Thank Allah for the favors.
But remember one thing.
Allah exists number one.
Number two, your life is very short, and so is mine.
Extremely short. You have to go back to Allah.
And when you go back to Allah,
he's going to ask you how did you spend your short time on earth?
Use whatever Allah gave you, uniquely yours, to enter paradise,
what we have is nothing that you need to be excited about if it is drifting you away from Allah.
People say that we don't believe even a Maker, Astaghfirullah.
We don't believe that there is a Deity, Supreme Deity.
We are here coincidentally, one simple evidence to prove that that is wrong.
Nothing is impossible for Allah.
We believe that Allah creates from nothing.
He doesn't need a thing to create.
When He created man from dust or sand or soil oil,
He did not need to use that to make men.
He didn't need it.
He could have created us from anything else or from absolutely nothing.
Indeed, the instruction,
the command of Allah, when He wants to create something is be.
And it is so.
Glory be unto Allah, who is the owner of absolutely everything
and everyone and everything is going to return to Allah.
That is your Lord and mine.
People say that we don't believe in a maker, Astaghfirullah.
We don't believe that there is a deity, supreme deity.
We are here coincidentally.
One simple evidence to prove that that is wrong in our eyes
is that from the beginning of our species,
Adam (A.s), right, to the end of the species,
every single one of us has many things that are uniquely his or hers.
Never, ever repeated in the past, not repeated in the present,
and will never be repeated right up to the end of time.
For example, your thumbprint.
Every finger of yours is uniquely yours.
No one has had your fingerprint from the beginning to the end.
No one shall have it.
Another thing;
Your iris print uniquely yours alone, they can identify you without a blunder.
Never a mistake in it. Not one.
There is no chance.
If we were here coincidentally, surely coincidentally,
there would have been two or three people with the same iris print, right?
Surely there would have been a few more coincidences that have occurred.
My brothers and sisters, let's not be fooled.
We believe in Allah.
We believe there is a Maker.
We believe that He alone deserves to be worshipped.
Because we know on the day of Qiyamah and Judgment,
we will be standing with our account in front of the Almighty.
And they can never, ever be a fraction of a doubt in the identity of who is this?
Not at all.
You did your amal, you did your deeds, right?
Imagine if there was a doubt.
Was it you or someone else?
That's why, if your fingerprint is not good enough,
your iris print, let me tell you what else.
The way exactly your hair grows
and the exact way that it's all set in your head is all unique.
It's just you and yours.
We can go further and beyond to see
the kudra and the power of the Almighty by looking at the animals.
No two zebras have had same stripes from the beginning to the end.
No two giraffes have had the same spots from the beginning to the end.
No two cheetahs have had the same spots, or leopards or tigers have had the same stripes,
or whatever else it may be from the beginning to the end.
Glory be to Allah.
All praise is due to Him who created
absolutely everything in such beauty, such perfection.
To Him returns absolutely everything.
Now, my brothers and sisters,
when we realize the greatness of Allah and we realize how sophisticated man
thinks he is, yet it's not even the beginning of sophistication.
When I was young, and I'm sure many of you,
when you were younger, we used to get excited because there was a time
when we would phone overseas only via an operator.
When they decided to make.. to do away with the operator
and you could dial yourself, we got excited.
Wow, advancement.
Compare that time to today.
What difference is there?
Subhanallah today, press of a button and you can talk to someone,
see them at the same time and hold the phone without a cable.
For us, it was more like something of a fantasy or something that wasn't even there,
that we couldn't even imagine would occur.
May Allah (swt) grant us an understanding.
And Allah says, on top of that, man has been given knowledge.
Without a doubt, Allah gave man knowledge.
Allah taught man what he didn't know.
So what did man do?
Well, how many years have we been in existence?
We don't even know.
We can't even count.
We won't even be able to go back.
There is a difference of opinion.
How many human beings were there exactly?
How many years ago did Adam (A.s) be on Earth?
We don't know.
Their estimations, perhaps people can calculate, but certainty, no one knows.
Imagine, you don't even know that amount.
I don't even know that.
No matter how sophisticated we've become, and I tell you, over thousands of years,
think of something I want to tell you today.
These facilities we have are a big gift from Allah.
But they are a responsibility as well.
Do they bring you closer to Allah, or do they take you away from Allah?
And I tell you why.
Who was the most loved to Allah from all creations?
Say the name; the prophet Muhammed (pbuh),
Not only him, but all the other messengers of Allah, may peace be upon them,
lived at a time when there was no electricity, there was no running water,
there was no internet, there was no technology that we know now.
No motor vehicles, no aircraft.
There was nothing of that for Allah to prove to you and I
that if that had had any value in the eyes of Allah,
to draw you closer to Allah in any way,
shape or form, the first person who would have had it would have been who?
Muhammad (pbuh).
So what we have is nothing that you need to be excited about
if it is drifting you away from Allah.
All this facility for man.
Imagine a running tap. What do we do?
We get up and we turn on the tap.
Do you know it did not exist at the time of Nabi Muhammad (pbuh)?
There's no running water like this. It was tough.
How do they drink? We have purified water.
Water purifiers.
This and that and everything.
How did they survive for centuries?
Come on, man. Millenniums.
One after the other. They survived with what?
You sit in wonder.
They probably drank water that might have looked a little bit like tea for us.
And by the way, tea is something relatively new.
I can't do without it, man.
Don't have my tea, I get a headache, talk about myself.
By the way, may Allah grant us ease.
Thank Allah for the favors.
But remember one thing, Allah exists; number one.
Number, two your life is very short and so is mine.
Extremely short.
You have to go back to Allah.
And when you go back to Allah,
He's going to ask you how did you spend your short time on earth?
Tell Us. You have to give the accounts.
So prepare for that day.
How do we prepare?
Let me tell you.
Each one of us has been gifted and blessed by Allah in a unique way.
Every one of us has a gift of Allah.
Some people, Mashallah, they are extremely intelligent in one particular field.
Allah gave them that.
Some others perhaps Allah gave them something else.
A lot of intellect.
Some people are brilliant in Quran and Tafsir.
Others are brilliant;
Perhaps in something that Allah has blessed them with a doctor, medicine, Mashallah.
Beautiful. Someone else has a lot of wealth.
For example, someone has....
Use whatever Allah gave you to earn your jannah.
Use whatever Allah gave you, uniquely yours to enter jannah.
But don't forget the pillars of Islam and your primary duties unto Allah.
Two things we need to remember what Allah told you to do;
compulsarily. Don't miss that.
Secondly, what Allah told you to stay away from compulsorily.
You stay away from that.
We have no option. We must.
If you falter because you're a human being,
quickly turn back to Allah in repentance and Allah will grant you.
And Allah will grant you.
Do not underestimate the power of Dua.
I started off by saying nothing is impossible for Allah.
You think you're weak.
Yes, we are all weak.
But that weakness.
The only one who's going to eradicate it for you is Allah.
When you strengthen your relationship with Allah,
you will automatically eradicate your weakness.
Speak to people with respect.
These are all creatures of Allah.
They are worshippers of Allah.
You never know who is a friend of Allah.
If the hadith says whoever has harmed a friend of mine,
I've announced war against them.
Who is a friend of Allah? You don't know.
You never know.
You would never guess who it might be.
It could be a person.
They would be human, obviously,
but they could be anyone seated here or seated anywhere else, or something.
Imagine if you are harming a friend of Allah.
Allah says We've announced war with you.
Declare war against who? Allah.
Why? That's my friend.
So if being hurtful and harmful towards a friend of Allah
would cause our own destruction?
Don't you think being good and being kind
and being polite and reaching out and fulfilling the rights of people,
perhaps they would be a friend of Allah from amongst them;
Wouldn't it result in the opposite?
If you do something bad, you're going to face bad.
And if you do something good, don't you think you're going to face goodness?
So when you're kind to people, what did it cost you to be good?
What did it cost you to be nice and kind?
We lose our cool and we think we have the right.
May Allah help us calm down.
All of us, myself included.
We all need a reminder from time to time to say calm down, relax,
speak to people with respect and understand that Allah is the greatest.