Tammam Alwan – Embracing Consistency Through Daily Dedication
AI: Summary ©
The importance of Allah's subhan intervention in helping individuals reach their potential is emphasized, along with the need to be mindful of one's actions and focus on productivity and sleep. exercise and sleep habits are also important for achieving success. The importance of setting goals and regularly returning to them is emphasized, along with the need to stop the day and focus on daily work to build a habit towards a goal. The speaker gives a series of 5 lessons for setting goals and returning to them, emphasizing the importance of monitoring reactions to actions and setting goals for oneself.
AI: Summary ©
All praise and thanks are due to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We praise and thank him.
We seek his assistance and we seek his
forgiveness.
We take refuge or protection in Allah
from the evils of ourselves
and the sinfulness of our actions.
Whomever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guides, none can
misguide.
And whomever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala misguides,
none can guide.
I bear witness that there is none worth
worshiping but Allah
alone with no partners. And I bear witness
that Muhammad salallahu
alaihi wasallam is his servant and messenger. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala reminds us in Surat I
Al I'm Ran.
Oh you who believe,
have taqwa of your Lord with the taqwa
that's due to him and don't die except
in a state of submission, except as Muslims.
And He also says
in Surat Al Nisa,
He says, oh people,
have taqwa of your Lord
who created you from a single soul
and created
from its mate
and dispersed from both of them many men
and women.
And have taqwa of Allah through whom you
ask one another
and also the wombs.
Surely Allah
is ever over you an observer.
In a well known hadith,
many of us know
He says that when any of you falls
asleep
that the shaitan comes
and ties
3 knots.
A well known hadith many of us have
heard of before.
And he says when one of you wakes
up
and remembers Allah, maybe the the early morning
prayer,
That recognition that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
given me life after he gave me death
and to him is the final return.
He says one of the knots
becomes loose.
And if you get up and you make
wudu, you ritualistically
purify your body with water, with ablution, with
this tremendous act of worship and pahara,
he says another knot becomes loose.
And when you get up for prayer
and you start to say Allahu Akbar, forget
everything, forget my sleep, forget my work, forget
my Forget everything right now. Let me just
focus solely on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He says all the knots become loose.
And then he describes the state of the
person. This is what I want to focus
on, bi idhnallahu ta'ala.
He says,
this person becomes
This person becomes in a good mood.
They're smiling
and they're energetic as well.
He says
and if you don't go through this morning
routine,
then what? He says
At that point in time, the person's gonna
be cranky, the person's gonna be grouchy, the
person's gonna be on lazy, low energy and
lethargic all day.
And what he's teaching us here is
the important
The the importance of these little habits
that we might minimize, we might belittle throughout
our day. And I just wanna remind the
brothers, if we could move up, it's already
full in the back and there's a lot
of room here. So if you can move
up and squeeze together.
Something
that productivity experts refer to as keystone
habits.
Keystone habits.
These things where, you know, you start one
thing and it has a snowball effect. It
starts to pick up steam. SubhanAllah, you start
doing more and more things. And one one
thing that's often mentioned is exercise. Right? You
start to exercise. You start to do this
daily activity or this 3 times a week
activity, and then you start to feel like,
wow, you know, I'm I'm in a better
mood.
I'm feeling more energy.
I'm actually a little bit tired at night.
So instead of, you know, doomscrolling through social
media, I'm just I'm just gonna go to
sleep. And actually, let me think about my
sleep. Let me think about my sleep hygiene,
my space, my bedtime routine, my how am
I gonna slowly ease into there?
Do I have too much sunlight? Oh, sorry.
Do I have too much light or artificial
light or blue light in my bedroom? Let
me address that. And then you start to
recover and your muscles get stronger.
And then,
as you started this
exercise habit, you start to notice that hey,
as I'm eating junk food, when I'm really
not concerned about the food that I put
in my mouth, the food that enters my
stomach and affects my whole body, I suddenly
can't do enough repetitions.
I suddenly can't lift that weight. I suddenly
can't last as long as I usually do
while running. And so you start to think
about your sleep and your diet and your
nutrition as well. And so movement becomes that
keystone habit. And here, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam
is telling us about one of the most
important one, and many of us experience this.
You miss fajr in the morning. Or some
of us, masha'Allah, we have the daily habit
of going to fajr in the masjid.
Ask that person, what happens that one morning
when you miss you miss the jama'ah or
you miss the kabiratulahram?
Yeah. You're still praying fajr on time, but
it's at home and the person's like,
my whole day gets messed up. My whole
day gets messed up. Or a person who
has a daily routine of murajahatulquran,
reviewing Quran.
What happens when that one morning comes, they're
like, oh man, it messes everything up because
I can't review Quran or I can't memorize.
I suddenly can't do it.
And subhanallah, the Quran has this theme
of timeliness and doing things at different time.
We know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says, In Surat Anisa, he says salal Subhanahu
wa ta'ala, he says that prayer is prescribed
at specific times for the believers.
But he also says subhanahu wa ta'ala
He also says in Surat Arun, so celebrate
the glory of your Lord when you reach
the evening and when you reach the morning.
And he says in Surat Al Ahzab, and
glorify Him in the morning
and in the evening. And he says in
Surat Sad, when talking about Sidi Nud alaihis
salam, he says we brought the mountains together
with him,
glorifying
their lord
in the at sun sunset and at sunrise.
And so there's this theme in the Quran
of like, you know, stopping your day,
stopping in in in the morning and and
doing intention setting and remembering Allah, and then
recalibrating in the evening, and recalibrating and refocusing
5 times a day. Many of us,
we might have had new year's resolutions with
the beginning of 2024
and suddenly forgotten about those.
Or we heard about other people. I'm gonna
do this in 2024. I'm gonna do that.
I'm gonna accomplish this. And inshallah, they said
inshallah as well. Whether it's some worldly goal
or some goal for the, some investment
in the other world.
Maybe we didn't set any goals. We're like,
new year's resolute. What what is that? I'm
not a part of that. And that's perfectly
fine as well. Maybe we set goals and
now it's been 3 weeks
and we've completely forgotten about them. We fell
off or we're struggling a little bit. Insha'Allah,
this reminder is for all of us because
all of us are in one of these
three states where we're each actually grinding on
a daily basis towards something or we didn't
set any goals. And even more important than
the Gregorian calendar based off the Christian era
is the Islamic calendar.
We're currently in Rajab, Alhamdulillah,
and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allahumma
balugna shaban wa balugna raman. May Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala allow us to reach shaban and
allow us to reach Ramadan. It's coming up
soon. And the days of fasting and the
nights of prayer are gonna be upon us
before we know it. SubhanAllah.
How are we
supposed to be leaders in our different realm
if we don't have the basics down? The
daily
grind, the daily dedication,
the consistent habits. Rasulullah
says you're all shepherds
and you're all responsible for your flock. And
he talks about the man and he talks
about the woman, and he talks about the
leader Al Amir as well in the hadith,
but every single one of us has that
scope. And for the younger brothers and sisters
in the crowd, I want you to think
of where you're gonna be because you're gonna
be a father one day, a mother, a
husband,
a wife, a leader in your workplace, in
your community,
And if you are not a person
who's saying what you do and doing what
you say, and setting goals and having a
vision and driving people towards some greater aspiration
through daily work, then people won't respect you.
People won't accept your leadership.
And inshallah, the 5 lessons we're gonna go
through today is lesson 1, set goals
and regularly
return to them. The first basic thing, set
a goal. And if during this khutbah nothing
comes to mind right now of just one
thing you wanna set, and let it be
daily
of every single day I'm gonna build this
habit towards this greater goal then reflect upon.
I encourage you, reflect upon after
as you're driving home or driving back to
work
or late in the evening. Don't let another
day pass by before setting a very firm
goal. It can be in your spiritual life.
I wanna start praying tahajjud. You know, Ramadan's
coming up. I don't I don't wanna get
lazy. I want to start training my body
and my heart and my soul from now.
I want to start reading the Quran daily
because I'm not doing it, and I know
Ramadan's gonna come and that's a limited time
with a lot of ajir. So I'm gonna
start with 1 page and then 2 pages
and then a hizb and then a juz
and just increase it from there. I wanna
go back to memorizing the Quran or reviewing
what I've forgotten. I wanna get in that
daily habit of charity before Ramadan hits me
and suddenly it's upon me. Or in terms
of the physical realm, I wanna be able
to do one pull up or 10 push
ups in a row or even run a
mile without stopping.
Set some aspirational thing that's good for your
personal body and your personal self socially.
I want friends.
You know, some of us, we don't have
friends. It's nothing to laugh about. We're in
a state, a peak state of loneliness right
now in America and across the world because
of the so called fake connections through social
media.
Set that as a goal. I've said this
story previously to other brothers. If you wanna
make friends,
the best place to make friends is here
in the masjid.
Come to the daily prayers.
Come for 2 weeks and just just come
to Isha.
And then after that, start saying salaam to
people. Just say salaam and smile.
And then after that, spend 2 weeks and
say, Assalamu alaikum, my name is, you know,
Fulan such and such. What's your name? That's
it. And after 2 weeks, start to notice
some people
crowd or there's tea or there's something. Go
with a group of brothers if you're a
brother or group of sisters if you're a
sister, and start saying, salaam, salaam alaykum, here's
about me. I've been in the community for
this long. You know, Sheikh Yasir Badass, he
constantly reminds us after prayer, say to the
person on your right, the person on your
left because we have a sense of community
there. Psychologically, things we've been putting off dealing
with. Knowledge in terms of enrolling in the
tasil class,
coming to the Tuesday night lectures,
coming to, enrolling in a local institute or
something online financially,
saving up for retirement,
focusing on your investments, getting together with other
brothers or sisters and thinking about that. In
terms of relationships, getting married,
working on your marriage, that cousin you haven't
spoken to, that parent who who you suddenly
have a sour relationship with, children, and then
career promotion, another job or a career change.
2, taking advantage of the barakah of the
morning because Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi sallam says,
Allah He said, oh Allah put barakah in
the morning. This is when people are sleeping.
3,
develop friendships of accountability.
Don't don't try to always surround yourself with
yes people who when they see you messing
up, they're like, it's okay. But rather surround
yourself with people who live
who when they see you slacking, they say,
brother, I love you for the sake of
Allah but really you've got to fix this
up Or that's wrong, sister. You shouldn't be
doing that. When you surround yourself with a
sense of community of people who keep you
straight, they keep you accountable, this helps you
stay on point in terms of your goals.
4, monitor your reactions when calamity
naturally hits you. What happens when you miss
that one day of fajr? Or you miss
that one day of your exercise or that
one day of reading Quran? Doesn't mean we
throw our hands up, we say, forget it.
It's it's done. Or do we say,
I seek the forgiveness of Allah, I'm gonna
keep at that daily grind. And 5, the
last lesson is stop
making excuses.
We hear this too often
where someone missed something or did this or
did that and you know, I had this
or I had that.
Every single person in this masjid, I guarantee
you every single person has a burden that
they're bearing.
Whether it's the hospitalization of a family member,
whether it's some sort of terminal illness,
whether it's some sort of subhanAllah test from
Allah some sort of disability or special needs
that they have or some sort of struggle.
It could be anything. It could be the
stress of unemployment and trying to pay the
bills.
Every single person has a has a has
a burden on their shoulders but Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala says,
You're only gonna get whatever work you put
forth.
And so remember that and don't choose the
path of excuses, but rather take accountability.
My dear brothers and sisters, I I don't
want this jum'at to pass
without mentioning our brothers and sisters in firlusteen
in general and in in particular.
We've highlighted so many characteristics
throughout the last few months in particular. Right?
The bravery,
the resilience,
the focus on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala living
and embodying the ayat.
Now let's think back. Do we think that
suddenly one day,
this person woke up and then suddenly they're
reading Quran and as bombs are falling, you
see them completely focused on the ayat of
Allah?
Do we think that there's something in the
genetics of Palestinian children that allows them to
get up a child
without any sort of weaponry, without any sort
of shield
and faces a tank, literally a machine made
to kill human beings
and bravely stands in front of it? Is
this something genetic?
Or is it because this person has been
exposed on a daily basis
by parents, by mentors, by mashiach
to be brave
in the face of adversity,
in the face of a calamity to be
firm? Or is it because this person has
studied the tafsir of the Quran and as
teachers who on a regular basis have told
them about these ayat and how they're living
it. How can someone rise from there except
through the daily grind? And so I want
us to continue recognizing
the exemplary Muslims of our brothers and sisters.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant them freedom.
May Allah grant them steadfastness.
May Allah
not only allow them to survive but allow
them to thrive. May Allah grant them peace
and prosperity.
And we continue to make dua for them
but we have to ask what's my nasib?
What did I gain from all of this
on a personal basis? Alhamdulillah, I'm in safety
here. Alhamdulillah, I don't have to worry about
my family members like they do there. But
am I putting in the daily work
in my circumstances?
Where they
bullets, you can hear them in the background.
I'm going to the masjid.
There are bullets. You could die. I'm going
to the masjid.
And us with our luxuries,
may Allah forgive us, we're avoiding these things.
And so let that be a reminder.
Let's not let their lives go in vain.
We continue the political activism. We continue speaking
out, but we also have to think about
ourselves and what goals am I gonna set
and what daily things am I gonna do
so that I gain. So again, the 5
lessons are 1, set goals
and regularly return to them. 2, take advantage
of the barakah of the morning. 3, develop
friendships of accountability.
4, monitor
your reactions
when calamity strikes. And 5,
stop making excuses.