Shakiel Humayun – Propel Forward 52nd Sermon
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the rules and laws of life and how they can be successful. They stress the importance of fully submitting to the universal decree and avoiding past experiences to propel forward. The importance of cooperation and avoiding mistakes is emphasized, as it is the main limiting factor for achieving success. The speaker also highlights the importance of creating a culture of cooperation and avoiding certificate and envy.
AI: Summary ©
To advance in life,
one has to understand
the laws of life.
Like anything else,
for us to be a winner,
to become winners,
it's important that we understand what the rules
are.
Take, for example,
a sports game,
a soccer game.
For us to be successful
or to win in that game, it's important
for us to understand what are the rules,
the regulations
for this soccer game. How can I score?
What is a penalty? What will hold me
back? What will prevent me from advancing?
And so life is similar.
Life has rules,
regulations,
laws.
You can call them decrees.
And if we understand them well, we're able
to propel forward. We'll be able to advance
in life.
And there are 2 major
decrees
that I would like to talk about today
that can help us propel forward
in life, in this test that we live
in.
And the first
decree
is. This is the universal
decree.
This is the decree that when Allah decrees
for something to exist,
he says be and it becomes.
So this encompasses the creation of Allah because
it exists
by Allah's decree. The universal decree.
And anything else that exists or that happens
from events and actions,
all of that falls under
this universal decree because nothing can exist or
happen
without this decree of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
So the creation of the sun, the stars,
and the moon are all are
all from this universal decree.
The creation of time
is from this universal decree.
And under this category are also things
that we have no control over.
Which fall under this universal decree.
Like, for example, our birthplace.
We had no
say in where we would be born.
Our race.
We had no say in what our race
would be.
Our age.
What it is right now. We have no
say in how time progresses
year after year.
And we have no say in stopping time
or slowing time or reversing time. All of
these
all of these items which we have no
control over
also fall under
the the universal decree.
The second kind of decree
is
This is the directional
decree.
This is when Allah decrees commands and prohibitions
for mankind to live. Commands and prohibitions
that are designed
to be the utmost
benefit for man in this life.
And these commands and prohibitions,
we have a choice.
It's not like the first category where we
don't have a choice. Here we have a
choice. We have a choice to implement these
commands and prohibitions.
This decree of Allah could happen, and it
may not happen. Allah has decreed for us
to be honest.
There are people who lie.
Allah has decreed for us to be charitable.
There are people who are stingy.
Allah has decreed for us to take care
of the poor. There are people who neglect
the poor. So this category, it could happen
or it may not happen.
The first category,
the
universal decree
where we didn't choose our race or our
gender. We had no say if we were
gonna be male or female.
This is called involuntary submission.
Where all of us
have involuntarily
submitted and acknowledged
that, yes,
we have no control.
Yes. We have acknowledged
that our birthplace. We have acknowledged our race.
You don't have a a Chinese person saying
that he's of Hispanic race because he acknowledges.
He acknowledge this decree of Allah. And it
would
be nonsensical for someone to contest
this,
this universal decree.
Versus
the directional decree, the commands and provisions,
this is where voluntary submission is. We can
voluntarily
submit to Allah's commands or provisions, or we
could choose not to do it. Allah has
commanded
us to stay away from Riba, not to
have interest bearing transactions, not to have bank
accounts. We can choose to do it, or
we can think we're making money and have
get involved with interest. It's a choice of
ours.
What Islam uses is the premise of
the universal decree where we have involuntary
submission.
Islam uses that as a premise and says,
look.
You involuntarily
submit to your gender, to your race, to
your to your location, to where you were
born. You involuntarily submit to these decrees of
Allah.
This fact that you acknowledge and agree to
agree to should guide you to full submission
by submitting to the commands and prohibitions of
Allah.
And
this full submission, and we talked about the
rules and laws and how to be successful
in life.
This full submission
is the recipe of being successful in life.
As Allah subhanahu
wa'ala said,
Where Allah subhanahu wa'ala says,
certainly the one who submits himself
to Allah.
This is the full submission. Voluntary
submission.
The one who submits himself to Allah,
surely he will have his reward with Allah,
and there will be no fear nor will
he grieve. This is success. The definition of
success
is when we understand that involuntary
submission should lead us to full
submission to
commands
and
prohibitions.
And when we find the queen of when
she saw the wonders of that
he was able to,
by Allah's power and permission,
to move her throne from her land in
Yemen all the way to his palace.
This
is from.
This is the abilities,
the provisions that Allah has provided to Soleiman
This is the universal decree.
Things that human beings don't have control or
power over.
And when she entered his palace, she thought
it was a body of water, so she
lifted her dress thinking that she would have
to tread water.
And then
said, it's just a palace that's paved out
of crystal.
And so when she saw this, she saw
she saw the bounties and the will and
the decree that Allah has provided.
She used that
universal decree as a premise to enter into
full submission.
She's. This queen then said
I have wronged myself. She realized that she
now that she has to,
have complete submission because she understood
this universal decree. She said, I've wronged myself.
And I now fully submit with Suleiman
to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.
And this submission,
full submission,
is very important because if we remain in
our involuntary
submission,
things that we acknowledge and recognize,
we live in a conflict.
In conflict with nature where the sun, the
moon, the stars, and the universe all fully
submit to Allah. So we
become
those beings
that are in dissonance to the universe,
that don't fully submit while everything else besides
the man and the jinn are submitting to
Allah.
And when we have this conflict,
the human being living with this conflict constantly
tries to seek peace because this conflict
does not allow the person to be in
peace.
And the only way a person will be
in peace if they go all the way,
if they propel forward and fulfill the submission,
the voluntary submission such that it's full submission.
That only by the dhikr and the remembrance
and the worship of Allah does the hearts
find peace. It's through this submission.
And worse than that, worse than someone
just sticking behind
in involuntary submission, not going all the way
and also doing the voluntary submission, worse than
that
is when some people try to contest
the universal decree.
Contest what we all acknowledge that we have
involuntarily
submitted
to. For example, someone saying,
why do I have to die? I shouldn't
we shouldn't die. Contesting the concept of death
when everyone knows that we all will die.
To contest this concept, this universal decree
is
nonsensical.
It's like saying if I'm going to play
in the World Cup a soccer game,
I'm going to contest why is there a
time limit. Those are the rules. Those are
the laws of the game. So once we
enter into life, we come on this earth,
it doesn't make sense for us to contest
the laws and the decrees that are given
that are a given in this world for
this life. So someone contesting
that why should they die, it doesn't make
sense.
If someone contests their age and someone says,
look, I'm 75 now but I feel
younger.
So,
any time I have to fill up an
application form and they ask me for my
age, I'm not gonna put 75.
I'm gonna put 25 because I feel
and I can identify myself
with a 25 year old. This is contesting
the universal decree. It doesn't make any sense.
We can't change time. We can't change
these
givens in the universe.
The same thing
with gender. If someone says no matter how
they feel, they can't contest if they're a
male or a female. It's a given. We're
born with those
qualities.
And so by contesting involuntary
submission, it's not
propelling forward. It's actually regression. We're going backwards.
And so propelling forward means
to understand what is the given in this
universe. What are the givens in this test?
Yes, there's a time limit. I have to
die. Yes, I have a gender that has
been chosen for me. And for me
as to how do I use these givens
to have to complete this test to be
successful
through full submission.
And to contest it is like someone going
to
the soccer field and saying
and playing a game of soccer. Hey, we
should not have these nets here. We should
have hoops. That's how we should play soccer.
It's a given. When you go to a
soccer field, that's a given. Those are the
rules. Those are the laws. And you have
to play within the rules and laws and
try to contest them. You're just wasting time
because there's a time limit for that soccer
game to end.
These 2 decrees
are very important for us to understand to
live this life. And this is why Allah
he told us that if we say we're
going to do something in the future,
the future has to deal with time.
And we don't own time.
We can't claim
a slot
of time in the future because we don't
own it. This is why Allah subhanahu said
that
we should not say we're gonna do something
tomorrow
except by saying insha'allah.
Because something to do with time and the
future, that has to do with the universal
decree. And we can't claim that.
And so we have to this is where
the nexus is where the universal decree
and the directional decree, which we volunteer to
submit, cross. And so if I'm gonna say
I'm gonna give charity next week, that's part
of the directional decree that I have the
choice to do that. But I have to
couple that and acknowledge the universal decree that
it's not gonna happen because I don't have
control over time except if a law wills.
And so there's 2 strategies. There's a couple
of strategies I want to give today of
how we can propel forward
in this life,
in this test,
by avoiding things that would actually hold us
back
from advancing
in this life and this test.
The first
is not being stuck in the past.
Sometimes we get stuck
with events
that happened in the past and we just
can't let go.
Those experiences may be unpleasant.
They may be difficult that we went through.
Distasteful.
And it's difficult for us at times to
just let go. But by not letting go
of that past,
we hinder ourselves from moving forward.
Like an argument we may have with someone.
And that we have that bad taste
and we're not able to speak to that
person properly. We're not able to cooperate with
that person properly. We're not able to do
ventures with that person which could probably benefit
ourselves, our families, and the community. So we're
stuck in the past and we're replaying. We're
rewinding and replaying the past.
And Allah
teaches us that in this life
taught us
to drop the past and to move forward.
There was a man at the time of
the prophet Muhammad
used to live in Mecca while the prophet
Muhammad and his companions migrated to Medina. He
wanted to migrate to Medina and go to
the prophet Muhammad
But his family told him, don't go, don't
leave us, stay here. And so he stayed.
And then years later,
he went to Medina. And when he went
to Medina,
he saw that how the companions
had advanced in their knowledge and practice and
worship and understanding of Islam.
And he was away all this time and
he lost out.
And so he regretted
and he resented his family that held him
back.
And he said when I go back, I'm
going to do this and do that and
do this to my family because they made
me lose time. They made me lose all
these opportunities.
And then Allah revealed
that
if you
pardon
and overlook and forgive,
then surely Allah is the most forgiving, the
most merciful. Here Allah is teaching him and
teaching us to let go of the past.
If mistakes were done by people that hurt
us or harmed us in some way, we
can't live with that. We can't have a
culture of intercom.
A culture of revenge.
A culture of confrontation.
A culture of being trigger happy about suing
everyone and anyone that upsets us.
But we have to create a culture of
cooperation and not confrontation.
So the first thing that holds us back
is being stuck in the past. The second,
what holds us back is
the scarcity mindset.
The scarcity mindset where if you have a
business and someone 2 blocks down opens a
similar business or you have a website and
someone opens a similar business online,
you feel like they are going to take
away all your customers.
This comes from the scarcity mindset. That there's
not enough people
that will buy your product. There's not enough
resources
in the world to go around. That's a
scarcity mindset.
But instead the mindset should be,
oh, great. Another person has opened up a
similar business to prop, to provide product,
goods, and services, which benefits mankind.
So it's great he's doing that. Let me
figure out what my
value proposition is, what my unique selling proposition
is, how I can differentiate, how I can
leverage my strengths and be different so both
of us can provide
those goods and services,
but to different audiences because it's custom now
and it's needed.
And the more we serve
various audiences, the better it is for mankind.
But the scarcity mindset makes that person want
to attack that person, makes that person want
to call the billing department that person because
his permit is not up and try to
attack him and destroy him because he thinks
that if he's alive and there, I won't
be able to survive. That's a scarcity mindset.
Or we have friends and
or family,
and we have some initiatives, we're involved in
some endeavors.
And they say, well, if you don't do
what I'm telling you, if you don't take
my advice, I'm not going to support you
anymore. I'm not going to come anymore, etc.
That's coming from the scarcity mindset. The person
thinks that my support is going to make
this
successful. And if I'm not here, nothing's going
to happen. As if there's no one else,
nothing else around.
There are no other people around to help.
That's a scarcity mindset. And Allah highlights this
scarcity mindset
with
the the hypocrites.
Where Allah says
that they're the ones, the hypocrites,
those who
have disbelief inside and pretend to be Muslim
on the outside.
They're living in this conflict.
Allah says that they're the ones who say
do not spend on those who are with
the messenger of Allah
so that they may leave the prophet Muhammad
This is from the scarcity mindset.
They were thinking that if they could stop
people
from spending on those who migrated to the
prophet Muhammad, who left their families, left their
businesses, left their wealth, and everything just came
with their shirt on their back, and if
they were able to stop people from
giving them funds,
that everything will collapse.
Allah attacks
this scarcity mindset by answering back and says
Allah then says
but to Allah belongs the treasures of the
heavens and the earth. The treasures of the
universe.
But the
hypocrites, they don't understand.
It's an understanding
problem.
This scarcity, it's a mindset
problem.
And so this mindset holds us back.
And this is the core
problem of envy.
It's a scarcity mindset.
Why does this person have a nice house,
a nice car? Why is this person wealthy?
It's from the scarcity mindset thinking that these
things cannot, there's not enough in the world
for it to go around.
And so I have this envy and I
have this jealousy.
But my hope and expectation should be the
other way around. If I see that Allah
can give someone a good house or give
them wealth,
instead of being envious and wanting that to
be removed from another person,
I should go to the source.
The source is Allah. And if you can
give him, you can give me. And so
as believers, every single one of us
should expect and hope from Allah
that he makes
him or her into a billionaire.
What is that to Allah? To make you
into a billionaire? It's nothing.
You shouldn't have this expectation that you should
be a millionaire. You should have this expectation
and hope that Allah make you a billionaire.
Because to Allah belongs the treasures of the
universe, and that's nothing for Allah subhanahu.
So when we remove our scarcity mindset, it
starts to stop holding us back from advancing
and moving forward.
It helps us cooperate instead of confront.
It helps us
to think and understand that resources are many
and much more
than what we're seeing within our two eyes.
I ask Allah to
help us
understand
the laws and regulations
of this life and this test so we
may pass it and become winners and become
successful in the hereafter.