I want us to think about this.
If I pray, if a person prays
10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years,
or let's just say they've been giving sadaqah,
the areas
that often where a person could become a
victim of committing riya.
Okay? They can, they can find themselves in
a position where they will show try to
do things to show off to other people
are often when it comes to giving other
people, when it comes to doing things for
other people. And I've talked about this before
that we are living in a in a
stage in our life. We're living in the
era
where subhanAllah today, you've seen these kind of
things on social media too. People would do
something kaid, do something that is good, but
they wanna show it to the entire world.
Though it may seem that there is some
kaid, there is They wanna provide some kaid
to everyone else, but their intention
inside internally
is that they wanna show off to other
people. They wanna impress other people. And that
is why it's absolutely important. And this is
my personal
observation.
When you reflect on the world that we
live in, especially in the social media world,
the the digital world that we live in,
the greatest challenge for today for imams and
shayuk, and even our young and upcoming adults
is Ikhlas. Ikhlas is the greatest challenge of
this time. Why? Because you can do something
that is great but if the intention
is corrupt then everything that we do will
all go to waste. And this is why
even Imam Bukhari Ramutullah yalai in his very
well known book Sahih al Bukhari, the very
first hadith that he mentions is what? Innamal
aamalubiniyat.
Imam, Nawwiramateullahi
alaiinliyadu
sali'een. The very first hadith, illamal aamalubiniyat
because these ulama, these shuyukh,
they understood
that no matter what is done, if it
is not done with Ikhlas,
all of it goes to waste. And a
great scholar that he gave the example that
imagine if you had a tub full of
water, a tub full of clean water or
even a bucket of water but you put
one drop of urine in there,
that bucket of water becomes useless. You cannot
use that bucket of water. Likewise, even a
good deed,
1 ounce of riya in that in that
good deed, it taints all the the entire
good deed that we have done. And it
is not presentable
before Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala on the day
of judgment. And this is why it is
something that is absolutely important for all of
us. And here's a here's the thing that
you and I, we need to always remember.
Something that you and I, we can do
Before we do anything,
before we do anything good,
ask ourselves, why am I doing this?
Why am I doing this? Am I doing
this for the pleasure of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta A'la? Am I doing it to earn
the pleasure and to seek the pleasure of
Allah? Or am I doing it for other
purposes? And if the other purposes is the
primary intention, then there will be no reward
for this. And finally for today, InshaAllah, we'll
cover the next ones next week. He says
that,
hoarding wealth The third thing that he says
is, hoarding wealth
is a wealth does not benefit you and
does not benefit anyone else.
Imam ibn Qayyim, Muhammadu Allah, are saying is
saying that wealth is something that Allah gives
us. And as Allah says in the Quran,
Wami ma razakanahu
yun fiqoon The point of Allah giving us
is because we give to others.
But there is something that the ulama have
talked about that this hoarding idea
By the way, we live in a culture
in America, there is a very strong
hoarding idea and concept.
You go to many people, they love to
hoard things. I mean, one is to hoard
or to keep things from the long from
the past. Like things about your children and
so forth. That's not hoarding. Those are just
called memories. But one is things of the
past that you just wanna hoard them and
hold on to them. And things are absolutely
unnecessary
for you or for any one of us
that is called hoarding. And this is something
that ulema, they have heavily emphasized upon that
anyone who has a hoarding mentality,
it will create stinginess within them. It will
create greediness within them. And when it creates
greediness within you, then there is no way
that you can give to others. Allah gave
us so we can give to others. And
when they give, when they get, they give
to others and so forth. This is how
we spread the khair. This is how we
spread the barakah in our community and so
forth. But if we all are in the
position
of this hoarding over and over again, then
there is no way you can give. And
subhanAllah,
I The other day I was sitting with
a youth and I was explaining to them
the same concept.
If you study the life of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam
versus
religious leaders of the world, okay? When we
talk about religious leaders, people
who that who people who are followed from
a religious perspective. If you study their lives
and the life of Rasulullah
alaihi wasallam,
one of the greatest signs
to tell us that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam
was a genuine man. One of the greatest
signs that indicates
the genuineness of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
was the fact that he never would hoard.
And if you study people of the past,
religious leaders of the past, one of the
greatest signs that indicated their hypocrisy
was that they would hoard over and over
again. Think about it. Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wasallam,
his house, what he had as a man,
he only had a mat in his house.
He had a small bed. He had a,
you know, he has small utensils in his
house and so forth. His house was no
bigger than today our walk in closets. I've
said this before, this is who rasulullah alaihi
wasallam was. And not only that, but one
time, the prophet the sahabah radiallahu anhu, they
observed rasulahu alaihi wa sallam that he frantically
got up after salat one day and he
rushed into his home. And then when he
came back out, the sahabah even asked and
they inquired that, You Rasulullah,
you're behaving very peculiar today. What was going
on? And he said that someone had come
and given me some sadaqah
that I had to distribute and it was
sitting in my house. I cannot be in
a position that someone has given me something
and I've not distributed it. So this is
who the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was
on one hand. But if you study world
history and you study people of the past
such as the story of Salman al Farsi
radiAllahu an. 1 The story of Salman al
Farsi when he became more religious
and he changed his religion of his fore
of his father and his family. One of
the things that he said was, which was
a big turn off for him was that
when his religious leader, when the pastor or
the priest died,
he became so upset at his hypocrisy
because he told people
that you need to give charity. You need
to give, you need to give. But what
did he do? He took everyone's charity and
he would hoard that charity. This is something
that we see in the story of of
Salma Al Farsi. And later on, he even
exposed that religious leader to the entire community,
that this is the kind of person. When
you look at even people of other religions,
even in this day and age, SubhanAllah,
when you look at the genuance of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he was a prophet,
and he was a man who that who
was true to his word. But subhanAllah today,
even today, we see these mega churches. If
you look at, there are documentaries that are
made, subhanAllah.
Documentaries that are made on these mega churches,
and these pastors of these mega churches telling
everyone, give to Jesus Christ. Give to give
to the church. Do this and do that.
But subhanAllah, if you look at the way
they live,
they live in $10,000,000
homes. They get around with jets and so
forth. It actually shows their hypocrisy.
All these pastors who actually are engaged in
this, it shows that how hypocritical they are
in their nature. That when they tell the
people give and give and give, but they
are the ones who are hoarding the most.
On the other hand, these people, they don't
wanna believe in the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
but the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he shows
us his genuance.
That he whenever he would get anything, he
had a nature of giving away. This is
why,
Imam al Bayhakir rahmatullahi alaihi he wrote a
very good book. He It's called the la'ir
nabua,
the proofs of prophethood.
There are many signs
indicating
the genuineness of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
because there were many people who did not
believe in the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam as
being truly a prophet of Allah. So he
wrote this book and he made this piece
about dala'ilun Nabuwa. And one of the things
he highlights in this is about his characteristic
is that he was not a hoarder.
All other religious leaders, even in the past,
in this, you know, in the Hindu religion,
there's a person, for those of you who
are from India, you know this name. He's
called He was called by
Saibaba, I think so. Saibaba. He used to
have a just orange, you know, suit and
so forth. Even if you read about him,
a religious man, someone who even actually praised
Islam and so forth. But when he died,
they found out that this was a man
that though he would tell people to give
charity, but he would hoard the charity the
most. Whenever he would tell people to give,
he would not give at all. So this
is something that ibn al Qayyib
tells us
that the wealth, that wealth is absolutely useless,
that is not given out in charity and
that wealth that is only hoarded to a
person. So these are 3 things today that
I've shared with you that are absolutely useless.
What's the first one? Quickly recap. What's the
first one?
Knowledge that is not, applied at all in
our life. Number 2 is
action
without sincerity.
And number 3 is
wealth that is hoarded and not given away.
That wealth is absolutely useless, and it becomes
a burden for a person on the day
of judgment. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to give us a tawfiq to stay away
from these three useless
things in our life.