Seven Points to Maximize Your Legacy

Yasir Qadhi

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Channel: Yasir Qadhi

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The importance of finding one's passion and learning to master one's expertise to create a legacy is emphasized in various ways. Leading in one's field is crucial to achieving success and creating a legacy. Proactive and involved activities are key to building a legacy, and dedication and being a good person are crucial to avoiding negative consequences. Leading in one's field is crucial to maximizing the impact of one's actions on others, and leaving a positive legacy is crucial to creating a legacy.

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and hamdulillah all praises due to Allah Subhana Allah who created the jinn and INTZ and gave them the cycle of death and life. He told the angels to trust his wisdom, when they questioned him regarding mankind's wars and strife, through His command of when to all of us come into existence, and it is his will that creates and makes all that is in the heavens and earth is his, To Him belongs, what is given and what he takes. None has the right to question his actions, nor challenge his wisdom, for all that occurs is in accordance with his decree and a perfect system. So Allah's father is always in effect, none can cause an intervention, and upon us is to humble ourselves in

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acceptance and submission. The heart is permitted to desire and to grieve, and we may rejoice and we may yearn, but in the end, we must say, to Allah, we belong and to Him, we shall return as to what follows. Do your brothers and sisters when those whom you know, get a phone call, or a text message, that you have died? What is the first memory that your friends and family will have of you?

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When the news of your death spreads amongst the people, when the news of your death spreads amongst the people? How many people will be impacted by your death? How many people will get a text message and a phone call? When that people hear of your demise? What will be the quantity of people who will genuinely grieve that you have left this world? When your name is mentioned as no longer having been here? And people say I was just with him yesterday last week? May Allah forgive him? May Allah have mercy when they say those phrases? Are they merely phrases uttered by the tongue? Or will they be actual Diaz that are emanating from the depths of the soul? What will be the quality of is still far

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that your own family and friends, your acquaintances and relatives will make for you when you have gone? Dear brothers and sisters? These are the questions we need to be thinking about from now. And even more scary than that when you leave this world. Will there be people who because of your own actions because of your own issues with them your own cheating or stealing or grieving or hurting them? Will there be people that might stop Rola actually be secretly rejoicing that Al Hamdulillah Good riddance, he is gone.

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These are the questions that we should think about now, when we have the time to impact these answers. Brothers and sisters, our father Ibrahim alayhis, Salam made dua to Allah gotta be heavily hookman well, how can you be solid in what your eye Lily Sun asleep, you can fill it in, Oh Allah, grant me wisdom, make me amongst the pious and grant me a reputation of honor amongst later generations. Let the later people respect and honor me. Let me leave a legacy that will be so bright that millions named billions of people will remember me and make us still far from me and ask Allah to bless me and his dua was granted because no human being is more respected quantity wise than our

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father, Ibrahim alayhis salam. So to want a positive legacy to want to leave a legacy that others remember, in and of itself. This is an Islamic goal, it is what every one of us should be striving for. Therefore, in today's hutzpah, I want to give seven pointers about how to maximize our legacy. So that when insha Allah either we leave this world and everyone will leave this world when those text messages are given with your name on it, when the phone calls come and so and so has passed away and that so and so is You we want to maximize the impact of that legacy. So that dua has come from the heart so that is still followed is given globally so that your impact in life is truly felt

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and appreciated in depth and so that your sadhaka and your hours and your good deeds

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last much longer than your finite time on this earth. So here are seven pointers from the Quran and Sunnah about how to maximize our legacy that we leave in this life. First and foremost, all that we do. The ultimate blessings will come based upon our sincerity to Allah, every deed that you do, the proportionality of Baraka will come based upon how much is lost you had in your heart, whatever you do must be done purely for the sake of pleasing Allah subhana wa taala, not to please mankind not to boost your own ego not to create fame for yourself, no, to please Allah and only Allah and history bears witness to the reality of this. Imam Malik wrote his famous book almost,

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and he was the first to compile a book of Hadith. And in his lifetime, it became a fad that so many scholars began writing more to ask different versions of the MATA their own versions. One of his students said, Oh, Hema Malik. Now what you wrote one book now there are so many dozens what's going to happen? Imam Malik said, Mirka and alila he Baca, what was done for the sake of Allah shall last. And Allah showed that reality. Nobody even knows the names of the other scholars who wrote the other water arts. Imam unknown, we wrote a famous book called herba ainoa. Ouija Do you know brothers and sisters, more than 50 famous scholars in the history of the OMA have written out of Bahrain, or

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Bahrain of science or the brain of so and so more than 50 books, but Why is the door only one of them is so well known that when we say Arbaeen, none of the other 50 names come to mind. It isn't shallow to either because of that level of sincerity, that level of loss that we do something and we do it only to please Allah subhanho wa taala. So point number one, purify internally before you begin externally, and Allah will bless you and give you a legacy. Point number two, discover your talent and your passion. Find out what you're good at, find out what is the main thing you can contribute? Because it doesn't have to be I'm giving you scholarly examples. But no, you don't have

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to only contribute an academic Islam know, people can contribute and leave a legacy and anything that is beneficial to mankind. As long as we have Iman, and believe in Allah. Anything that we benefit other people with shall be a legacy for us. It doesn't have to be academic Islam. This is a mistake. Whoever thinks the only legacy I can achieve is going to be by studying the deen. No doubt studying the deen is very good. But millions of people have left legacies not because of academic Islam, because they impacted lives because they help people because they taught somebody something useful even because they might have created something or done some patents that made lives

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beneficial. And we firmly believe that any believer in Allah subhana wa to either who benefits others with sincerity, whoever he benefits, he shall get some of that as well. So you have to discover your talents, your passion, what are you good at? What can you do that perhaps other people cannot do? And that is something only you can answer. So point number two to create a legacy. Find your niche, find what you're good at and begin to master that. Point number three, once you know what you're good at, aim high and have the most grandiose visions. Don't short sell your own self and ambitions No. Aim high as the saying goes aim for the stars. Because even if you fail, at least

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you'll get to the moon, you aim for the highest of the high have the most ambitious goals you can possibly think of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said when you ask Allah for Jana, ask him for for those cell isla. This hadith he didn't give to the elite of the Sahaba he didn't give to the point 1% Even though realistically less than point 1% are entering for those that are that realistically how many are going to enter for those such a small percentage. But when we make dua we aim for for those we ask Allah for for those why? Because even if we fail getting to those if that was our goal, if we get into second tier Alhamdulillah. But if we aimed to be the very last person

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to enter agenda, what then if we fail that where are we headed? So we aim the highest of the high and we have the most ambitious goals and we put our trust in Allah that inshallah who I'll be able to accomplish much I've given this anecdote many times when I was a student at the University of Medina were studying the books of Hadith. And my teacher, and the College of Edie, we came across the Hadith, which is an Buddhahood, in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that after every 100 years

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As Allah will send a people or groups of people who will revive the spirit of the deen ujet de Dieu, they're going to make hdwd of the Dean who's going to revive that the and bring back the energy and the vigor. Our teacher said to us, what is the question that you have when you read this hadith? We all said, share. The question is, who is the majority of our times? Who is that person? Our sheriff said, right there, you have failed? Automatically, you thought somebody else is going to be the Mujaddid? Why can't you aspire and say, Oh, Allah make me that Majid did, why did you automatically pass the buck, just give up and say, somebody else is going to do it aspire, try and then leave the

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rest to Allah subhanho wa taala. That's the point here, you aim to be the highest of the highest, to be the best in your field to be the most beneficial, obviously, for the sake of Allah. That's point number one, but you aim for the highest of the high, because even if you fail, well, then that failure is the success in the eyes of everybody else. So point number three, you aim the highest of the high and have the most grandiose visions. Point number four. Once you have this loss, once you have a plan, once you have a vision, well, then you can't just sit on your lazy behind and do nothing. You're gonna have to work, you're going to have to strive, you're going to have to be

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engaged, you're going to have to be active and you cannot give up and you cannot waste your time. You shall not establish a legacy by staying in your rooms and playing computer games all day. You shall not leave a legacy by watching Netflix dramas every single month that week that they come out. legacies are built by what you do by your actions. By getting involved by being in the trenches. You have to keep on trying and trying and trying and put in the effort before something is done. And again, every single successful person in human history attain that success because of the actions that they have done. Your legacy is linked proportionally to your own actions. The more you put in,

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the more the potential for the legacy you have to have strong him strong desire and then make sure your actions backup to that desire. Our Prophet system would seek refuge and Allah from Elijah Z Wilkerson from giving up and being lazy, he would seek refuge in Allah from giving up and from being lazy. The believer doesn't give up. The believer is not lazy. The believer is dedicated to the max, there are so many anecdotes and again, brothers and sisters, the anecdotes I give you are from academic Islam. That's because that's my field. But understand, if I were a businessman, I would give you anecdotes from that field. It's the same concept that you have to do these things. The

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anecdote that comes to my mind when it comes to putting in the effort. Imam Malik Ibn Anas, the greatest scholar of Medina. He had 500 students on average, sometimes more than 1500 students would come and they would write the mortar from him. And once there was a carnival that came to town, and the carnival had all of the processions and, and the jugglers and the, you know, the clouds and it had a elephant in it. The people of Medina had never seen an elephant, the commotion is coming. You can hear the tambourines, whatever. And so all of the students there young men, obviously all of them say, oh, there's an elephant. They all go on site to watch the procession. And my mother lowers

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his head and starts reading in his book. He looks up 500 have gone one young man remains in the whole gathering. He says who are you? says I am. Yeah, here Ibn yeah, here from under us. I've come all the way from Andalus. So he said, Don't you want to go see the elephant all your colleagues have gone? He said, I have come from Underoos to study with Imam Malik. And there's only one Imam Malik in the world. And there are plenty of elephants to go see. Imam Malik said you are Rajul Africa you're an intelligent man. And at this time yeah, he apnea was unknown. 50 years down the line. Every single book of MATA go look at the title, the version of lazy. This is the standard version of

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the motto, this young man who showed that dedication who sacrifice liberty, it's halal to go watch a procession to see the elephant. Nothing wrong with that little bit. Number two entertainment is everybody does that. But let's be honest here. The more you exert yourself in your field, the more serious you are about your own output. Well done. Don't be surprised your legacy will go to massive levels. Yeah, he was the main person who introduced the Maliki madhhab to all of Underoos and those became Maliki and to this day, North Africa is Maliki because of this one student because he had that him and he was the main student of Imam Malik and he showed that dedication, it is also

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mentioned about Ibn Abbas, the famous scholar, even Abbas, remember Ibn Abbas we considered him a scholar on the process and passed away. He was 13 years old, none of the Sahaba thought him to be a scholar, the seniors lab he is a youngster he is the next generation had been abuzz said when the Prophet SAW son passed away. I said to myself, let me go and study from the Companions

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before they leave as well, and so I said to my best friend who would play with me, I said to him, let us go and study while the companions are still alive. So my friend said to me, his 13 year old friend, my friend said to me, and who do you think you are? Who's gonna ever need your knowledge? You're just a kid like us who's gonna who's gonna be concerned about you? If an ibis said for Tarak, to who I left him, and I went to the Sahabas, houses began memorizing Hadith writing Hadith, until finally, many years later, I saw that friend of mine coming to my gatherings benefiting from me, and he would say, Woe to me how I wish I had studied with you back in the day Subhanallah though put you

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put in the effort, you're going to see the result you show your earnestness and dedication, and the reality is going to show you this, this this point here of action. One of my favorite Hadith, about action about doing about being active and not passive, famous Hadith. You've all heard this before. Our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, if the Day of Judgment, trumpet is blown, and you hear that trumpet, and you have in your hand, a plant that you can put in before you die, then planted before you die. This hadith is a metaphor, meaning it's not meant to be taken literally, because when the trumpet is blown, nobody's gonna care about the plant, right? It's not meant to be taken

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literally. But it's meant to drive a point and what that point is what, whenever you see an opportunity, take it, whenever you see an opportunity to do good, take it, even if you're at the death, even if judgment is coming. Imagine who's going to eat from that plant, there is no human being still do something positive, you don't know what's going to happen in the future. So that's why our profit system is telling us to be proactive. So point number four legacies are not established by laziness and inactivity. legacies are established by constantly trying and doing and being active and being involved and digging in the trenches and starting from the bottom up. And

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this leads me to point number five.

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No legacies are built with initial success. That doesn't happen. legacies come and leadership is formed after multiple attempts of what others would call failure. But it is not failure. If it leads to a legacy and success. It's not failure, if the end result is success. You will never achieve a legacy unless and until you have tasted defeat multiple times. And you have borne the brunt of being patient and being ridiculed and being mocked and being criticized and being abandoned by people whom you thought were close to you. Ibn Abbas, his friend said, I left him this is the reality of forming a legacy. You have to believe in what you're doing. You have to be sincere, you have to keep on

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doing it. And in the beginning, there shall be rejection. In the beginning there shall be failure. But in the end, that is what the tomato or the fruits of Sabah is economically and mentions that no one becomes a leader until they have gone through multiple failures and tasted the reality of sober you have to be patient at the bitterness of defeat, to taste the sweetness of victory. You shall never be victorious initially. Even our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he had to go through so many obstacles in Makkah, even the Battle of Osho and the Battle of taboo can others these were difficult times. But then the success comes and the conquest of Makkah takes place. You cannot have

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the conquest of Makkah without the persecution before that. If that's the case of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, how about me and you? How about me and you. And so we have to understand point number five legacies are not built overnight. They're not built in a date. They take days, months, years, decades of practice, decades of constantly trying and trying. And it is even possible, even possible that you yourself might not see the full fruits of your legacy. But after you leave this dunya the other people will recognize and appreciate that too, has happened multiple times in human history. So understand this point that legacies are not built in a day.

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Point number six brothers and sisters, you want to leave a legacy. then realize that the strongest legacies, the most powerful legacies, the people will always remember, not what you said. Not the speeches, not your your your your interactions, your daily routine, they will remember how you made them feel. If you touch somebody's heart, good or bad, by the way, it goes both ways. If you make somebody happy or angry, if you make somebody genuinely feel a sense of Subhanallah this brother helped me out or the opposite. How could this brother have done this to me? If you change somebody's emotions, you elevate their emotions or you harm their emotions. That is the best way or the worst

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If you harm to leave a legacy. Legacy is primarily come from how

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You've touched people's hearts. So you want to leave a legacy. Think about maximizing how you affect people positively. bring a smile to people's faces. Make sure that you are compassionate and kind, make sure that you're generous. These are how legacies are built. legacies don't have to be global. If your immediate family and friends remember you as a pious and righteous man, if your children constantly make dua for you, that is enough of a legacy, but you have to leave that legacy in the hearts of people, not by writing or by act no in the hearts and that legacy is done when your o'clock touches the hearts of other people. So think about how you can maximize bringing about joy

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and happiness and peace. How about you can help people go through struggles, how you can financially aid those who are in need of aid. That's how legacies are built. When you move somebody's emotions, once you leave this dunya the DUA will come from the emotion, the DUA will come from the depths of the heart, because you have affected them in a positive manner. So the primary legacies come from the cold and not any other mechanism. And last point, point number seven when it comes to legacies, point number seven, when it comes to legacies, as with all things, nothing happens without Allah's will. So you want to leave a legacy. You want to leave a positive legacy, make dua to Allah subhanho

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wa taala. Make dua to Allah to accept your deeds because that's what a legacy is. As a baboon, it's acceptance. When you have Cabul Robina tackable Mina, when Allah has accepted than the people accept your goal is not the people your goal is Allah but when Allah accepts the people accept as well and that is the Sunnah of Allah azza wa jal in his creation, and that's why in the Quran, we have the DUA to be role models and legacy makers Robina habla Ana mean as wodgina with react in a Kurata unit where Jana Tina Imam, oh Allah make us Imams what is an imam. It's a legacy maker, an imam here a role model. People look to you for legacy people look to you for the impact you've caused. It's in

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the Quran, we make dua to Allah, we want to be role models, we want to move and shake the people we want the people to look up to us not because of the fame, but because when the people look up to us, this is a sign that ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada has accepted our deeds. That's the point here we want to leave that legacy not for the sake of our egos, but to maximize our good deeds to maximize the sadaqa Giardia to maximize the two hours that the people make for us. And that's why brothers and sisters do are constantly do are to be righteous and pious do are to be guided do are to do the best deeds do either Allah accept those deeds and do that to people as well appreciate what you have done

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for the sake of Allah. All of this is a part of how we live our legacies. Allah subhanho wa Taala mentions the surah seen that when Aktobe Ummah cut demo, Farah home, went back to America demo a thorough home we shall write down all the good deeds they have sent forward. And we shall also write down the legacies they leave behind, went up to Omaka demo demo what they have sent forward. What have we sent forward the good deeds that we do in this world our sadhaka ours that got our Salah that's cut demo, what is what are

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what are thorough whom what they leave behind when they leave on to the next world? What is the legacy that is still around even though they themselves are not there? How many people did they impact? That is a thought how many children did they orphans? Did they sponsor that is a thought how many people did they bring happiness to that is our thought what sadaqa Giardia did they make that is moving on even when they have left? That is Arthur so Allah azza wa jal tells us your legacies, I am writing it down. Don't worry, brothers and sisters, we want to maximize the legacies of our lives because we have one life to live and there are people amongst us Subhanallah they have lived one

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life and yet their legacies span the entire globe. Look at the great giants of this Deen look at those who helped spread this Deen what they have done, even if we don't know their names, we are all a part of that legacy. The great scholars, your mama bajada and others like them. They're great giants who helped spread this DNA. How do they build? What do you then others their legacies, every one of us in this audience has directly benefited from their legacies. And Allah azza wa jal is giving them reward even though they live one life and even though we're not even conscious perhaps, of how we're benefiting from them. That's how we established legacies. You do the best you find your

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goal you find your niche and then you ask Allah azza wa jal for acceptance. To conclude this point, brothers and sisters, every one of us should think about this question of what shall be my legacy before others are talking about your legacy and you are no longer there? May Allah subhana wa Tada bless me and you within through the Quran, and may make us of those whose verses they understand and applies halal and haram throughout our lifespan. Ask Allah is acceptance you as well ask him for him.

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Number Four and the rationale

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for

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either

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be Ms. De hatin doll seni wanna show

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me what to feed

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at what

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feels cool we took my journey

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down