Yasir Qadhi – Change Now or Never
AI: Summary ©
The importance of maximizing productivity and balancing personal and professional outcomes is emphasized in various settings, including the Day of the Law, the physical quality of life, and the importance of learning from the Prophet's teachings. The speakers emphasize the need to stay in check, avoid distractions, and prioritize productivity over personal and family. The importance of balancing work and personal life is also emphasized, as well as the need to put in effort to achieve success. The speakers stress the importance of constantly effortlessly achieving productivity and success, rather than just finding success.
AI: Summary ©
And of course, one of the ways we
want to begin is that this is a
new year for us.
Yes, it is a Gregorian calendar, but still
psychologically, we feel a sense of time.
We feel a sense of the swiftness of
time.
You know, I'll betray my age.
You all know roughly my age.
I have memories of 1985 so vividly as
a child.
1995 when I decided to pursue my Islamic
studies.
2005 I came, decided to come back to
the country of America.
2015 I had another major decision.
Now we have 2025.
SubhanAllah, how quickly time flies.
Those that are older than me, you have
memories, May of 1975 as well.
SubhanAllah, this is the reality of life.
How quickly time flies.
And yes, it is even a Gregorian calendar.
Doesn't matter.
But the reminder of time is eternal.
Doesn't matter what the day is.
We should always be constantly thinking of time
and how swiftly time flies.
And I recited in Salatul Isha, a verse
in the Quran, which we should also pause
and think about.
Where Allah says, أَوَلَمْ نُعَمِّرْكُمْ مَا يَتَذَكَّرُ فِيهِ
مَنْ تَذَكَّرُ Didn't we give you enough time?
عَمَّرَ We gave you a life to live.
تَعْمِير is to live a life.
أَوَلَمْ نُعَمِّرْكُمْ Didn't we give you enough time?
مَا يَتَذَكَّرُ فِيهِ مَنْ تَذَكَّرَ Whoever wanted to
benefit and take advantage of that time could
have done so.
And we know on the day of judgment,
when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will ask
the people who don't have anything to show,
How long did you stay?
كَمْ لَبِثْتُمْ How long did you stay?
And they will say that, لَبِثْنَا سَاعَةً We
stayed only an hour on earth.
We didn't have that much time.
In another verse in the Quran, when Allah
says that, قَالَ كَمْ لَبِثْتُمْ فِي الْعَدَدِ السِّنِينَ
Tell me how many years did you have
on this earth?
The people on the day of judgment, they
will swear to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
قَالُوا لَبِثْنَا يَوْمًا أَوْ بَعْضَ يَوْمٍ فَاسْأَلِ الْعَادِينَ
You only gave us one day, O Allah.
In their memories, in their time frame, that
they have lived their whole life in this
earth, and they have nothing to show, they
will say, O Allah, you gave us one
day, or even half of a day.
And they are so confident, they will say
to Allah, O Allah, go ask the angels
that kept their hisab.
Literally, they're majnoon, they've gone crazy on the
day of judgment.
They are so certain.
Why are they certain?
Because they don't have anything to show for
all of those years they've been here on
earth.
They don't have anything to show.
And they are so certain, how could we
have lived 5, 10, 20, 50, 70 years
and have nothing to show?
And so they go a little bit mad
and they will say on the day of
judgment, O Allah, we promise you, you only
gave us one day.
In fact, you gave us only a few
hours, go check with the record keepers.
Literally, it's in the Qur'an.
فَاسْأَلِ الْعَادِينَ And Allah will respond back to
them.
قَالَ إِن لَبِثْتُمْ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا It is very
true.
You lived only a short period of time,
you didn't think about this.
If you only had تَتَفَكُّرْ وَتَدَبُّرْ you would
have taken advantage of it.
And so the reality, O brothers and sisters,
and at the beginning of every time frame,
we should remind ourselves of this.
Time flies in the twinkling of an eye.
And we all know this and we all
experience this.
Go back to your memories when you were
a teenager, when you were in your 20s,
when you were in your 30s, go back
to last year, go back to COVID.
It seems so long ago and yet it
was yesterday, it was two, three years ago.
This is the reality of how swiftly time
flies.
And so today I wanted to give a
bit of a reminder about how to benefit
and maximize from our time in light of
the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ.
Because our Prophet ﷺ, he told us one
of the signs of the Day of Judgment,
hadith Sahih Bukhari.
One of the signs of the Day of
Judgment, وَأَن يَتَقَارَبَ الزَّمَانِ Time will become shorter.
Time will become تَقَارُب.
What does it mean تَقَارُبَ الزَّمَانِ?
One of the interpretations, Imam Nuh and others
mentioned this.
One of the interpretations is that time will
not be as beneficial for later people as
it was for earlier people.
Time will not be as beneficial.
Time will, we'll say in English, fly faster.
Time will go faster for later people than
it was for earlier people.
Or we can also say, there will be
less بَرَكَ in time.
There will be less بَرَكَ.
And the concept of بَرَكَ is something I've
spoken about, we should all be aware of.
بَرَكَ means the quantity is the same, but
the quality is more.
Because we all have the same day, the
one who's the most productive and the one
who's the least productive.
The day that they have on earth is
exactly the same.
Quantity wise is exactly the same.
The one who lives 50 years, 60 years
is exactly the same as everybody else who
lives 50 years or 60 years.
But then, subhanAllah, there are those people who
in those 50 years, they accomplish what we
cannot accomplish in hundreds of years.
Imam Al-Nawawi passed away in his 40s,
and yet his books have filled the world.
Imam Al-Bukhari died in his early 60s,
and yet you cannot give a khutbah or
a dars or a khatira except that the
stuff that he has done will be referenced
one lifetime.
And yet it impacted a globe.
Every great scholar of Islam, every single mover
and shaker, every single intellectual, every single person
who benefited mankind, they lived the same time
frame, 10 years, 5 years.
No major person lived 150 years, you know,
in our recent memory.
Nobody did this.
But times have different barakah.
Times have different utility.
So in today's brief khatira, I wanted to
go over how many, 10, 12 points from
the seerah, from the life of the Prophet
ﷺ, how to maximize, not the quantity of
time, but the barakah, the quality of time.
Our Prophet ﷺ is another example.
SubhanAllah, in 23 years, he was only 23
years preaching.
23 years.
In 23 years, he ﷺ shaped the world.
He changed the course of history like nobody
else has done in entire lifetimes.
In two decades, 20 years, what accomplishments he
made.
SubhanAllah, without a doubt, this demonstrates the barakah.
The most mubarak life, of course, is his
life.
So let us look at his life and
let us extract some of the benefits that
we can all apply.
First and foremost, in no particular order, I
was just thinking about various things from his
life cycle.
ﷺ, he always had a fairly regular routine
when he was not traveling.
It was not everyday different schedule.
No, he had a fairly regular routine.
And what happens when you have a regular
routine is your productivity increases.
He would wake up roughly the same time.
He would pray his tahajjud.
After fajr, he would do his adhkar.
Then he would turn around and speak to
the sahabah for half an hour, 45 minutes
until the sun went up.
And then there might be delegations that came
in.
And then he would have a qaylula, which
is an afternoon sleep before salatul dhuhr.
And then between dhuhr and asr, other issues
of this state and affair.
And then after asr, he always spent at
least an hour with the family.
He had so many of his wives, he
would visit every one of them, make sure
that they're taken care of.
And then after maghrib, come and sit between
maghrib and isha and the masjid, any other
affairs of the community.
And then after isha, private time with the
wife that he was going to sleep with.
And then begin routine again.
A fairly straightforward schedule.
And when you have a schedule, when you
have a routine, then your productivity increases.
If every day is a different schedule, if
every day is an erratic thing, you don't
know what you're going to do, your productivity
will go down.
Time management.
And that's why in our entire shari'ah,
the rituals are actually embedded with time management.
We have five daily salawat to always keep
us in check.
We have the monthly, we have the yearly
Ramadan to keep us in check.
The yearly zakah, our whole rituals are also
time management because Allah wants us to be
productive.
And by putting these reminders, as Allah says
in the Qur'an, إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ كَانَتْ عَلَى
الْمُؤْمِنِينَ كِتَابًا مَوْقُوتًا Salah is at mawqoot, waqt.
Salah has punctuality.
There's a reason for this because when your
entire schedule is set, automatically the productivity increases.
So point number one, as regular routine as
you can.
Point number two, from the sunnah we learn,
from the seerah we learn, the Prophet ﷺ
never slept too late in the daytime.
No, he woke up early and he stayed
awake early.
Yes, he would have an afternoon nap.
But like most of us, we wake up
at 9, 10, 11 o'clock in the
weekends.
No, every single day he would wake up
early and he would do the most necessary
stuff right after the adhkar of fajr.
Like the biggest issues that needed to be
done, as Sahih Bukhari mentions that, after salatul
fajr, when he finishes adhkar, he would sit
down and speak to the sahaba, get the
updates, what happens, what we call business hours,
office hours.
This would be right after salatul fajr, he
would do this.
And he said in the authentic hadith, بُورِكَ
لِأُمَّتِي فِي بُكُورِهَا Allah has blessed the time
for my ummah in the early mornings of
the hour.
And so he never overslept.
He would always begin early day.
In fact, way before us, he would begin
tahajjud way before us.
He would begin 3am, 4am is when he
would begin his routine.
Even if we cannot begin then, at least
at fajr time, we would begin the day.
And make the most important aspects, the earliest
aspects to do as he himself would do.
And he told us literally, Allah has blessed
my ummah in the early morning hours.
This is an authentic hadith.
بُورِكَ لِأُمَّتِي فِي بُكُورِهَا بُورِكَ بَرَكَ فِي بُكُورِهَا
in the early morning.
Allah's barakah comes in the early morning.
And so try your best to not sleep
after fajr and to do what needs to
be done.
Your biggest tasks, your most important tasks, do
them right after surat al-fajr as our
Prophet ﷺ would do.
Also of the things that we learn from
the seerah is that the Prophet ﷺ constantly
taught us what is called muhasabah.
i.e. you don't need a boss when
you are reminding yourself of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
You don't need another person to keep you
in check when your conscience is keeping Allah
Azawajal in mind.
So this is called muhasabah.
How is muhasabah done?
Muhasabah is done by a strong ta'alluq
and relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
By reminding ourselves that we have to answer
to Allah for what we've done.
By always having the...
For example, all of the ayat and hadith
about time.
For example, on the day of judgment, we
all know the five questions.
The Prophet ﷺ said, the feet of the
son of Adam will not move until Allah
asks him five questions.
Two of those questions deal with time.
Number one, what did you do with your
youth?
And number two, what did you accomplish in
your life?
Two of the five questions, that's like 30%.
Two of the five questions deal with time.
Your youth which is the most vital, which
is when you have the most energy.
What did you do with your youth?
And then your whole life, the time frame
that I give you, what have you accomplished
with your life?
When we know that two of the five
questions are gonna deal with time.
Look at the Qur'an, how many verses
about time.
وَالْفَجْرِ وَالْعَصْرِ وَالضُّحَى Allah is giving qasam by
the time.
I just recited in the Qur'an as
well, didn't we give you enough time?
So when you think of all of the
times, Allah and His Messenger remind us of
time.
Why?
Because this is muhasaba.
You have to be monitoring the time that
you have.
Another thing we learn from the seerah of
the Prophet ﷺ is that when you look
at his lifestyle, another amazing thing we learn
and that is that there's a healthy balance
of taking care of multiple aspects.
It's not just one chore and that's it.
You will never be productive if you immerse
yourself in only one thing.
No, look at the seerah.
The Prophet ﷺ took care of the affairs
of the state.
He took care of his own personal ibadah
and dhikr.
He took care of his society and people.
He took care of his family and everyone
is being given a time.
We are human beings, we cannot do one
task, one chore for 24 hours a day
and that is not Islamic and that is
not something that will be productive.
No, we must give every person the right
that is due to them.
We must give back to the community.
We must give to our families.
Too all too often, we people sacrifice one
right for another and that's not healthy.
They'll sacrifice family for career or career for
family, that's not healthy.
The Prophet ﷺ took care of every aspect
and if you look at his schedule ﷺ,
you literally have time frames dedicated for all
of these different things.
And when you do so, you find yourself
productive and sane, mentally balanced.
If you don't have these different slots to
spread out, then you might actually not be
mentally balanced.
If you don't have work and you only
have free time, if you don't have family
and you only have work, if you don't
have this community balance, you might possibly become
slightly not normal.
That's not healthy.
The shari'ah, the Qur'an, the seerah,
all of this teaches us to have a
healthy balance.
And so balance out every one of you
and I speak especially to those that are
starting their careers, that yes, career is important,
but spend some time with family as well.
Family is also important.
Don't sacrifice one for the other.
And of course each one of us has
to decide where that line is.
But the point is each one should be
given an emphasis like our Prophet ﷺ did.
Also by the way, when you give each
one emphasis, there is one aspect definitely from
the seerah we learn, private time, alone time.
This is something a lot of times we
don't do.
It's very important that every one of us
have time, we cut off from the dunya.
We just sit and do dhikr or spend
time in meditation and in ta'abud and
in zuhd of Allah ﷻ, the tahajjud, qira
'at al-Qur'an, that alone time.
You cut yourself off from society every single
day for at least three hours, the Prophet
ﷺ would have that alone time where he's
cut off from everybody in his salat al
-tahajjud, minimum three hours he would do.
I know that's a lot, even 20 minutes
for us, five minutes for us, half an
hour, we have to have that alone time
where we have nothing to do other than
our own thoughts, our own contemplation and our
own dhikr of Allah ﷻ.
Another thing we learn from the seerah of
the Prophet ﷺ, he surrounded himself with people
who were winners, who were motivational.
He surrounded himself with those who accomplished things.
If you surround yourself with people who think
alike and who are going to accomplish things,
it will rub off on you.
And if you surround yourself with people that
are losers, that have no ambition, what's gonna
happen?
Look at the sahaba, look at how much
they accomplished in each of their lifetimes, and
look at the diversity of their talents.
And so look at your friends, look at
those whom you spend time with and make
sure they are movers and shakers.
Make sure there are people who will benefit
you.
Like the Prophet ﷺ sahaba, every one of
them is himself a living legend.
And that demonstrates the synergy that when you're
surrounded by people who are accomplishing a lot,
you're also going to accomplish a lot.
Another thing we learn from the seerah of
the Prophet ﷺ is the dangers of procrastination.
Of course in his own life he never
procrastinated.
But from the seerah we learn, from the
Qur'an we learn, and from the seerah
we learn, what happens when you procrastinate.
Look at the story of Ka'b ibn
Malik, when he procrastinated going on the Ghazwat
al-Tabuk, right?
He woke up, he goes, ah, there's still
some time, I'll do it at dhuhr time.
Dhuhr comes, he goes, ah, I'll do a
qaylura, I'll catch them up after asr.
He goes, ah, it's late, tomorrow I'll do
it.
The next day he wakes up, three days
go by, and that's it, what happens, happens.
If you don't know the story, look it
up, the famous story of Ka'b in
the Ghazwat al-Tabuk, look it up inshaAllah
ta'ala.
But what was the problem there?
Procrastination, keep on delaying.
And there is a statement attributed to Ali
radiallahu anhu, and some say it is a
hadith, but most likely it's a statement of
the sahaba, in which one of the sahabi
said, التسويف من الشيطان Procrastination is from the
tactics of shaitan.
Procrastination is from shaitan.
And there is another statement of the sahaba,
ibn Mas'ud said, do not delay the
task of today until tomorrow, because you don't
know what will happen tomorrow.
Do not delay the task of today until
tomorrow.
And how often brothers and sisters, and I
know this myself, and you know it yourself,
you're like, oh, this is not something urgent,
I can, let me do it till tomorrow.
And then tomorrow, another thing happens, whether it's
a flat tire, whether it is a small
inconvenience, whether it is a chore, and you're
like, oh my God, I had yesterday time,
I could have done it, now today another
thing came up.
No, productivity means do not delay anything that
can be accomplished today for tomorrow.
And the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ demonstrates
this.
Another aspect we learn from the seerah is
positivity, even in the face of failure.
Don't let a failure cause you to have
a setback.
Don't let a negative cause you to think
negative.
Don't let the problems of the dunya impede
your personal progress.
No matter what happens, do something.
And so many incidents from the seerah, for
example, the most difficult time of the seerah
was the incident of Ta'if.
As he himself ﷺ said, he told our
mother Aisha, he said, no day was more
difficult for me than the day of Ta
'if.
And yet still, while he is bleeding, while
there's still blood on his hands and in
his feet, and Addas, the Christian slave from
Iraq, he comes his way, and he gives
da'wah to Addas, and Addas converts to
Islam, subhanAllah.
No matter how bad that day was, still
he accomplished an amazing accomplishment.
No matter how negative that day was, he
didn't allow the negativity to rub off on
him.
He saw something positive and he contributed.
And so we learn from this, no matter
what the setbacks happen, it should not impact
your attitude.
The attitude of doing something, the attitude of
moving, shaking, leaving a legacy, causing an impact.
Whatever happens, there's always opportunities to do something
of good somewhere.
So we learn from the seerah, never allow
a failure to cause you to become overwhelmed
with grief, with stopping your trajectory.
No, continue to do.
Another reality we learn from the seerah, beautiful
incidents from the seerah, is that the Prophet
ﷺ made sure that nothing distracted him.
Again, so many evidences for this.
In something even as trivial that one day
he was praying salah, and there was a
beautiful decoration on the rug.
And he started looking at that decoration.
And then he said to Aisha, you know,
this decoration, it caused me to not concentrate
in salah, so put it in another room.
I don't want it in this room here.
Literally something as trivial as the carpet being
too decorated for him.
He didn't like it, and it affected his
khushu' maybe by one percent.
How is it gonna affect his khushu' compared
to us?
Or maybe the smallest amount it affected.
And he said, you know what, I don't
want it, no distraction.
And he literally got rid of it.
And then also one night, our mother Aisha
felt sorry for him that he's sleeping on
such a little thin mattress.
So she gave up her side of the
mattress.
And she folded his multiple times, and she
slept on the sand.
That's a sacrifice of our mother.
So she gave her an extra mattress.
Because of that he overslept maybe half an
hour, 20 minutes, we don't know.
So it cut into his tahajjud.
So he said to Aisha radiallahu anha, did
you do something to the bed?
She said, yes, I gave you my mattress.
So he said, subhanAllah, don't do that again.
I woke up late for tahajjud.
SubhanAllah, he literally, because of that softness, he
little bit extra goes, don't do that again,
keep it back.
He literally got rid of anything that he
felt was a distraction.
Now for him, some soft bed, I mean,
we cannot compare ourselves to that.
But definitely I'm gonna say something, sorry guys,
but may Allah forgive us all.
Do I need to tell you what distractions
we have?
He's worried about some decoration and some soft
bed.
We have created the art of distractions.
We have created the methodology to kill 24
hours a day.
May Allah forgive us, right?
Social media and TikTok and Facebook and YouTube
and the internet and this and that.
May Allah forgive us.
What is this other than distraction, right?
What is this other than complete waste of
time?
How are you gonna accomplish something when all
you're doing is you're scrolling down Facebook and
TikTok?
How will you be a productive person when
hours go by?
Even the process of literally did not want
any design because a little bit of khushu'
maybe was just slightly impacted.
Demonstrates if you wanna be productive, cut off
that which will, you know, bring about that
distraction.
And by the way, there are techniques to
do this, right?
That's another topic altogether.
Put limits on your social media.
You can put it on your phone, you
know, 30 minutes.
Because I understand we need to update ourselves.
We need to have contact with our friends.
It's not, you know, it's a part of
life.
But you don't need to spend five hours.
You don't need to spend hours and hours
watching, you know, TV and whatnot.
If you want to live a productive life,
you're not gonna live a productive life if
the majority of your day is spent watching,
you know, rays of light reflecting on your
eyes, much of which is, you know, mubah
and much of which is not even mubah.
Wallah al-musta'an.
So if you wanna be productive, that's not
gonna happen.
We learn from the seerah, get rid of,
get rid of what?
Distraction.
So that's we learn from the seerah.
Another thing we learn from the seerah about
productivity.
Make du'a to Allah to be productive.
There are many authentic hadith of them.
One of the most, you know, famous hadith
of the Prophet ﷺ.
He would say this regularly.
It's a long hadith.
The phrase we're interested in.
وَأَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْعَجْزِ وَالْكَسَلِ I seek refuge
in you from incapacity and from laziness.
If you wanna be simple English, I seek
refuge in you from not being able to
do what I wanna do.
And I seek refuge in you from being
lazy and doing what I need to do.
He's seeking refuge in Allah from the inner
issues of laziness and of not having determination.
You don't wanna be lazy.
You don't wanna be indeterminate.
You wanna be accomplished.
You wanna have an agenda.
You have to have in your goal.
You don't wanna be aimless, wanderless.
Or even if you have a goal, you
don't wanna be lazy in not accomplishing that
goal.
So you have to have a vision and
you have to have energy to put into
that vision.
And that's what Allah says in the Quran,
فَإِذَا عَزَمْتَ فَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ Once you have
determined what you wanna do, then you put
your trust in Allah.
That determination, that desire, I wanna do something.
It's straight from the seerah, straight from the
Quran.
And in fact, every successful person, Muslim or
kafir, doesn't matter successful here, meaning of the
dunya.
Every mover and shaker has a vision, a
passion, a dream.
You're not going to accomplish something if you
don't have a vision.
So this is what a process I'm saying.
I seek refuge in you from being indeterminate,
wandering aimlessly.
And I seek refuge in you from being
lazy, even if I have a dream, but
I'm not gonna accomplish that dream.
No, you want both.
So from the seerah we learn, make sure
you have a vision and make sure you
have the energy to put into that vision.
Of the realities of the seerah as well
that we learn is that the seerah teaches
us that you constantly remind yourself of the
fact that this dunya is temporary.
And you remind yourself of the akhirah.
What will this do?
Our Prophet ﷺ said, أَكْثِرُوا مِن ذِكْرِ هَذِمِ
اللَّذَّاتِ Frequently think of that which will destroy
all of the pleasures you are in.
Frequently think of death.
And he told us, go and visit the
quboor because it reminds you of your final
abode.
And I've said this multiple times, we are
told to think of death, not to live
morbid lives, but to live productive lives.
We are told to think of death because
one of the most important factors that will
make us productive is to realize none of
us is going to be here after 100
years.
Think about that.
Not a single person sitting here will be
here after 100 years.
That is the reality.
Not a single person here will be here
after 100 years.
How do we...
When we know this reality, well then let's
do something.
We're going to have people that are going
to remember us.
Allah Azzawajal will write down what we have
done.
We will not be able to change what
we have done.
So productivity will come when you realize our
time in this dunya is finite.
So constantly think of the akhirah, spirituality, iman,
and death.
All of these factors will actually make you
more productive.
And then the final point again, much can
be said here, but the final point inshaAllah
ta'ala will do is perhaps inshaAllah ta
'ala the most important one.
And that is the productive person realizes that
ultimate productivity and ultimate success is not measured
by people in this dunya.
It's not measured by accomplishments that others can
see.
It is not measured by a legacy that
is visual.
It is measured by Allah Subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
And therefore, as long as you put in
the effort, even if you fail in the
eyes of men, the effort will make you
a success in the scales of Allah Subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Once you understand, there is no failure if
you put in the legitimate effort.
And since Allah will judge success, not men.
And since Allah will reward, and you don't
care about what men do.
Since Allah will give the actual hisab, now
you will feel liberated.
I don't care if other people think I
have failed.
If I have put in the effort and
Allah knows I've tried, then in the eyes
of Allah, I have attained success.
It is the single most motivational factor to
achieve success.
Because one of the biggest causes of failure
is when you keep on trying and trying
and trying, and you perceive nothing happens, you
throw up, you throw in the towel, you
give up.
I can't do it.
It's not working.
Nothing is happening.
You want to solve Palestine problem, thing after
thing after thing, nothing's working.
You want to bring about the, you know,
the izzah of the ummah.
Your decades go by, and then you think
nothing is happening.
But then if you start thinking, hold on
a sec, Allah Azza wa Jal will ask,
what did I do?
And as long as I tried, and as
long as I attempted, and as long as
I put in the effort, I have succeeded.
All of a sudden you feel liberated because
success is not judged by YouTube likes.
Success is not judged by what other people
think and do.
Success is not judged by lobbying power, anything
of this nature.
Ultimate success is judged by Allah Subh'anaHu
Wa Ta-A'la, and He will judge
you based upon what?
Allah says in the Quran, وَأَلَّيْسَ لِلْإِنسَانِ إِلَّا
مَا سَعَىٰ وَأَنَّ سَعْيَهُ سَوْفَ يُرَىٰ Man shall
only be given the effort he put in.
And his efforts is what will be seen
on the day of judgment.
Notice, وَأَنَّ سَعْيَهُ سَوْفَ يُرَىٰ His sa'i,
sa'i, you think it means safa and
marwa, no, sa'i actually means effort.
And safa and marwa is called sa'i
because it's an effort to walk that long.
Sa'i actually means putting in an effort.
And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
says, وَأَلَّيْسَ لِلْإِنسَانِ إِلَّا مَا سَعَىٰ Man shall
only get the effort.
Notice, Allah didn't say result.
Allah did not say result.
Allah said the effort.
And that's literally the entire message of the
Quran.
وَمَنْ أَرَادَ الْآخِرَةَ وَسَعَىٰ لَهَا سَعْيَهَا وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ
Whoever desires the akhirah and puts in the
effort for the akhirah while he believes.
فَأُوْلَيْكَ كَانَ سَعْيُهُمْ مَشْكُورًا Their efforts will be
rewarded.
Notice, not their success, not their failure, not
what other people think and do, the effort
you put in.
So realize, you want to be productive, all
you have to do is put in the
effort.
And whether people think you're productive or not,
how many were the scholars, they died in
jail, they didn't realize they will be productive
after they died.
Their books will be popular after they've left
this earth.
How many people, they didn't realize the impact
they had until the akhirah goes on.
How many of the shuhada of the early
Muslims in Mecca, they did not see the
conquest of Mecca.
Are they failures?
Hasha wa kalla, no.
They have achieved success.
Why?
Because they put in the effort.
So once you realize, ultimate productivity only requires
effort.
And if you put in the effort correctly,
sincerely for the sake of Allah, you have
achieved productivity and success.
The only failure, if you don't put in
the effort.
If you literally give up and you do
nothing, then you have failed.
There is no failure.
You can never fail if you try, if
you do something, if you strive to bring
about a change, a betterment in yourself, in
your family, in your friends, you will never
fail.
Allah will reward you and it is a
resounding success.
Once you understand, success is not in my
hands, in your hands, in the public's hands.
Success is in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And all I have to do is show
Allah, I tried.
All of a sudden, every day will be
a productive day.
Doesn't matter how bad the situation is.
Look at our brothers and sisters in Palestine.
That's what you call success, resolve, determination.
The world has abandoned them.
All of the Muslim nations have turned their
back on them.
They don't seem to have any hope.
And yet still, they are shining role models
and examples.
Why?
Because they realize they don't care about the
dunya.
They don't care about what other people do.
They have to put in the effort and
do.
And when they do so, Allah will write
success for them.
So brothers and sisters, these are some of
the aspects inshaAllah ta'ala that we want
to maintain in order to bring about productivity
and barakah in our lives.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless all
of us to live fruitful and productive and
useful lives.
And a final announcement.
Tomorrow, as you know, there's going to be
a winter storm coming.
And Friday will probably have snow on the
road.
So it is up to you.
You judge.
If you think it is dangerous to come
to the masjid, if you think that the
roads are not safe for you, you don't
have to have a life and death situation.
It's not to that level.
If you think it is dangerous, you're not
going to work, you're not going to the
stores, then do not come to the masjid
and you're forgiven.
And we will have Jumu'ah because I'm
going to live walking distance.
I'll come.
Whoever is able to come will come.
If it is dangerous, you make a judgment
call.
By dangerous, I mean, you think the car
will slip.
Simple as that.
The shari'ah actually allows even less than
this.
When it was raining a lot and it
was very muddy, the Prophet ﷺ said to
Bilal, give the adhan, pray in your houses.
Simply because it was slippery and muddy and
it was just a hassle to come, he
allowed them to pray in their houses.
This is much more than muddy.
It might be dangerous in the roads.
So make a judgment call.
If you feel there is a potential for
an accident or something like this, you may
stay at home and pray salatul zuhr.
And if you are able to come, inshallah,
we will have juma'ah over here.