Striving To Be Better
Date:
Channel: Yaser Birjas
File Size: 57.44MB
Related
- Abu Bakr Zoud – How to start the new Hijri year right
- Yaser Birjas – The Obligation Of Charity Upon Every Muslim
- Mohammed Hijab – David Wood Send Me Location – Response to Debate Challenge
- Abu Bakr Zoud – The importance of Al-Isti’aathah before reciting the Quran
- Zahir Mahmood – Is Israel an apartheid state? Comparisons between South African apartheid and Israel
- Ismail Kamdar – Ramadan 2019 #01 – How to approach the Quran
- Akram Nadwi – Obedience to Creation
AI Generated Summary ©
The transcript discusses the impact of Muhammad's final events on YathGeneration, leading to people waking up and crying. The importance of striving to be better and prioritizing one's goals is emphasized. The speakers emphasize the need to learn and act upon the process of learning to be patient, finding peace and achieving profitability. The importance of learning and practicing is emphasized, and individuals are encouraged to strive towards their goals.AI Generated Transcript ©
My dear brothers and sisters,
Anas
reported that when the prophet Muhammad
he migrated from Makkah to Madinah,
called Anarat al Madinah,
the entire city of Yathrib back then, which
became the Madinah of Rasulullah
it started illuminating and shining with light, like
it became so bright.
People were very excited, people were so happy,
people were so energetic,
like you can feel life in the city
of Rasulullah
during his presence
When the Messenger of Allah
he passed,
and he said we barely buried him,
and we still taken off the dust from
our hands.
He says, we
felt this anguish,
desolation in our hearts,
this emptiness and loneliness all of a sudden.
He said everything went dark back again in
Madinah.
The kind of presence of the prophet
brought life to them, his absence
made them feel lonely. Again, they have to
deal
with life on their own.
And to the extent that one of the
stories about Bilal
that was mentioned in his biography,
that Bilal who was the official Mu'addun of
Rasulullah
When
the prophet
passed, obviously he cried so much, he said
to Abu Bakr as Siddiq, this is it,
don't ask me to call Adhan again.
Like I'm not going to call Adhan for
anybody after
Rasulullah And he couldn't stay in Madinah, he
left.
He went to Hashem
1 of those
parts of the story says that one of
those nights he came back to Madinah,
and one of those days at Fajr time.
And Qadr Allah
did not probably wake up in time for
it, so Bilal's Mu'addun
instantly kicked in.
He couldn't wait and let the people fall
asleep
without the adhan being called, so he called
the adhan.
And when he called the adhan, the people
of Madinah, they were waking up, or those
who were awake, they heard adhan or Bilal,
they recognized Bilal's adhan, and the entire city
of Madinah came up for Fajr crying.
Remember the memories of Rasulullah
This beautiful adan that we heard right now
for the Khutbah
reminds me of those feelings of Ramadan.
My dear brothers and sisters, Ramadan
is barely just 2 days ago when it's
finished.
I don't know about you, but if you
don't feel that loneliness,
that anguish,
that feeling,
that
the light that we had, the life we
had in the past 30 days during the
month of Ramadan, day and night,
if you don't feel that wahsha,
that desolation,
that emptiness,
I don't know what's wrong with you.
Ramadan is supposed to bring us that sense
of life and relief, SubhanAllah, and once it's
gone, you're on your own now.
Brothers and sisters, this is why what we
need to do after Ramadan is to strive
to be better.
This is it.
You need to strive to be better, you
need to live the spirit and the life
of Ramadan even though Ramadan is not here
anymore. The incentive,
the gatherings,
the beautiful, beautiful reminders,
all these, you know, sleepless nights and still
you feel you feel fatigue.
You sleep deprived and you're enjoying it.
You're not complaining about it, you're enjoying it.
Subhanallah, why is that? Because Ramadan is special,
brings that life.
Breathe those beautiful spirit, those moments,
what an unbelievable,
an unbelievable deen of Allah that we have.
That we're blessed with. That hearing an adhan,
hearing a recitation of the Quran, or even
staying up all night
doing what? For the sake of Allah
to enjoy one of those beautiful spirits and
moments of Ramadan?
That's an act of Ibadah.
Brothers and sisters, when Ramadan is gone, you're
on your own.
Unless
you keep living and reliving the moments of
Ramadan
throughout your day and night
In those moments I would like to share
with you something a little bit about the
meaning of striving to be better
even after the month of Ramadan.
You see, alhamdulillah,
Allah says,
Allah says that those who do good,
those who do good, men and women, means
in this life.
If
you do good in this world, in this
life, man or woman, male or female,
we shall reward them with a good life.
Now, before Ramadan, we had a different lifestyle.
The 1st few days of Ramadan maybe it
was difficult and hard, but as you go
through the month and you continue fasting and
coming to the Masjid and meeting more people,
you start practicing the good deeds.
And that's why by the end of the
month of Ramadan, I had so many people
coming and crying,
and other people are asking and begging, could
you guys please continue the last nights, the
last 10 nights in UHATARAS regularly? Can we
make this every month? Can we do this
every week?
Everybody wants to continue with the good deeds
that they've enjoyed experiencing in the month of
Ramadan. That is the good love, that's an
example.
Allah has given us the proof and the
evidence.
Even if it was just a preview of
it,
that if you have, if you maintain such
a very good lifestyle
for 1 month,
you can imagine if you continue with this
for the entire for the entire year.
Imagine if you do this for a lifetime.
You will have a good life.
And I guarantee it, if you do it
right with the right intentions, you will have
a good life. That's what Allah promised. He
said,
That's in this dunya.
And they shall get their reward, which means
on the day of judgment, for the best
of what they have done.
So not just in this dunya, you could
get your reward even in the akhir.
Brothers and sisters,
this is what we need to do, striving
to be better, in Arabic we call it
which
means to strive to improve yourself,
constantly and continuously.
Is there a beginning for this? Is there
an end to that? Absolutely not.
This is the moment you're born until you
die. You're gonna continue to strive to make
yourself better.
I know a lot of people in Ramadan,
they set goals for themselves, and may Allah
bless them, I hope you surpass all your
beautiful goals.
Others, they struggled with them. But here's the
most important thing, those goals, they need to
now start getting higher and higher.
Every single day, every single month, they need
to get higher and higher. What does that
mean? Every single day, you need to feel
I'm becoming better than I was yesterday.
You no longer compete with your brothers and
sisters and with your friends and your company
that you went with for Tara. We have
stayed for hours and hours just to get
into the masjid
Brothers and sisters, that's a phenomena I haven't
seen in anywhere else, alhamdulillah,
can you imagine people standing in line outside
of the masjid door for hours?
Standing in line to enter a masjid.
Where do you see this? People, they stand
there for merchandises.
They camp outside of stores to get something,
you know, from this dunya.
But to find people standing in line so
they can get into the Musa Allah and
the Masjid, what a blessing.
What a worthy cause to fight for
to be coming into the Masjid, the house
of Allah
Don't stop striving for this.
Don't let these lines disappear,
meaning you still need to strive and come
into the masjid. Even if I don't, I
need to stay on the line until I
get my opportunity to get in, inshaAllah
Do not stop striving to become better.
Our nafs, my dear brothers and sisters,
there are 3 types of them, as Allah
mentioned in the Quran,
When Allah spoke about our nafus,
he named 3 different types of nafs, which
means our self. You could call it the
lowly self and the improved one. He
called nafsul a maratul busu.
In the story of Yusuf
when the lady she confessed about what she
did with Yusuf, what did she say?
That my nafs is a commanding self, which
means what? It's constantly nagging you.
That nafs is nagging.
Now here's the thing, it could actually nagging
you to do something bad or it could
inspire you to do something good.
The choice is yours.
We talked about the Surah Moran, if you
remember, this is what you call the algorithm
of your ness.
If you keep browsing something good,
it will start suggesting what?
More good to you.
As the last prophet has mentioned,
You do, and Allah will facilitate everything good
for you. So if you choose to do
good, your nafs gets used to it and
starts desiring more of it. The algorithm is
doing good.
But again, if you start doing bad,
it's going to suggest what for you?
Bad.
Now I ask you, look at your history
of browsing in the past 2 days.
Since Ramadan ended,
what have you been browsing in your life?
I'm not just talking about your phones and
other stuff, talk about your life, what have
you been browsing in terms of deeds?
Are you now adding to it something good
or otherwise? Your nafs will continue to command
you,
will continue to nag you, to inspire you
or to whisper to you. The choice is
yours. What do you want the next step
from your nafs to be? What do you
want your nafs to do for you? You
want it to push you to do better
and strive to become better, or you want
that to be acted the other way around?
The other one is called Anafsulawama.
Anafsulawama,
accusatory nafs that keeps blaming you
and keeps guilt tripping you. You know,
for some, that guilt tripping is for a
good reason,
which means when you do something bad, it's
going to tell you, are you serious?
Why did you do this for?
For others, along with Usmani, when they miss
a bad opportunity,
it starts I tell them, are you serious?
How could your lessons go?
What kind of blaming do you and the
universe have to do for you? What kind
of guilt tripping?
Guilt tripping you for doing something bad, missing
an opportunity on something bad, or for missing
an opportunity on something good?
Like alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah,
alhamdulillah.
Now how often are we going to continue
with that? How far are we going to
go right now in the summer, especially when
Fajr becomes earlier and earlier and earlier.
That is now the testament that you're improving
and you're striving for your better self.
Accept the challenge.
Accept the challenge and say, you know what,
insha'Allah, that's going to be on time every
single day.
Isha.
Before Ramadan, we were struggling to come once
a month for Isha. I have other things,
other obligations, busy with this, busy with that,
now all of a sudden you come every
single night.
And not just to pray for 10 minutes
and leave. No. You're standing for an hour
plus, an hour and a half,
and it's not even longer than that.
How come you find the time in the
palace so convenient all of a sudden?
Because the nafs has the environment and was
telling you to be there. But now once
you cease doing that, this is it, you
go back to your old habits,
and the nafs is going to continue to
blame you for doing this or that. The
third one that Allah
spoke about called peaceful
and tranquil.
That peaceful and tranquil is all what we
strive for, my dear brothers and sisters.
We spoke about this in the month of
Ramadan. We said, look, you will only find
peace, You'll only find peace
when you find that certainty.
And that certainty was never guaranteed for you
in this dunya. It was guaranteed in the
akhirah.
The only certainty that you have here is
that Allah
promised you that he will test you.
And since everything is a test, I'm so
certain Allah will have something better for me
in this, so I will always find peace
and tranquility even in the face of adversities.
Brothers and sisters,
accept the challenge.
Find peace and tranquility where Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala promised that you will find it. When
he says
He says
those who find peace and tranquility to the
remembrance of Allah because indeed the hearts will
find peace and tranquility through the remembrance of
Allah.
Their hearts will always find peace and tranquility
to the remembrance of Allah
even in the face of calamities.
And, wallahi, our brothers and sisters in Gaza
are the testament for this today.
They're living examples of this.
With all what they go through, including on
the Eid Day, deliberately the occupation never allowed
them to have one day of peace.
Not even one single day, one day they
get busy
targeting innocent people, children, women,
and everybody there, subhanallah. Why? Because they knew
they don't want to give them that peace.
You still hear the people coming out and
still having that iman in their hearts. May
Allah bless him. May Allah protect him. May
Allah. Brothers and sisters,
now Ramadan is over.
That environment that
inspired us to do well is no longer
there on a regular basis, but you can.
You can live it. You can live it
on your own. I'm speaking to myself before
anybody else.
Just like Anas, radiAllahu
ta'ala, he said,
when Rasulullah
came to Medina,
it was shining throughout the whole city, the
whole streets and homes and conversations, people lives
and so on. The moment the
prophet passed, allamat became dark and everybody just
felt that kind of emptiness in their hearts.
For me, Ramadan felt the same way.
When Ramadan came, there was a moment of
excitement. Yes, there was an anguish about how
we're going to do this year.
But as the day starts going by until
we get to the last 10 nights, Allahu
Akbar, what a beautiful time. You don't want
it to stop.
But now that it's gone because it's reality,
how's your heart feeling about this?
You go back again to that sense of
loneliness. I don't have that same environment to
excite me to come back to the Masjid
and spend all these hours and nights. Don't
let the shaitan fool you and deceive you.
My dear brothers and sisters, I want you
to remember this.
When it comes to change,
it's not an event, it's a process.
Change is not an event.
It's not a one time thing. It's not
a 1 month experience.
It's a process. What does that mean? You
always change. You are always changing.
Don't fool yourself.
But whether you're changing by improving,
you become better or changing the other way
around.
Choose yourself. What kind of change do you
have?
But change is always there, it's a process.
And when Ramadan
started,
the change started as well too.
That change was forced upon us, by the
way. Like, Ramadan is there, you have no
choice. You have to abstain from eating and
drinking, and then you start choosing to do
something different. Come to the masjid, read Quran,
do this, do that. You make your own
choices. But Ramadan created the environment for you.
That process never ceased to exist. Even Ramadan
is gone, you can still continue with that,
Insha'Allah.
May
Allah guide our heart that which is most
pleasing to me and give us the ability
to strive to be better.
And we ask Allah to make us among
those who will have that peaceful and tranquilness
in the dunya and the akhirah.
My dear brothers and sisters, how can I
start? Where do I need to start? So,
Imam Ibn Qayim
he shared with us the 4 steps of
striving, self improving.
What do I need to do? Because the
first step is to learn education,
that you need to look and seek the
knowledge.
If you want to be guided, what do
you need to do? I need to know
how. So you're going to need to learn
how to find guidance after Ramadan is gone.
Ask yourself the question,
where are you gonna find that guidance? Are
you gonna find it online?
Are you gonna find it at home? Are
you gonna find it in the masjid, in
good company or old friends? You choose. Where
will you find God? That's number 1. Number
2,
Once you know what is right, you start
acting upon it. I know that I need
to come to the masjid, that's how I
felt better, so I need to come more
frequently.
I need to wake up, I need to
abstain from this, stay away from that. You
learn and you practice.
Number 3, the third thing he says,
Now that you know it and you act
upon it, you need to improve and change
the world around you.
That environment, your friends, your family,
invite them to do better as well too.
Since you're improving,
make sure to improve everybody with you. Don't
just, you know, go ahead and let the
people behind you. They might pull you down.
So you do your best. And if the
people don't want to improve with you, then
somehow you're going to have to make very
difficult and sharp decisions with your friends.
But eventually, you're going to have to improve
altogether.
And the 4th one he says is that
you're going to have to learn to be
what?
Patient in the process.
It doesn't come easy,
it doesn't come overnight,
it's a process, and you're going to have
to learn to be patient. How would you
do that if you don't have the right
company around you, if you don't have the
proper knowledge for it, and the constant, consistent
practice of what you learn?
These are the 4 steps, I want you
to learn them. To learn what
is good, to act upon it, to invite
the process of doing this insha'Allah.
the process of doing this insha'Allah.