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P&L Account
Manage episode 455720676 series 1267730
Indhold leveret af Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center, Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid, and Islamic Center. Alt podcastindhold inklusive episoder, grafik og podcastbeskrivelser uploades og leveres direkte af Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center, Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid, and Islamic Center eller deres podcastplatformspartner. Hvis du mener, at nogen bruger dit ophavsretligt beskyttede værk uden din tilladelse, kan du følge processen beskrevet her https://da.player.fm/legal.
⚠️ AI-Generated Content: This transcription was automatically generated using AI. My brothers and sisters, in any business, when you do the accounting for your business, there is a basic fundamental document which many of you are probably using. If you are not using, you should use it. And we call that the P and L account, profit and loss account, P and L account. Ideally this is a document, it's a calculation which is done at the end of each day. So today's sale is so much. In this sale I made this much profit and this much loss. And of course it is done for your quarterly reviews, it is done for your annual tax calculation or whatever. P and L account. This P and L account is probably the most critical document or measurement which will tell you the health of a business. So if I was buying a business I would say show me your P and L account. And then I will have an idea of whether this business is how it's doing. Is it healthy, sick or not? The reason I'm saying this is because this is exactly how our life also works. Whether we calculate it or not, at the end of the day the angels which are sitting here, the Kiram and Kathibin, they calculate a P and L account, a profit and loss account. Profit from here, loss from here, their account. And when we meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when we go into our graves and when we are before Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala on the day of judgment, there will be our P and L account, profit and loss. So one thing I advise you and I advise myself, let us do our own accounting before the accounting is done for us because it will be done one day. As I said earlier, the Raja Rana said, make your hisaab before your hisaab is made. Do your own hisaab, do your own accounting before it is done for you. So sometimes when I teach the leadership course, I teach five-day residential program called Leadership Excellence Course. We begin with this. The first thing I tell people is, hmm, you give them a sheet of paper or draw a line down the middle, on the left, right, loss and profit and I tell them now write down according to you, in your memory think about it and say what will you put in the profit column, what will you put in the loss column, what will you put. So in the profit column will go everything which is for which we ask Allah for a reward. So all your ibadah, all acts of worship, all acts of charity, kindness, birra lalideen, being good to your parents, right, good to the neighbors, whatever. Everything which is good, which you expect Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for reward to reward you. So salaah, saham, zakat, hajj, umrah, tilatul huran, zikrullah, salaah al nabi, everything. And on the last side are all the sins. So what did we do? Did we lie, did we cheat, did we not pray when we should have prayed, did we not give zakat when we needed to give zakat, did you greeba, namima, you know, backbiting, slander and so on and so on, whatever we do. Well have mercy on us. And then you total up and see how it looks. Does it look good or does it look bad because even if you cancel one against the other, what is left? In that process also remember that both for the good and the bad, there are deeds which are individual for which you get a reward. For example we prayed salaat al risha, alhamdulillah we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for reward for salaat al risha, this is that. There are other deeds for which you get reward not only for that deed but in the future it will earn for you. But again in financial language we call earning assets. So there are dead assets and there are earning assets. If I buy a bar of gold for $300,000, this bar of gold is worth $300,000, it sits there and some price fluctuation and so on, it will retain its value but other than that it doesn't earn anything specifically. But I take the same $300,000 and I put it into a commercial building, then it's earning for me the building value going up and down that's one but also every month I'm ge...
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1651 episoder
Manage episode 455720676 series 1267730
Indhold leveret af Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center, Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid, and Islamic Center. Alt podcastindhold inklusive episoder, grafik og podcastbeskrivelser uploades og leveres direkte af Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center, Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid, and Islamic Center eller deres podcastplatformspartner. Hvis du mener, at nogen bruger dit ophavsretligt beskyttede værk uden din tilladelse, kan du følge processen beskrevet her https://da.player.fm/legal.
⚠️ AI-Generated Content: This transcription was automatically generated using AI. My brothers and sisters, in any business, when you do the accounting for your business, there is a basic fundamental document which many of you are probably using. If you are not using, you should use it. And we call that the P and L account, profit and loss account, P and L account. Ideally this is a document, it's a calculation which is done at the end of each day. So today's sale is so much. In this sale I made this much profit and this much loss. And of course it is done for your quarterly reviews, it is done for your annual tax calculation or whatever. P and L account. This P and L account is probably the most critical document or measurement which will tell you the health of a business. So if I was buying a business I would say show me your P and L account. And then I will have an idea of whether this business is how it's doing. Is it healthy, sick or not? The reason I'm saying this is because this is exactly how our life also works. Whether we calculate it or not, at the end of the day the angels which are sitting here, the Kiram and Kathibin, they calculate a P and L account, a profit and loss account. Profit from here, loss from here, their account. And when we meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when we go into our graves and when we are before Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala on the day of judgment, there will be our P and L account, profit and loss. So one thing I advise you and I advise myself, let us do our own accounting before the accounting is done for us because it will be done one day. As I said earlier, the Raja Rana said, make your hisaab before your hisaab is made. Do your own hisaab, do your own accounting before it is done for you. So sometimes when I teach the leadership course, I teach five-day residential program called Leadership Excellence Course. We begin with this. The first thing I tell people is, hmm, you give them a sheet of paper or draw a line down the middle, on the left, right, loss and profit and I tell them now write down according to you, in your memory think about it and say what will you put in the profit column, what will you put in the loss column, what will you put. So in the profit column will go everything which is for which we ask Allah for a reward. So all your ibadah, all acts of worship, all acts of charity, kindness, birra lalideen, being good to your parents, right, good to the neighbors, whatever. Everything which is good, which you expect Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for reward to reward you. So salaah, saham, zakat, hajj, umrah, tilatul huran, zikrullah, salaah al nabi, everything. And on the last side are all the sins. So what did we do? Did we lie, did we cheat, did we not pray when we should have prayed, did we not give zakat when we needed to give zakat, did you greeba, namima, you know, backbiting, slander and so on and so on, whatever we do. Well have mercy on us. And then you total up and see how it looks. Does it look good or does it look bad because even if you cancel one against the other, what is left? In that process also remember that both for the good and the bad, there are deeds which are individual for which you get a reward. For example we prayed salaat al risha, alhamdulillah we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for reward for salaat al risha, this is that. There are other deeds for which you get reward not only for that deed but in the future it will earn for you. But again in financial language we call earning assets. So there are dead assets and there are earning assets. If I buy a bar of gold for $300,000, this bar of gold is worth $300,000, it sits there and some price fluctuation and so on, it will retain its value but other than that it doesn't earn anything specifically. But I take the same $300,000 and I put it into a commercial building, then it's earning for me the building value going up and down that's one but also every month I'm ge...
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
https://youtu.be/1U_rHJqxpoA Auto-generated transcript: My brothers and sisters, I mentioned two ways of introducing Allah SWT and His glory and majesty to ourselves and remind ourselves and to introduce Allah to the people in my last video, one was by reciting Allah's introductions, places where Allah introduced Himself, Surah Al-Ikhlas, Ayatul Kursi, the last part of Surah Al-Hashr and many other places in the Quran, where Allah mentioned Himself and He spoke about His own glory and majesty. There is nothing that is more magnificent than the introduction of Allah by Allah. The second way is to reflect on the creation of Allah SWT. Again, there is no shortage of that. As I mentioned, do your research correctly and make sure you use factual stuff and inshallah, this is a beautiful way of introducing Allah SWT. The third way is to remind ourselves and to remind others of the importance of shukr, the importance of being grateful to Allah SWT. Again, if you just look at yourself in the mirror in the morning when you wake up and say, Allah made me like this, so beautiful, so wonderful, so unique, there is no other person in the world who is like this. I am alone and you are alone and each one of us is alone and each one of us is a miracle in himself and herself of the khudrat of Allah SWT. So remind yourself and remind others to be thankful and continue to make thanks to Allah SWT, continue to be grateful to Allah SWT. Part of being grateful is to make istighfar because one of the things that we thank Allah SWT, most of us, is for covering us with His cover, for covering our faults, for not exposing us, for not exposing our sins, especially those that we do quietly when we think nobody is watching. There is nothing more stupid than that for a Muslim to believe that he or she is somewhere, somehow alone and hidden and nobody is watching. How can it be that nobody is watching when Allah SWT who was Samuel Basir, he is the all seeer, the all hearer and he knows what's in the hearts. So how can there ever be a time when nobody is seeing and nobody is watching and nobody is hearing when we are truly hidden. There is no such thing but shaitan fools us and we believe shaitan instead of believing Allah and put ourselves in trouble. So therefore we thank Allah SWT for all that He gave us physically. For example, the ability to do things, the ability to construct things, the ability to have a strength and power, you know, just think lists. That's why it's very important to sit down with a piece of paper and a writing pad and a pen and list down one after one after the other and say all the things that Allah gave me and which I am grateful to Him for. Go on Bhawa, make sure you don't miss anything. If you want to count the blessings of Allah, you will not be able to count the challenge of Allah SWT. So let us try at least. We are not trying to say disprove the challenge, that cannot be done possibly, but for us to make the effort and say Allah at least I tried, so please forgive me. So when we thank Allah SWT, as I said especially for the cover that Allah SWT put over us and over our actions and over our speech and what we did and didn't do. And Allah SWT saved us from the evil of our speech. For example, one of the most important teachings of Rasool Allah SWT, which Allah SWT even mentioned in the Quran, when he mentioned the story of Musa, Allah SWT said, Allah told Musa, He said speak to Firaun in a soft way, in a gentle way. SubhanAllah I remember the times that I did not do this myself. Sure my intention, inshallah, was good. I was frustrated for the right reasons and I was trying to do my best, but did I speak gently? I did not speak gently. And it had its evil effects and I shudder to think that if anyone was turned away from Islam because of the way I presented it, because of the way I addressed that issue, then I begged that person to forgive me. I begged that person to ask Allah SWT to forgive me and I asked Allah SWT to ...…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
https://youtu.be/Sd-8jKCk80w Auto-generated transcript: My dear brothers and sisters, I'm standing on a little hillock in Mactayo Park which looks down on the Connecticut River which you see there in the middle distance and part from snow melt, part from rain, the river is full back to back. It is very cold. It is right now it says feels like minus 11. I think the actual temperature is about maybe five or six degrees which feels much colder. Alhamdulillah today I want to talk about and remind myself and you. The question that people ask me, Allah bless them, they say how can we and how should we introduce Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to people? How can we kindle or we can't kindle or obviously even torment when we present Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as the glory and majesty in a way which kindles in the hearts of people the love for Allah, the love for His Rasul, alayhi salatu wasalam and the desire to follow this beautiful religion that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed us with, al-Islam. I can do no better than to take lessons and share my lessons in this line from the Quran. So the first three ways of introducing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The first and foremost is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's introduction in the Quran al-Kareem. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala introduced Himself. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us who He is and for example Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said qul hu Allahu ahad, Allahu samad, lam yaleed wa lam yulad, wa lam ya qullahu kufwan ahad. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said say to them, Ya Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He is one and one not as in a number which is which can be multiplied or divided but one as in unique. Hu Allahu al-Ahad, al-Ahadu samad, lam yaleed wa lam yulad and He is complete and He has no needs and He has no offspring and He was not born and He wasn't He didn't begot He didn't have any son or something and this is a shout out towards Isa alayhi salam and the belief that they have the false belief that He is son of God. Allah is making this very clear. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying no it's not this and wa lam ya qullahu kufwan ahad and they're saying He is free from all needs and desires and everyone needs Him and He doesn't need anybody. This is Allah unique. Allah is Allah. Lay saka mislihi shay'un, wa hu wa sami'ul basir. There's nothing that can be compared to Him and He is the all seeing and the all knowing. So and there are many other ayat in the Quran. There are take from for example ayat al-kursi, take the last parts of surah al-hashr, take the beginning of surah al-mulk and many other surahs all of them introduce us to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. All of these are introductions of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala which Allah gave. So that is one very very very powerful way of introducing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Simply quote what Allah said because no one can introduce Allah better than He introduced Himself. So just quote what He said. Who is Allah? This is who Allah said He is. Now for that it's very important to be able to recite the Quran correctly. That is very important. Don't take the time and trouble to learn how to decide the Quran al-karim correctly. I'm not talking about so much about the the lahm, the tune, the qiraat. I'm talking about tajweed. I'm talking about reciting it correctly so that the meaning doesn't change and so that people when they hear and they listen to the Quran they are clear in their minds and they can feel the glory and majesty of the kalam of Allah. That is very important right. So don't recite the Quran in a way that people do not feel its glory and majesty. So very important to be able to recite the Quran al-karim correctly and recite. So say introduce Allah by simply reciting the Quran. This is what Rasulullah did all the time. When people asked him about Allah SWT, he recited Quran and people came to Islam because they heard the Quran and these were linguists, these were people who were the people of the la...…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Auto-generated transcript:Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic34 Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic This is very, very important to keep in mind because what happens especially today, only bad news sells. So almost everything you hear, whether it's on television, whether it's on social media, whether it's on newspaper, is all negative. It's all negative. So many people died, this happened, that happened, demolished, war, this not. So our whole mind, the mind and the body gets affected, heart and mind gets affected by what we see. That's the reason why it is so important to make sure that you see the right things. And I have a principle that I try to follow, which is that I don't look at anything that I cannot control. So for example, I don't watch any of the Palestine videos and stuff because what is good about watching a child being killed, tell me? What is good about seeing a building being demolished and mothers crying their guts out because their children are blind in front of their eyes? What's the good of that? I can't control it, I can't stop it. I would gladly do anything to stop it, but it's not my control. So by looking at it again and again and again and again, all that it does is it drags me down. What I can do is to make dua to Allah SWT, which I do constantly, Alhamdulillah. What I can do is, you know, if there is any relief things going on or whatnot, I can donate to that, which I try to do to the best of my ability. But other than that, I don't watch all this stuff. And that's why I tell people don't even have a TV in the house. We don't have. We haven't had a TV in our house for the last 35 years. We are probably the only house in America which has no TV. No TV? We never had. The past 35 years. Alhamdulillah. You don't miss anything because there's nothing great about consuming content which is created by somebody else for their reasons. And you are, all you can do is consume. In front of the TV, you have no control. You're just consuming that content and it's damaging your life, it's damaging your heart, damaging your mind and nothing you can do about it. So throw out the televisions. They'd make a record or a video smashing the television and then post it on YouTube. You probably get some money for it. Only bad news. The reason I'm saying this is because what then happens is, a friend of mine tells me, I'm working for this company but I won't know what will happen in the future. I said, of course, nobody knows. He said, no, no, no, but you see, one man in this company was sacked just overnight even though he had been working there for 25 years, just like that. So I don't know what will happen to me. So I asked him, I said, how many employees does the company have? He says, 5,000. I said, how many got sacked? One. Now you want to look at that one person who got sacked or you want to look at the 4,999 people who did not get sacked and where do you link yourself? What can happen to me? What is the likelihood? Law of averages says that what happens to the most is more likely to happen, right? So what's likely to happen to you? Nothing. You will be happy. Like, 409. One man got sacked. We don't even know why he got sacked. God knows what happened there, right? Allah knows best. But the tendency, the mental tendency, it drags you to the negative. So I remind myself when you don't get into this spin, Allah said, I am for you what you expect me to be. Expect the best from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. My chef used to say, in this country you don't see that because there are not enough poor people I suppose. At least not where we live. But in my country we have on Eid days and so on, so on we have tam am. So you cook a lot of food, usually it's biryani, so you cook biryani and then there is Sufarah Dastakhan and anybody can come and sit and eat. Anybody, from the street, anywhere. People know that this is happening here,…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Auto-generated transcript:As-salātu wa s-salāmu ala ash-sharafī al-anbiyā'ī wa al-mursaleen, Muḥammadun Rasūlu Llāhī sallallahu alayhi wa alā alihi wa sābihi wa sallam, tasleemun kathirun kathirun. From Mabādhu, my brothers and sisters, if there is one... if you ask me to give you one single line or one single thought or one single word, which is the secret of success in life, one word, that word is judgment. Judgment. The ability to choose, the ability to judge between multiple options. This is the secret of success. One single word, judgment. Somebody with the right judgment will succeed, somebody with the wrong judgment will fail. The options are the same. Right? Take for example, careers. Should I work for this company or that company? Your judgment decides the future of your career. Marriage. Should I marry this woman or that woman? If you are a lady, this man or that man? That will decide the rest of your life. House. I want to buy a house. Which house? I have the money. Judgment. Car. You take it. Anything. It is your judgment and the correctness of that judgment which will decide whether you will succeed or fail. Now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made it easy because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not leave us to guess. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us. The muhajid, when he calls the adhan, what does he say? And then? Come to salah, come to success. So Allah has told us where is success? In salah. Right? That is the reason why, see the beauty of the Quran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala addressed the believers. The believers. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, do you believe? So first and foremost we have to decide, are we the believers? Because you know and I know that in the Quran al-Karim, anything which starts with that is an order of Allah, command of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So am I a believer? First question. If I'm not a believer then do what you want. But if I'm a believer what must I do? Allah said, when you hear the calling to the salah, when the time for salah comes, what must you do? Stroll along quietly, nicely, like in the moonlight. Others say no, run. Make effort. What? Rush there. And then what? Leave all your selling. Now imagine, see the beauty of the Quran. There is bayah and there is shara. There is selling and there is buying. Allah did not say don't buy. Allah said don't sell because if you don't sell you cannot buy. How will you buy if the shop is closed? So Allah did not leave it to the buyer. He didn't say no, even if the shop is open don't sell. Finish, khalas, bant, tukkan, khalam. So that applies not only to selling, applies to everything. All your work, stop it. Rush towards the salah. And then Allah is saying, in that there is benefit for you, that is the best for you, in kumtum ta'ala if you could understand. Why is Allah saying that? Because after all when we are doing business, we are going to school, we are going to college, we are going to university, we are working in jobs, why? Because there is benefit. There is benefit and nobody does this, right? We don't say don't go to school, leave your school, leave your college, don't go to work, sit at home. No, of course not. You should go to school, go to college, get a good career, study, you know, do your business well and so on and so forth. There is benefit for you. What Allah is saying, there is greater benefit in leaving that and going to salah. Not because it will harm you, but because it will benefit you. If you shut the shop, it will benefit you. If you leave the work, it will benefit you. So obviously if you don't leave the work, does it benefit you? That's why I said judgment, right? Where do we see benefit for ourselves? Here is Allah's command. As I said, Allah didn't leave us to guess. Allah is telling us, benefit is here, come. Allah will give you. Then you might say, but what about my one hour of work I will miss? One hour of business I will miss? One hour of school I will miss? Yes, of course. If I am going somewhere,…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, I remind myself and you that mankind, all human beings, irrespective of where they are, where they come from, which country they live in, what nationality, what race, what religion, all human beings live a life of anxiety. It's only the level of anxiety which differs, it's only the things that they are anxious about which differs, but they all live a life of anxiety. And who are the saints? Allah Almighty said, Those who believe and are righteous. And what do they have? They have good tidings in this world and in the Hereafter. Allah Almighty said, Do not change. Why? I remind myself and you that the only people who are free from anxiety are the Awliya of Allah. Those special people who Allah Almighty chooses and who Allah Almighty has close to Him. And Allah Almighty said about them, They have no fear and they have no anxiety, they have no sadness. No fear on them, no anxiety. They have no fear. Fear is with respect to the future, what will happen? And sadness and regret is with respect to the past. They do not have fear because they have Tawakkul on Allah SWT. And they have Rida'a Bil Khada. So Alhamdulillah, whatever Allah does, good for me. And I have Tawakkul on Allah. He will only do good. I am an Abduh of Allah. I will do my best to obey Allah SWT, to fulfill the purpose of my creation, which is Ibadah of Allah. He said, I have not created a human for anything other than my worship, so I worship Allah SWT. That is my job. So no fear about the future. And as far as sadness and regret is concerned, yes we make mistakes, yes we commit sins, yes we forget. And for this Allah SWT has said, Tawakkul. Make a step forward. Make a step forward. Look, look how Allah SWT says, He says, Say, O My servants, those who are prophets, witnesses and witnesses of Allah, Say, O My servants, those who have transgressed against their own selves, do not be deceived by Allah's mercy. Allah forgives all sins. He is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful. See the mercy of Allah. Allah SWT said, He is calling the people who commit sins His slaves. Allah is not saying, Say, O My slaves, who are the Ambiya, the Shuhada, the Salih. No, Allah says, Say to them My slaves, who? Those who disobeyed Me. Those who committed sins, those who transgressed against themselves because nobody can harm Allah. When we commit a sin, we are harming ourselves. Ask yourself, somebody who is a drunkard, who is he harming? Somebody who smokes cigarette after cigarette, who is he harming? Somebody who is gambling, who is he harming? Somebody who is a druggy, who is he harming? Somebody who lies and cheats and slanders and abuses people, who is he harming? Himself, even in this dunya. Even though some of his actions or all actions may harm other people, they first harm the individual. This is the figment of the imagination the shaitan has put into our, may Allah protect us from shaitan. And we think all of this is fun. Dying of cancer is fun. Go look in the hospitals. See how fun it is to die of lung cancer. To lie in a gutter, in your own vomit is fun. But shaitan does not let you see that. Allah is saying, these are my slaves. And the shaitan says, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Surely Allah will forgive all sins. And surely Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala huwa al ghafurur rahim. He is the most forgiving, the most merciful. So the awliya of Allah have no fear because they have tawakkul. And they have ridha bil khada. And they have no hudan, they have no sadness. They have no fear. They have no fear. They have ridha bil khada. And they have no hudan, they have no sadness. Because they make haste in seeking forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Rasulullah s.a.w, the one who is free from sin, the one who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgave the past and the future. The best of the best of all creation. He says, I make istighfar 70 times a day.…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family, peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, the... We normally utilize or we apply two kinds of criteria to deciding whether any of our spending is better or worse, which is a better place to spend. Right? Two questions. I'm not talking about any financial plan. Generally speaking, if you want to spend money, then one criterion is we say, we compare between something which has... which can give you pleasure, so short-term pleasure versus something which has a long-term benefit. Right? So which do you... which is the better one to spend? Short-term pleasure, yeah, of course. You have a party, you do something, you go to... you have a holiday, you spend money on that, you, you know, you buy something temporarily. But the same money, if you spend to buy in an investment, right? To buy gold, to buy long-term investment, to invest in a house and so on, then between the two, anybody will say the second option is the better option because you put your money where it is going to give you long-term benefit. If somebody takes... takes even time for the... for that matter. For example, our children, they go to school, college. They will want to go and play, go for a game or something with their friends and so forth, right? It's a good one, they learn. Nothing wrong with that. But if they are doing it and the cost of their studies, so if they have to go study, there's an exam, they leave the exam, they go play cricket or they play soccer or something, what will you say? The sort of question is, is it halal or halal? The question is what are you doing with the time? This time you should have been spending, studying for the exam, which has a long-term benefit on your life. Instead of that, you are playing a game, the game you can play anytime. You don't have to play the game just then. And even if you don't play the game, so what? Whereas if you fail the exam, then it is likely to have a long-term negative effect on your life. So this is how we compare. Where am I going to spend more time? I should spend more on that compared to where I'm going to spend less time, right? That's the basic principle. Sayyidna Usman bin Affan ad-Dhaya Lhanu died in the year 656. Today we are in 2025. So 2025 minus 656 is 1369. Right? 1369, do the math. 2025 minus 656 is 1369. Sayyidna Usman bin Affan ad-Dhaya Lhanu has been in the Barzakh and he continues to be in Barzakh for 1369 years. So how many years in the Barzakh am I planning to spend? How many years are you planning to spend? You're going there, believe me. We will go there. The day we see Malakur Mawd, the door opens. And we will remain there until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala calls us, until the surah is blown out. Until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala calls us, until the surah is blown, Israfil A.S., Rasulullah S.A.W. said Israfil has the trumpet to his lips and his eyes are fixed on Allah. He is in that position. Allah knows time has no meaning in that context. Thousands of years, millions of years, Allah knows best. So that instantly He will blow the surah and then we will come out of our graves. That period is Barzakh. So how many years have you got? The reason I'm asking is because we spend money. We work hard. We make dua for this life. This life is all on. 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, the Friendly Brothers, Friendly Ice Cream because you are, give you local examples. Friendly's Ice Cream was started, the company had started in 1935 by the two Blake Brothers. One of them died at the age of 102. And the other one, Priestley Blake, who built a house just after Long Meadow in Summers. When you're driving from here, you cross into Summers. On the left you see a house called Monticello.…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah, my dear brothers and sisters, we heard the story of Ahnab bin Khayz, Rahmatullah Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, and his humility and his figure. The main thing is this, his figure, his concern, the deep concern that he had for himself and his connection and his position with Allah. We live in a life with concerns. There is nobody on the face of the planet who lives or who lived or who will come in the future to live until the Day of Judgment. Whether it is the Ambiya' alayhi was-salam himself, whether it is the Rasul Muhammad sallallahu alaihi was-salam himself, or whether it is the worst of the people, everyone had concerns. There is no intelligent human being who can say that I have no concern. If you have no concern, you have no brain. As simple as that. You have no clue. You don't know where you are. You are in some kind of, you know, God knows what. Everybody has concerns. The question is what are those concerns? What am I worried about? What am I concerned about? The game that shaitan plays and has played and is so successful is that he has flipped the things that we should be concerned about and replaced them with things that Allah has guaranteed. Allah said, don't worry. Allah said, do not worry. Not your problem. I will take care of this. And shaitan said, no, no, no, hold on a second. Forget about that. This is what you should be concerned about. And things where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, look out for that. Allah said, oh, you believe save yourselves and your ahlikum, your entire families from the fire. Allah did not say save yourself from hunger. Allah did not say save yourself from poverty. Allah did not say save yourself from poverty. Allah did not say save yourself from hunger. Allah did not say save yourself from poverty. Allah did not say save yourself from sickness. Allah said save yourself from the fire. So you say, okay, so I will do that. But what about hunger? What about poverty? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said this. He clearly mentioned this. Allah said, we feed you. Allah is the razaq. Allah is the razaq. And he feeds you with his power. I ask myself and you, what are we more concerned about? Our status in this dunya or our status with Allah? Our position in this dunya or our position with Allah? Our position with Allah? I'm not saying forget this. It's a question of which has priority. Which comes first? If somebody suddenly asks us a question, I'm not talking about in the majlis like this where you have been primed to give the right answer. I'm talking about just out of the blue. You are at your workplace or somewhere you're playing a game. Somebody stops you and says, name your three top concerns. Name your three top objectives. How many of us will say genuinely with that feeling and only we know the truth and only Allah knows the truth? How many of us will say that Allah must forgive me when I meet Him? Jannah is the result of that. We don't talk about Jannah. That Allah must forgive me when I meet Him. How many of us will say that? I'm not saying we don't believe. I'm saying top of the line, top of the line concern. We talk about careers. We talk about money. We talk about political ups and downs in society. We talk, do we have the forgiveness of Allah, the Rida of Allah as a top concern? I'm only saying top three. This should be the number one concern and frankly the only concern. Allah promised us food. Allah promised us our lifespan. Nobody can change that. Allah did not promise us Jannah. I remind myself in you. Allah did not promise Jannah to me. Allah did not promise Jannah to you. Even the ones who Allah promised Jannah to, the first of the human beings after the Ambiya' alayhimu s-salam, even he said, he said, I wish I was a blade of grass. I would dry up and blow away in the wind. So the question I want to ask myself and you is when we search and I'm not saying if we search, we need to search. If I search for myself in the Quran,…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. My dear brothers, sisters, respected elders, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala jalla jalaluhu sent his kalam, his word, his speech with one purpose only, purpose. Al naqsadul nuzoorul kalamullah, huwa wahid faqad. That we should reflect on it, tadabbur fiha, and change our lives and live according to it. The reading of the Quran, the writing of the Quran, the tafsir of the Quran, everything to do with the Quran, to learn to read it well and properly according to the usul of tajweed, to read, to learn the different qara'at, beautiful calligraphy, writing of the Quran, printing of the Quran. You name it, all of those things are important, but they are not the maqsad of the revelation of the qalaq. There is only one maqsad, there is only one reason, there is only one thing that the Quran came for, and that is to be lived by. When we think about these two things, we don't look at them as two opposite. We don't say it is not important to learn to read, but it is important to live. That's a stupid statement. To be able to live by the Quran, you must also know how to read it properly, you must understand it, and so on and so on. But none of that is the purpose of the revelation. The reason I'm saying that is because this is what has happened to us, the Muslims, after the time of the blessed generations, the generation of the Sahaba, the Tabain and the Tabatabain, people became experts and they focused on one aspect of the Quran, and illa mashallah, they left the issue of living by it. They put that aside. Obviously, this is a generalization, it doesn't apply to everybody, but we have people who are ufaz, we have people who are qurra, we have people who make tafsir, we have people who do all kinds of things with the Quran, but if you look at their lives, and may Allah make you and me separate from that, you do not find a reflection of the Quran in the life of the person. One of the great Tabain, Anaf Bil Qais, Tahaatul Ali, he read the ayah, لَقَتَنْزَلْنَا إِلَيْكُمْ كِتَابًا فِيهِ ذِكْرُكُمْ أَفَلَى تَعْفِلُونَ In Surah Al-Anbiya, Allah swt said, indeed, we have sent down for you, mankind, a book in which you are mentioned. There is your zikr, there is your reminder. Will you not understand? I'm talking about people who understood the purpose of the Quran. So Anaf Bin Qais, the son of Anur Ahmad, read this thing, he said, Allah said, I'm mentioned in the Quran, so where am I? Where is my name? Where have I been mentioned? Allah said, فِيهِ ذِكْرُكُمْ, you are mentioned in there. Where am I? Now we know of course that Allah swt did not mention anyone by name, except the Anbiya and among the Ba'ad al-Anbiya, Zayd bin Harithah is the only one who is mentioned by name. So we know that your name, my name is not in the Quran. But we know that Allah swt mentioned people and their qualities. And Allah swt mentioned what would happen to people with those qualities. So Allah swt mentioned people with certain qualities, and then he said people with these qualities, this will be their ending, this is where they will end up. And therefore we need to look for ourselves in these quality definitions and say, where do I fit in? If I fit in with the people whose qualities are good and whose ending is good, then Alhamdulillah. But if I fit in with people whose qualities are not good and whose ending is not good, then it is time to change. So when Anaf Bin Qais, Rahmatullah Ali searched in the Quran, he found that with some people Allah swt said, He said they are the people, Allah said these are people who sleep but little at night. And the rest of the time they are praying, they are making sujood, they are making salah, rukuh, between a state of fear of Allah swt, punishment and hope in Allah swt's forgiveness. And in the hours before dawn, they are found asking and seeking Allah swt's forgiveness. And in their property, Allah said there was the haq,…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, I remind myself anew that if you want to measure success and failure in life, how do you measure it? Any ordinary person. I want to measure, say take my career, if I have a successful career or my career going down the drain, how do I measure that? Marriage, is it successful or not successful? Children, I'm raising children, successful or not successful? How? Compared with? Others? That's one way. Pure reviews, pure comparisons. Effectively, whether you do it comparatively, you do it with pure reviews, you do it some other way, you are basically measuring your assets and liabilities, right? What did I gain? What did I lose? So what did I spend to get what? What is profit? Profit is where you spend less to get more. You cannot measure profit only by looking at what you have. You have to see at what cost did I get it. So if I got something which has high value at a lower cost, then I made a profit. But if I got the same thing at its regular cost, then it's not a profit. I got the market value. If I paid more for it, then I have actually the same thing, but I made a loss. I remind myself when you... that when we stand before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it is the same standard, the same criterion, the same measurement, measuring stick we should use. What did you spend and what do you get? What did you spend, what do you get? In this world, in our life, we have the opportunity to do two things. One is we have the opportunity to spend things which have everlasting value. Or we have the opportunity to spend something which has temporary value. So if you spend something which has temporary value and get something which has everlasting value, then you are on to a good thing. That is the best way of living life. I'm giving something which I would have lost anyway and I got something which is mine forever. But if I do the opposite, I'm giving up something which I could have had forever to get something which I would lose anyway. Makes no sense, right? If I give up something which I could have kept forever, an earning asset which would have been mine forever, I give it away and I got something which at the most is temporary, I will lose it anyway. That's a dumb deal. But the opposite, if I am spending something which is temporary, in any case I would have lost it. And in exchange for that I get something which is going to be mine forever, that's a fantastic deal. Just to give you an example, we talk about charity. We are coming to Ramadan, so we are going to get some fundraising here. We talk about charity. So give in the path of Allah, sacrifice in the path of Allah. I tell people, forget this word sacrifice. It's a lie. There is no sacrifice in Islam. What are you doing? You are taking some part of your wealth which Allah gave you. Let's face it, how many of us stand here and give the equivalent of the value of your car which you are driving? I am not saying nobody does it, but how many? So you give something and in addition, by giving that what are you getting? We are getting an everlasting reward with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah said this is with Allah and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will return it to you in keeping with His majesty embrace. The minimum of that is man ja'abil hasanati falahu ashur amasalia. Someone who brings one hasana, Allah will give him ten likewise. And then Allah said He will multiply that by 700 and begai risa. So something, now you say okay, if I don't give that, sure it's your wealth you can keep it. It's not haram not to give, but even if you keep it, how long will you have it? You don't have to die to lose it. You lose it probably but before that in many ways. Whereas if you take this and give it in the path of Allah, effectively what am I doing? I am transferring my wealth. Whenever I think about charity I think of it as wealth transfer. I am taking it from this account and putting it into another account. That's it, wealth transfer.…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon His servants and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family, and upon the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him. And many more. My brothers and sisters, the other day we talked about... I talked about needs and wants. And I mentioned to you and I said to you that the root of all problems, the root of all misery is when people convert their wants into needs. But if you keep needs as needs, and a need is something which if you don't have it, it will result in harm. Dharuri. The absence of which will create Dharar. Something which is critical, essential, the absence of that will result in harm. It's a need. Anything which does not fall into that category, it's something which is nice to have, something which you will enjoy, something which is, you know, which will make you happy and so on. But it's not something which is essential for survival. That's not a need, it's a want. Now if you convert these wants into needs, if you bring them into that scope of needs, then automatically your stress goes up, the amount of money you need to earn goes up, the space you need to live goes up, the number of people you have to satisfy and make happy goes up. And when all of these things go up, your own happiness goes down. Now in this context, the thing I want to say to you is this, second step of this, which is that you will find in life, and either take my word for it now and look at yourself and if you need to change, change, or wait for the next ten years, wait for the next twenty years and you will discover for yourself. Except that if you take my word for it now and do something to change yourself, you will benefit and if you don't, if you wait, then you will discover in another way which will be highly painful and you cannot change that. Now and that is that discipline always beats talent. Discipline always beats talent. Discipline always beats talent. You can be the most talented person in the world, but if you are not disciplined, that talent will never flower, that talent will never do anything good for you. Now take for example, think of artists, think of musicians, think of since you guys are interested in sport, think of great basketball players, great soccer players, great football players, great cricket players and so on and so on. And people who seem to be tremendously talented, they say, but this person has absolute talent. And then go into their life and see the number of hours of practice per day that they put into their game. I was watching Tiger Woods tournament last night. It's almost magical the way the guy puts, the way the guy drives from one hole to another hole. And I have to remind myself, it's not magical at all. It's the result of playing golf from the time he was two years old. His father put him, he started training him from the time he was two years old. And he's been, he has hit more strokes, he has hit more shots than his competent, than the one who is competing against him. The same thing with Kobe Bryant, the same thing with, name the person you watch. Zach Hirosano recently died, the tabla player. Like any so-called talented person who is top of their job, top of their profession and who the world thinks is doing magic, it's not magic. It's sweat. It is sweat. This is something that people forget. people come to me and they say, you know, I don't like this job that I'm doing. It's okay. So what do you want to do? No, I want to give it up. I want to give it up. Okay, sure. Give it up. But do me a favor. Go to Walmart and buy yourself a plastic bowl. Why? Because then it will be useful when you have to stand on the street corner to beg. Plastic bowl is useful to have, you know, you can stick it out like that and people can throw money into it. Because if you are going to leave a job that y...…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
https://youtu.be/_ba2G380D70 Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family and companions. Peace and blessings be upon him. I'm sitting under this tree and I'm literally within maybe 10 feet of these beautiful amazing birds. The Sandhill cranes, absolutely incredible. And it's a pair with two youngsters. The male is standing there on top, as you can see. He's the guardian, the custodian, the sentinel. And he doesn't see any danger from me, so he doesn't give any alarm call. And he hasn't, he says, there is no danger from me. And this is the one in front here. This is one of the juveniles behind him or her. I don't know how to distinguish. It's the mother and behind that is the other juvenile. Absolute privilege, Subhanallah. I thank Allah Subhanallah for granting me this privilege of being in such close quarters with these birds. My brothers and sisters, one of the big things to teach our children is the value of community, the value of togetherness. And that begins in the home, in the nursery, in the family. As many of you know, and those who don't know, you will know now that I consult with business families. Family business consulting is my specialty. I have a book on it called The Business of Family Business. And one of the things I see that I see with business families, and I am very sorry when I see it. But I wish I didn't have to see it, is internecine conflict, conflict between brothers, conflict with the father. I know a case in which where the sons filed a suit against the mother. Inna lillahi wa nna lillahi wa rajim. The mother of our two Muslim teaches us that under her feet is Jannah. And imagine a son filed a suit case against the mother. Over what? Not over that piece of Jannah under her feet, but for some, you know, father's property, a father passed away, a father's property, a piece of the business, and so on. Many times people come to me, wealthy people, all of these are wealthy people. Some of them are millionaires, some of them are billionaires. I have one client whose business is four billion dollars. So we're not talking about small money. We're talking about people who may Allah have mercy on them and us. Oh, all I can say is that they didn't raise their children right. And that's what I want to talk about now. How do you raise your children right? What is the meaning of raising them right? That is a squirrel. It's a peculiar squirrel to this place. It has this long tail and it has a black mark on its forehead. Anyway, let me stay with my cranes. So we don't bring them, we don't raise them right. And when I say we don't raise them right, the biggest mistake we do is we don't orient them towards their responsibility as community members. And as I said, that starts with the family. The community begins with the family. In Islam, the family is the fundamental foundational building block of the community. And that's why Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that a Jannah is under the feet of the mother and the father is the door to Jannah. When one of them dies, he said that both the parents are the doors to Jannah and the father is the door to Jannah. And the Jannah under the mother's feet is Jannah for the person or the son and daughter. And he said that when one of the parents dies, one door to Jannah closes for you and the other parent dies, the other door for Jannah closes for you. So take care of your parents, value them, serve them, be good to them. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala went to the extent in the Quran of saying do not even say oof to them. Do not express any displeasure with them. It is your job to please them. It is not their job to please you. And this is where we get caught up in our own, in the problem that we create for ourselves.…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
https://youtu.be/hVMcHK4Zcig Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. Peace and blessings be upon the Prophet Muhammad and his family. And upon his family and his companions. Madhu, I've run the sisters. In my view, if there is one single differentiating factor which separates people who are free, not enslaved in their minds, from people who are enslaved, is to look at and see how they take care of their surroundings. Now, as you can see here, this is a development on a golf course, villas on a golf course. I challenge you to find one piece of plastic, one scrap of paper, one empty bottle, one anything that would qualify as trash, anywhere, near a house, away from a house, anywhere, on the golf course. You won't find a single thing. Even if this was to be said about one particular place, it would be remarkable enough, but this is the default. This is the default. Except in places where, and this is America, also in America where you have the poor, the homeless, refugees and so on. And the first thing that hits you is the filth, the garbage, all the trash around everywhere. Now, I'm not being critical of poor people. I've been poor myself. But I want to differentiate between having resources and taking care of yourself and your environment. The two do not go hand in hand because I know situations, in India, for example, where you go into a house of a person who is a, may not be a billionaire, but certainly a millionaire. And in India, millionaires have billionaire lifestyles. So you have this fantastic house. You have people who are all over, you know, doing wonderful things, living in beautiful lifestyles, fantastic houses, furnishings and whatnot. But clothes strewn everywhere, shoes everywhere, expensive stickers. You know, each one would be worth more than somebody's salary for a month or a year maybe, but just throttle. You get into one of their cars and it looks like a trash can on a wheel. In India, you go into somebody I've been in, somebody's people's houses, people who are not billionaires, but definitely millionaires. And in India, alhamdulillah, millionaires live the lifestyle of billionaires. You know, servants and this and that. But you go inside the house, it has, it's a beautiful mansion. Inside it has fancy furniture, expensive stuff. Some of them even have a kitchen to show and a kitchen in which actual cooking is done. So, as we say, in Urdu, we say, yes, it's okay, the teeth of the show are different, the teeth of the food are different. Which is not strictly true, but you know, so we have this Dikhanika Kitchen Egg or Khanika Kitchen Egg. Or the one in which food is cooked, the Dikhanika Kitchen, the one in which food is not cooked, it's only for show. We have the most fancy kitchen appliances and stoves and god knows what. Never touched. Absolutely pristine condition, but to show people. Allah have mercy on us. We've gotten used to this very, you know, lifestyles which are very destructive. So, anyway, to come back to my point. So we have people with all these resources, fancy places. We're talking about change in the mind, mental enslavement versus mental freedom, true freedom. So we have these people who are really mentally enslaved. So they are, they have the resources, but they don't take care of them. And to me, as I said, the biggest and best sign that somebody is free is that they take ownership of their lives. They don't live their lives as if it belongs to somebody else. Not my job. I don't need to take care of it. As I showed you, as you can see, as I'm walking here, place is taken care of. And obviously, some of it is taken care of because the development, the golf course does it. But the maintenance fee here is, it is roughly $500 per quarter, which means you're paying $2,000 per year. For your surroundings of your house to be maintained. So you may be doing some things yourself, as in by your own hand and some things you might be paying fo...…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
https://youtu.be/hVMcHK4Zcig Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions, peace and blessings be upon them. What is next? Brothers and sisters, I am here in Florida, standing by this lake, this pond, near the golf course, what we call a water hazard. And these are the American ibises, the American ibis. You see the long curved beak, see how they dig in the grass to eat. There is a, you can see one, they're all white and one colored one. That is a juvenile, it's a young one. And they feed him by the pond. Very pretty scenery, Alhamdulillah. On the pond, there are also ducks. Let's see if they come close. So, they are, they look like morgan serves of some kind, not sure what. The demand for myself and you is we're talking about things that we keep saying teach children, but I think it has to do much more with teaching ourselves. Because children are little monkeys. They imitate adults, they imitate their parents, they imitate other adults who they respect. They learn by taking their values from adults they respect. I think of myself, I think of my own childhood, that's exactly what I did and that's exactly what any child does. They take their values from the adults in their lives and that is the reason why it's also very important to ensure that your children don't lose out from the company of respectable and respect worthy adults in their lives. Make sure they are around good people. Because that's how they learn and depending on the kind of people they are with is what they will learn. So if they are around adults who are, who take pride from the pride in the disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, or who take their children to clubs and to partying and who teach their children, give them their first drink, Subhanallah, may Allah have mercy on us. These are statements I've heard from Muslims. My father gave me my first drink. My father took me to the race course. The first time my father got me membership in this gambling den, in this club, which of course obviously the club is created for clubbing, so it's created for the enjoyment of everything that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has disapproved of everything which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has prohibited. May Allah have mercy. So this is the danger. This is also how animals and birds learn from the company of elders. Here we have some more ibises and another youngster here, another juvenile one, which is flying off. I don't know why he is so skittish, but he is. The others are fine. Nobody bothers them here. The ducks people even feed, but these ibises, they are not fed. They don't need to be fed. If you notice the little black feather at the end of the tail, this is all the khudrat of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The attention to detail is incredible. Let me make this bigger so you can see them closer. So among the things to do with children is to keep them around respectable, respect worthy adults. That's the first thing. Second thing is to ensure that they are exposed to the right environment. And that environment for most of us is the environment of the masjid. So make sure that your children go to the masjid. Now, there is a tendency to say, children will say, oh, you know, there is nothing attractive there and I'm not attracted to the masjid. If your child makes that statement, consider that to be a statement which is where the child is admitting to having a major psychological, a major spiritual illness. Don't take that as a norm. The biggest problem is that parents take that as the norm and then they want the imam of the masjid or whoever is an authority in the masjid to say, well, do something to keep my child interested, do something to keep my child engaged.…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
https://youtu.be/SDIKN0xlpsg Auto-generated transcript: This is Leo, my brother's cat. He's a Russian blue and not the friendliest of cats but he seems to like me. For reasons unknown. What I want to say here today is the importance of differentiating between needs and wants. And this is something that starts very early in life, in the way we raise children, the difference between needs and wants. So anytime the child says, mommy, daddy, I really, really, really need this. Very common in American families, really, really, really need it. Three times really, really, really need it. Is to help them differentiate between is it something you really need or is it a want, a desire. Nothing wrong with wants except that if you do not differentiate between needs and wants, you end up with increasing your cost of living. And by cost of living, I don't just mean the amount in terms of dollars or cents or rupees or whatever. I mean the price you pay for that life quality. So if I need an iPhone 16, then I'm adding that into my cost of living. Because when you're saying need or want, it relates to happiness. What is it that makes you happy? So the more the need you have to make you happy, two things happen. One is your chances of being unhappy go up because what makes you happy is more and more and more. And if I can't get that, then I'm going to be unhappy. So my chances of being happy go down and my chances of being unhappy go up. The second issue of the difference between needs and wants is of course the actual dollar value. What does it cost? And once again, the more the needs, the more it's going to cost. I therefore want us to, I remind myself on you, let us recalibrate our lives and say what is it that I truly need? Now a need, a good way of understanding that is to use the Islamic and Arabic and Urdu concept of zarura. What is zarura? What is something a zarura or zaruri is something that is essential for survival. Where if you don't have that, then it is dangerous to life. It is going to cause dharar, which is ham. So dharuri is something which prevents harm. So what is dharuri in terms of food? Say for example, what is dharuri? Dharuri is the hadith of the Rasul of Allah, he said eat enough to keep your back straight. And if you must eat more, then eat up to one-third of the capacity of your belly. One-third food, one-third water, one-third empty air. And he said the hadith doesn't begin there, the hadith begins with, he said the worst utensil, the worst vessel to fill is the belly. So it begins with that. And then he says well eat only enough, a few morsels, a few morsels, not handfuls, morsels, to keep the back straight. So we can do our work, we can worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we can go about our daily business and keep it free from and never fill the whole belly. Now if you look at this, the whole issue of saying I want a triple chocolate sundae, is it a need or a want? To say I want, I need this, I need that kind of food, I need Hyderabadi biryani, right? I need Bihari kaab, I need this and that, all our desires, they are desires. Now remember I'm not saying that it is haram to have a desire, no, if you want to eat a particular kind of food, haram to ila. But don't say it is a need. It's not about semantics, it's about the psychological effect of calling something a need. If you call the thing a need, then it becomes a need. It generates unhappiness because as I told you, a need is something which if you don't have, it causes you harm. I need to breathe properly, if I don't have that air I will die. I need a certain amount of food, if I don't have even that amount of food, which is frankly being one meal in 24 hours, is a need. So one meal in 24 hours if I don't have, then I'm likely to you know have low sugar and I'm likely to experience the harmful effects of that. So that's a need. But anything more than that is a want. It's a desire. Again, it's not haram, but if I convert it into a need,…
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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
https://youtu.be/1hrPIMPrOp8 Auto-generated transcript: We are on 75 going from Fort Toddy to Tampa and on the right is the Evacuates National Park. And almost for probably 50-60 miles we had the channel which they have cut, repeat the road in the park. We saw alligators, we saw cosplays, we saw cowherds, greater or lesser egrets, all kinds of things. So the reason I'm saying all this is because on highways, on roads, I always remind myself, I knew that this is a tariq, this is the way. And there are things about this which parallel our lives completely. Now the way is leading to something. You don't just get onto the road and start driving. You go onto a road and you're driving to a destination. And so also in life you can just live or you can live with a purpose to get to a destination. You get on the road and when you want to get to a destination, nowadays it's very easy because of GPS and so on, but otherwise even otherwise you would look for the shortest way to get there, the fastest way to get there which might not be the shortest but which has less traffic or you might say I want to take a scenic route because I want to see some stuff on the way and so on and so forth. So the choice of your routing is also a conscious choice that you're making. So also in life when we want to live our life and we want to look at the pathways that we choose, that it makes sense to do that consciously and say what kind of life do I want? And I don't mean just for us just to say that you know janla, janla is yes, that is default inshallah and we hope so, but what will get me to janla? What is the best way of living by life in a way that I can get to janla? So that is the detail of it. Now for that imagine that you are on this bus and you have a driver who's an expert driver and who is one of the best routing heroes, so what to do? So you go to the driver and say when this is I'm getting on this bus, this is the bus taking me and you know I like to see something and so on and he says we have to ride, go ahead. Then what you concentrate on is the quality of your journey. You don't spend time or I would say even waste time in trying to make friends with the driver, in trying to have a social life with the driver, in trying to have you know interactions with the driver and stuff. That's not your problem, that's not your focus. Your focus is to get on the right bus, stay on the right bus, see the sites you need to see, learn what you need to learn. What I'm saying is that because today we live in a world where society has among the many ways in which society fools us, it fools us into what has been called the tyranny of feelings and the tyranny of feeling this works like this. It says that whatever I feel is supreme. This must take supersede, this must supersede and take precedence over everyone else's feelings. It doesn't matter what anyone else feels, what I feel must happen and it is the job of everyone else to modify their behavior in order to suit my feelings and if they are not doing that, they are the problem. This is how our society works which is why you have for example children going to school and teachers are taught that you must engage the children, the children must be engaged in your class, the children must find your class interesting, the children must find your class entertaining. Whether they're learning something or not is not top of the line. I don't say that's not important but that's not what they ask teachers. They ask them about how engaged are the children and so on meaning that if they are engaged enough, if they are entertained enough, if they're happy enough, they will automatically learn. Nothing can be further from the truth. The reality is that you go to a teacher like you go to an oncologist because you have cancer and because this oncologist only Allah can cure and give life but for the sake of my example, this oncologist knows what to do to cure your cancer.…
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