Time Spent Online

Bismillah Allahu Allah Allah Allah, Allah tena in Nica until Alleman Hakeem Allah hamara Limni Mayan pharaoh now one final remark I lumped in our xinerama yara Bill Alameen Aloha Marina, I was looking to see by wearing a bowtie la belle de la was organized in Sierra Madre cumbre de la, he got a character.

Before I spend the next half an hour, bad mouthing social media, make sure you follow me on all my social media accounts. I'm just joking under Sure.

All right, Mr. manleigh. You know, I say that as a joke, but it really speaks to the situation that we are in today. And the situation that we're in today is that a lot of times we can see the bad effects of social media. Right, we can feel it in our lives. And a lot of young people talk about very openly how social media has been affecting their their mental health and their mental well being, even their emotional well being. Yet, it's hard and very difficult for us to detach ourselves from social media, even if someone said, you know, I'm going to be really hardcore. And I'm not going to use any social media.

And then you get a FaceTime from your grandmother. And it's like, Oh, I gotta get on my phone. I gotta FaceTime her, and then you're back on the screen. And that screen is a path to everything else. We are connected now, due to social media. We all live through the quarantine period, may Allah protect us from entering another quarantine Allahumma Amin, but we all lived through that period. And a lot of us made it through that period because of the internet because of social media. Because we were able to even though we weren't physically able to be with somebody, we were at least able to connect with them through social media. I myself, my job what I do for a living would not

have been possible during social media during the quarantine, if it wasn't for social media. I teach for a living. I give classes and lectures for a living. So someone comes up and says, you know, all social media haram because it's a waste of time, all these problems on so forth, cut it out of your life.

I'm probably going to be the guys and like, Yeah, that's cool. But wait up, can they still take classes online, right. And I know my kids, I have two kids, my older kid is in school, he just started school not too long ago, he actually started school during quarantine, he attended kindergarten online, it blew my mind that that is his first experience of school was sitting in front of a screen. But Alhamdulillah he was able to do that. Because we do have social media, we have the internet. And so there is a lot of good that comes from the internet. And that's why I don't like just painting social media with a wide brush and saying it's all bad, and it's all wrong.

And that is not to under emphasize Subhanallah the dangers of social media, and how it is affecting us. And in reality, and I say this quite a bit. We don't even truly know the true effects of social media yet. We aren't we're only like 1015 20 years into social media. We don't know the long term effects of social media. We don't we don't know how kids are doing that. We're born in an age of social media. Like my son when he's older. Like he's gonna like he's my he's my like my test study, right? He's, he's the guy and we Okay, how did this homie turn out? If he was bad, like, I know, and here's the problems with social media, it kind of kind of messed him up, may Allah protect him and

all of our children. But a lot of us, you know, we're still in that phase where we don't, we don't really know what's going to happen when it comes to the long term effects of social media. But as human beings for tech, Allahu Akbar, Allah says, Have the Taqwa of Allah to the best of your ability, meaning try your best. And from trying our best means that we try to control the things that we do have control over. And that is why I'm not here to tell you delete all of your social media, get rid of the internet, like, just don't do that. Because I don't think that for the vast majority of people, myself included, I don't think that's the reality. But there are certain things

that we do have control over how much time we spend online doing what? And I think that is the big question, because time spent online is not necessarily bad. And sometimes, as I said earlier, we need to spend a certain amount of time online because of our lives, right? Some people are getting educated online, some people are getting their degrees online. Some people are teaching online, and there's so much of our lives that just have to be online. But what I want to talk about today is the entertainment side of being online, because when it comes to our time Subhanallah our time is indeed limited. Time is such an important factor for us as human beings first and foremost. But

specifically for believers, that Allah who's kind of like to Allah in many places, swears by time or a

period of time and when Allah swears by something, that thing is very, very significant. So for example, Allah was penalized to Allah says, What lelee either Yasha by the night and how it covers, meaning that portion, that time period is something significant. It's a sign from Allah who has had no data. We're supposed to look at that. And think Allah is swearing back by this, what is the swearing about? This must be very, very important. What Baha Allah says, By the morning brightness or when the morning sun is coming up. That's a sign for instance, indication, a believer looks at that. And they take heed, And subhanAllah I want to share a story about my you know, I do talk a lot

about my son, I hope he never listened to these lectures later on. He's me really mad. But the other day is panela. I was driving and it was sunset, the sun was setting. And

don't tell anybody. But I recently bought my son a switch, right? He was rewarded for some stuff he did. So I got him a switch, right.

And he was in the car playing the switch. And generally I don't allow,

like devices in the car because I'm like, You need to just be in the car. Like if I'm driving, I can't be on a device that you can't be on a device, just talk to me. And so he was on his switch. And it was a long drive. And that's why I allowed him to be on it. And I said late, his name is late. I said late. Check that out. He goes what I said, look, the sunset is not beautiful. And he goes, Yeah, but it's there every day. Right? And I'm like, wait, what? It's there every day. But how often do we look up? And he's like, yeah, yeah, it's there. It's fine. And that, to me, said a lot to me, because I'm like, this is the nature of human beings. We take these things for granted, we

take time for granted. Because we're living in we're existing in time. We just take it for granted. And this is why as a reminder, Allah swears by time will also buy time, in that in Santa Fe Hotel. Allah swears by time that mankind human beings, all of us were at a loss. One of the meanings of this is that we're at a loss when it comes to the time that we have. Time is constantly ticking time is going on. It does not stop. We can stop, take a break and do whatever but time keeps on going. There is no stopping time. And this is why Allah subhanaw taala says certainly mankind is at a loss in the levena aminu except those who believe. Now, does that mean that for believers time stops, no

time doesn't stop for anyone. But believers take advantage of their time. So even though time keeps on moving, they're making sure they get the most out of their time. This is one of the reasons Allah says Ill levena aminu except those who believe well, I mean, they'll suddenly hat and there you go. What do they do with that time? What are the believers do with that time, they do good deeds, they do good actions, what they'll also will help. And they enjoin the truth, goodness upon one another, what a while. So this southern and they encourage one another with patience. Because all of this comes along with time. This is why Allah has panela to Allah, as over and over again in the Quran.

We find this to be a big deal as a reminder for us because the nature once again the nature of human beings is that we forget when things are really obvious to us. We forget, we forget sometimes that we're breathing air yet without air we would die. We could not survive. We forget the blessings that are literally on an inside of us. Allah whose data says what fee unfussy coma Fela double see rune that there are signs or indications in yourself?

Don't you see? Don't you pay attention. If we just took a moment to look at our own bodies, look at your own hand. And think about the blessings that are contained in a single hand.

We would be sitting there in awe of the blessings that Allah subhanaw taala has given to us. And so Allah reminds us of this and the prophets of Allah who I knew he was setting them told us that there are two blessings that many people miss out on health. So well for all health and available time. I remember Subhan Allah,

a recent conversation that I had with someone about taking on an imam position for those of you don't know, I'm not an imam. I really don't have a desire to be an imam for various reasons, but I often get

asked if I'd be interested in being an imam. communities will approach me and say we're looking for an imam you want to be do you want to be an imam? And amongst the many reasons

that I usually give to a person or like a masjid board or whatever they asked me that question is the following. I say, look, the way I look at my life, is that Allah has given me a certain amount of time to be on Earth, how much that time is I don't know, but I know it's limited. And from that time, there is how there is a right for my wife, and for my kids, and for myself, for my Deen for my spirituality, and then there is the right of the people upon me. Meaning if I have gone and sought some type of Islamic knowledge, then I believe yes, it is something that I owe the people to, to convey that with that, which I have learned.

And so for me, that is how I look at my time. And so if I have a limited amount of time, I want to make sure that the time I have available to give to the people is not gone to waste. So I said with all due respect, but sitting in a meeting with board members, and having arguments and discussions and on and on and on domestic politics and this and that and whatever. Not to say that's not important. Somebody needs to do that. But to me, that's not the best use of my time. So I look at my life as how what can I do that will allow me to use the limited time like I have a limited time to get to Jana live in a limited time to attain Jenna, that's it certain amount of time. What can I do,

that will be the best for me what will give me the best chances to get to Jana. And I have to live my life that way. Because if I don't, I can get caught up in worldly just just life. And unfortunately, a lot of us that is how we live our lives, just one day to another day. And we'd get stuck into a routine, we have this going on that going on and so on and so on and so on and so forth. And we forget that this life will come to an end. And at the end of that we will be questioned about the time that we spent what we did with our lives. And the hadith of them in general, the Allah who he said that the Prophet sallallahu sallam said that a servant will remain

standing on the day of judgment or the Day of Resurrection, until they're asked about four things, number one, their life and how they spent it. So the moments that we have in this life, we are going to be questioned about this time that you had, what did you do with it? How was it beneficial to you? How was it beneficial to the people around you? What advantage did you take of this time, number two, which will lie hurts.

Process Adam said their youth and how they used it up. And I'll tell you someone, as someone who I feel like I'm transitioning out of my youth, even though I'm young at heart, insha Allah. But as someone who's transitioning out of my youth, this i, i this this heavy speaks to me. Because I think back and I look at the time that I had, as a young person, the time that I had, what had less responsibilities, and I look back, and that is I feel like it has been used up. There are things that I was able to do before that I know I simply cannot do now, my brother came to me once and he said give me some some business advice. He's like, Hey, you have your own clothing line, and this

and that, whatever. So you know, I want to start my business, give me some advice. And one of the advices I gave him I said, Look before you get married, do whatever you can do for your business. Because if you're single,

you can handle your situation, you can be broke, you can invest all your money into your business, you can be living on the street.

Because it's just you, you got to take care of yourself. That's it. But once you get married, you have a family, and you're responsible for that family and your responsibilities go up. So whatever you got to do do it now. And this is what I tell a lot of young people as well. I know a lot of times we have goals that we set for later on in our lives. One day, I will do this one day, I will do that. When I do this, I will do that once I get married, I will do this. And the reality is that if you have time now, do it now because tomorrow is not guaranteed. And you don't know what the future holds. You don't know that if you have an opportunity now will you have that opportunity

later or not? And that is why I'm a big proponent for working really hard to find your calling. And then work hard at it. Find something that speaks to you find something that means something to you something that you have a passion for. And dedicate yourself towards that and if you haven't found it yet spent the effort in looking for what

excites you what what what what is what you want something that you can be passionate about.

Because if we're not doing that, we live in a time where there are plenty of ways to waste time Subhanallah I was having a conversation, my wife, and we were talking about, you know, me, my wife, we have different personalities, she's more extroverted and more introverted. And when the quarantine started, I'm like, this is pretty cool for me, right? Staying at home, don't need to go out and talk to people socialize, and my wife was not having it. Like she was not having a good time. I was having a great time. And I said, Honestly, if someone said to me today, that you can live the rest of your life and not have to go out, you could be home. And you could just like eat

pizza, and watch Netflix and go to Jannah. I'd be like, that'd be like, that would be Genda. For me on earth. Right? That would be amazing. I would love to do that. Right? That would be amazing. But that's not that's not reality. And maybe my agenda will look like I don't know, I don't know. alojado. Right. But it's easy to get caught up in that it's easy to just let the hours go and let time passes by. Especially because there's so much that is constantly pulling at us so much, so much, so many ways. So many people, so many organizations, so many apps that just want our eyeballs, our eyeballs stuck on what we're looking at. And that's why a lot of these apps that we use

Subhanallah you know, people think I'm like just against tick tock or whatever, tick tock is not the problem. The problem is using Tiktok as a form of entertainment and then get getting caught up and stuck in tick tock. The way the algorithm is set up on tick tock is that no matter what you're looking at, eventually you're going to end up in stuff that is not good for you. Not only is it a waste of time, honestly, for a lot of people, waste of time would be a good thing. Because what they're doing is not a waste of time, it's actually time being spent in Haram. time being spent away that in things that are bringing us away from Allah who has Panama data, tons of time being spent in

things that are taking us away from fulfilling our potential as human beings. You know, Allah has found a way to Allah has honored us as human beings what occurred Kolomna, Bani Adam, we have honored the Children of Adam. And sometimes I think Subhanallah, we are an honored species. Yet we spend hours and hours and hours of our day, just scrolling through the lives of other people, not even doing anything that benefits us just as a form of entertainment. And so our definition of entertainment has drastically changed what we consider to be entertainment. You know, this is one problem. When we think about entertainment, who say if I were to say to someone, what do you do for

entertainment? What do you do for fun? They may say, you know, I play basketball, or I do this or do that or whatever? Very few people will answer that question by saying, I get on my phone. And I scroll for entertainment. But in reality, that is entertainment. That is how we're entertaining ourselves today. And so when it comes to looking at our time, and how we divide our time and what we do with our time, I'm not saying we should not be entertained, it is honestly part of human nature. We need to be entertained. If we were always working, always worshiping always doing work, we would we wouldn't be happy part of them. neffs the way Allah created us is that we have social needs, we

have the need to have fun actually taught a whole class on this issue. Philip chillin, right. But we have, we need to make time for fun as well. But we have to define that time. And we have to take an account of ourselves and say, how much time am I really spending on this entertainment? And so when we look at our online lives, we got to differentiate and say, Look, this is time that I spent, I don't know, maybe listening to a lecture and not passively listening to a lecture. Not it's on and I'm just watching it and I'm doing like 10 Other things, right? We can't listen to lectures online, the way we watch Netflix, when I'm watching Netflix, I got Netflix on I got my phone on, I got my

friend talking to me, it's I'm multitasking Netflix, it's just playing in the background, right? It's just something happening. There is a problem. When we're listening to Islamic knowledge, with the intention to get close to Allah with the intention to better ourselves. This is this is an investment of time. Once again, the time that we have very little of time that is not guaranteed to us. This is an investment. Make sure that investment counts. I knew a brother in college, and Subhanallah me and him are about the same age. When we were in college, we both had a long commute, to college to art to the university. We're going to I chose Islamic lectures. I was like I'm gonna

listen to Islamic neck lectures. I'm gonna increase my knowledge in that way. And I'm actually very grateful for that.

Hamdulillah I learned a lot in that time, I was just listening and listening and listening. And I learned a lot and handed down.

A friend of mine, he said, I'm going to listen to the Quran, but I'm not going to just listen to the Quran. He said, I'm going to try and memorize what I listened to in the Quran.

And I can tell you Subhan, Allah, that he became a half elf, he memorized the Quran, in the car,

in the car, he went to college for four years, within those four years, every morning, every evening, he's had a long commute, of course, he would review outside of the Quran, outside of the car as well. But in the car, he would memorize the Quran. And you think about that, you think about that, that this is an opportunity that he had. And he took advantage of this limited time that we have. So if you're doing something, if you're actually investing the time in something, do it properly is one of the issues I have, with the way Islamic Studies and lectures and all this kind of stuff has moved online. Right? I enjoy teaching, I enjoy connecting with people. And that's great.

And I don't mind teaching online either. But one of the problems I have with people listening to stuff online is I know for a fact they're multitasking. I know there's 10 things going on, and they're you know, they have whatever else and it's just maybe playing in the background, or they're maybe paying attention, maybe something's happening. And I feel bad because I'm like, if you're investing the time,

then why lose it. And one of my friends in Medina Subhan, Allah one of the pieces of advice that he gave to me. So even being in Medina, sometimes, if you're tired or whatever, you don't make it a class, right? Or sometimes you go to class, just like all the other universities and colleges, you go and you're tired. And a friend of mine, who's actually one of my mentors, now he was senior to me, he said to me, Listen, if you're, if you're tired, and you're gonna go to class, and you're not going to pay attention, and you're gonna be too, he said, It is better that you get your rest.

You get your energy, so that when you do go to class, you take full advantage of that time. Because why would you sit in class, spend that time spend that spend, let that time go and not get anything out of it.

So the point here, my brothers and sisters, is that we need to change the way we spend time online and look, like I said at the beginning, I'm not here to tell you to not spend time online. What I'm asking you to do and I'm asking for myself is do an evaluation of yourself. Do some Maha Sabha and ask yourself what do I do online? And how much time do I spend doing what and yes, I need to be entertained as well. So make time schedule that time in for entertainment. That way we can get a control over our lives. We know we can plan for what is coming ahead. We can plan for the time that is spent online. There is a reason why Allah Allah Subhan Allah Allah has made our prayer as a

schedule. The fetcher the harasser. muscleman. Shepherd, there is a reason that we couldn't if it's just praying, you know, five prayers, why not just pray five prayers in the beginning of the day? Why not just pray at the end of the day? Like, why does someone asked me this question once? Why Does God care? When you pray your prayers, you're praying, right? Like, why does it matter? You pray in the morning or you pray in the evening? Like why is there a set schedule? And there's obviously many wisdoms to this wisdoms that we may not even know. But some of the one of the wisdoms of this is that our life is supposed to be set in this schedule, where we can schedule our lives, and that

we have distinct times in our lives in our days, where we dedicate ourselves to worship Allah because the human soul needs spirituality. Whether we acknowledge that or not, is another issue, the human soul in order for us to feel fulfilled and content and actually happy.

We need time for spirituality, we are spiritual beings. And so the five daily prayers what are they? They are Allah who's petawatt to Allah, our Creator, knowing us and telling us that this is the bare minimum that you need to fulfill your spiritual needs. And that's why we have the fatwa in the obligatory prayers and then we have others if you want to add to it and had that in law, you can pray your son knows you can pray, you know, if and, and so on and so forth. The extra prayers adds to our spirituality, but the obligations of our deen is the bare minimum that we need in order to feel fulfilled. That is one of the reasons why it is set throughout the day. And I know I know some

of you have felt this when you miss a prayer, especially when you're in the habit of praying your five daily prayers on time and we miss a prayer. I know you feel

That's something is missing. I know you feel that something is wrong. Even the fajr prayer, which is very difficult to pray often because of our schedules getting up early. If you've prayed feathered for one day, just one day, and the next day we miss Fetcham you're gonna feel it. What is happening? What's happening here? What's going on? What's going on? Is that you're knifes. Your soul is crying out and saying I needed that. You gave it to me yesterday, you allowed me to taste that sweetness of faith, regardless of the quality of it. You could have prayed budget in the morning and you were tired. You recited the shortest sutras. You got it done real quick. You prayed in 30 seconds and you

went back to bed. But it still meant a lot to your soul. It meant a lot to your relationship with your Lord, you may not have recognized it but your soul recognized it. And that is why the next day when it was missed, something happened on the inside, your soul cried out and said I needed it. Likewise with the other prayers. This is why our Salah is important. This is why our days are set by our prayers. And if you're having a hard time organizing your day, the one advice I get give is organize your day by your Salah because now you have automatically tied your day into your spirituality into your relationship with Allah has Panama data. When you know what that looks like,

I'll give you an example. Something like from Volker to answer I'm not going to log on to social media or from outside to McRib. I'm not going to log on to social media or from fajr to the her because you know you pray fed yet especially if you stay awake after fed Jen. It's very spiritual time. We know that it isn't Mubarak time. The prophecies send them said booty Kelly Murphy boo Korea that my ummah has been blessed Baraka has been placed in the early portion of the day, trust me, I'm a night person. I'm not a morning person. And it's hard for me to to do things in the morning. But I can tell you this even being a night person myself, the times that I've pushed myself to work on my

spirituality in the morning, it has been beautiful. It has been beautiful. That is a Mobarak time. Imagine starting your day with Serato fetcher forcing yourself to stay up and say from this time to this time, I'm not I'm not going to log on to any social media sites. It's a different thing if I've got work to do, or whatever it may be, but that is a time for me and my Lord. And the last thing I'll say is this. As you take an account, be very literal. This time is for my Lord. This time is for my family. This time is for my school, this time is for my work. And this time is for me to just chill is for me to be online and just look at memes and whatever it may be, or send memes to my

friend like whatever whatever, whatever y'all youths are doing today. Right? Whatever is going on, make that a set time how that Allahu Allah Allah, Allah Subhana. Allah Hama will be Hambrick a shadow Allah in the heartland, still Furukawa Tulelake