Khatira at Masjid Salahadeen

6 months later, not long after her 44th

birthday,

she died, and she died in my arms.

And the decline and I had moved to

Virginia at the time, so I didn't have

a you know, we talked every day. My

mother called me every day on the phone,

regardless. She called me every single day. But

I had moved to Virginia to work at

a masjid called Darul Salaam with the imam

Safiqa at the time. And I remember getting

a call

from her doctor saying that if you have

anything you want to tell your mother, you

should do so because she is declining rapidly.

And it took me a day to get

from there to South Carolina,

and at that point, my mother did not

even she wasn't cognizant of anything. She was

on so many heavy medications,

you know, just

end of life,

care that she didn't even know what was

going on around her. I was trying to

get her to take shahada. I was trying

to get her to accept Islam because beforehand,

she had told me the same thing my

father tells me today, that I believe everything

you tell me. I believe that Islam is

true.

I just will not leave my way of

life. The the same thing my father tells

me. I believe your religion is true, but

I was born and raised a Christian. That's

how I plan to die. So make father

make dua for my father's, Hidaya, Insha'Allah. I

told him, it's Allah. If Allah wants you

to be a Muslim, you're gonna be a

Muslim. I keep asking him over and over

and over again. But my mother passed away,

and her last words

in a in in a moment of lucidity,

lucidity before she passed, she looked at me

and she said, I'm sorry. Those are the

very final words my mother said to me.

I don't think I've ever really recovered from

that. It takes a long time to recover

from that type of thing, but I'm learning

as I get older that time is not

on our side. Time is not on your

side. So the things that you want to

do, do them. Do them. Make a plan.

Get at them. Take action

because time flies by like that. My mother

passed away at 44. I just turned 44.

You know, you never know how much longer

we have left in this world. There's no

promise.

So do not ever take time for granted.

There's a very famous hadith al Qudsi,

from the prophet

where Allah says, I am time, therefore do

not abuse me. I am time, therefore do

not abuse me. So the wasting of time

is an abuse towards Allah

Cause he is time and he's the creator

of time, and we cannot escape it. We

cannot it's it's one of those things that

we as human beings cannot escape. We can

escape so many things, but time, it it

it's it stops for no man. There's only

one person we know in history

that time stopped for. Little q and a.

Who was it?

Yusha. Yusha ibn Noon is the one person

whom we know recorded. Maybe it happened other

times, but for sure we know without a

shadow of a doubt that Allah Subhanahu Wa

Ta'ala stopped time. He stopped the sun for

prophet Yusha when he was about to conquer

Philistine.

And he commanded the sun that you and

I are under the command of the same

Rab, so stay where you are. And Allah

kept the sun there at the time of

'Asr and it stayed until they won the

battle and then it sets.

But other than that, you and I don't

have that type of luxury. We can't look

at the sun and tell it to stop.

It just keeps on ticking away. Do not

waste

what life Allah

has given you. Work, effort, effort. And we'd

say that I I give you the statement

of Ahmed ibn Hanbal

I studied the life of all the m's

but Imam Ahmed has a special place in

my heart coming there. Most of my teachers

were Hanbali.

I I I was very versed in Hanbali

Fith. I'm very versed in Hanafi Fith as

well. My first shifu traveled around with him

was

from Pakistan. Mohammed Zakuddin Sharafi was as Hanafi

as Hanafi gets. But

if you study the life of Imam Ahmed,

his son asked him one day,

oh father, when will we rest? You know,

we've gone through so much. We've been put

through so much. You've been put through so

many trials. You've been imprisoned. You've been all

this. When will we rest?

He said when we put both of our

feet in

then we'll rest. Until then we work. Until

we not just 1, until both of our

feet are in and they've closed the gate

behind us and we know we're safe,

until then we work, we rest, we keep

going. When he was on his deathbed,

he said that, Shaitan was there. His son

heard him saying not yet. Oh, not yet.

But, and he kept asking his father why

do you keep saying no, not yet? He

said, Chaitan is here with us saying I've

lost you, Ahmed. I've lost you.

And I'm telling him, no. Not yet. No.

Not yet. Meaning that until my soul leaves

my body, this war between you and me

is not done. So we're going to struggle

on life. We're gonna go through difficulties. We

just keep going. To win? To the end.

To the end. Whenever that end might come.

Allah gives you a 100 years, alhamdulillah, you

fight till then. But then we get the

rest. That's it. That's that's the goal in

life. You you you fight and struggle for

50, 60, 70 years, and then you get

perpetuity

forever to rest in Jannah. We after that,

you can do whatever you want. But just

remember, time is not on your side. You

don't have the time that you think you

have. And every time you hear that that

voice in your head saying, oh, I have

time, know that is shaitan. Know that is

shaitan playing with you and that is a

sign for you. Whatever that is you were

about to put off, do it. Do it.

Not today I mean not tomorrow. Do it

today.

Because tomorrow,

who knows if it's going to come? And

it's gonna come for all of us one

day.

Keep us in duas. We have a lot

of

things that are gonna be exciting happening here,

starting in the next month or so, insha'Allah.

Once we get a few things settled, we

will be having regular

ongoing scheduling programs, youth activities, the whole 9

yards. So make sure you keep telling everyone.

That is the goal is is to fill

this place to the point where we have

no toys but to build phase 2 because

we got brothers praying in the streets. Insha'Allah.

So tell everybody to come because one thing

I will tell you,

I have been around so many masajid and

not just here in the United States of

America, but all over the globe. I've been

around masajids and one thing that I've always

made sure I've done is I've studied how

they function. Right? I've looked at how they

function. I've tried to sit down with their

leadership and and ask how is your structure

set? How do you run things? And

a lot of times, it's not very community

focused. Right? It's focused on the elitism

of a few group or a group of

this trying to hold on to power and

struggle. I call it a game of thobes.

You know what I mean?

It's literally like a, you know, a a

game of thobes. It's like a like a

mafia mentality to try to keep power and

prestige. No. No. The Masjids are belong to

the Muslims. They belong to this is the

house of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The moment

you make this place a walk for Allah

Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, it belongs to the Ummah.

And that is how I have seen the

the leadership of Masjid Saladin treat the Masjid

that it belongs to the community, the respect

that it should be given. And that is

a barakah that you don't find many places

at all whatsoever. So if we can bring

as many people here as we can and

let them see that, let them understand that

this is their community, that they get to

drive it. We are taking their suggestions.

I just walked in, earlier when the the

the was meeting with sisters to get suggestions,

to get feedback from the community. We want

you to be involved. We want help you

to help drive the future of Masjid Saladin

and where it goes. So it is catering

to your needs, not catering to our needs.

Like, we're here to service you. That is

it. We are servants. That's simply it. We're

servants of the house of Allah and servants

to the community. So So please bring as

many people as you can because I believe

this masjid, insha'Allah,

can be a future

should look like and how they should function.

should look like and how they should function.