If you take a look at Allah Almighty's plan,
many times people forget that before birth, before they were born,
we believe all of us were with Allah (swt)
But we don't remember as sophisticated it as we are right now,
we don't remember the day we were born,
or the first few days, or even the first year, perhaps.
Today, we're so sophisticated,
we begin to question the maker, and then we begin to disbelieve in the hereafter
and we tell ourselves, when I die, it's the end of everything.
That's it. I'm on earth without a purpose.
I'm just here to enjoy myself and do whatever I can.
No, we are believers.
With all due respect to those who perhaps
feel that way, believers don't feel that way.
We believe we are too sophisticated to just disappear one day.
When I die, I will get an opportunity
to do the things I wanted to do that I was unable to do on earth.
How I know I'm going to be able to do them is because I'm so sophisticated.
I have feelings, I have emotions.
There are people I love.
They are people perhaps I didn't get on with.
There is injustice that has also happened that I'd like to see the justice of.
At the same time, I have my own blood, my progeny, Subhanallah, that is continuing.
I have my children.
May Allah bless those who don't have children with children.
Any one of my children were to pass on, may Allah protect us.
Or if I were, and it's going to happen, die, you know what?
We have to gather somewhere.
We have to get together again.
We have to come together.
I want to give you this evening a powerful example.
This is what actually means so much.
It's called the membrane.
That's the title of what I want to say, the membrane.
Do you recall the day that you were forming in the womb of your mother?
No, you don't. Do you recall the day that you were a droplet of semen,
finding its way to be fertilized?
Absolutely not.
Some might say, How could you even say that?
Well, the Quran says that, so I'm not embarrassed to say it.
The Quran says, We created you from a droplet.
I don't recall. I don't remember a thing.
But because I now know that I was there, I'm in awe of the Maker.
Wow, it didn't go wrong.
Every one of us was a champion at one stage.
Why?
Because that was the droplet of semen that actually won the race.
Fertilized. You won.
You came on earth a winner. Remember this.
It's a very important statement.
I say this because as we developed,
I'm sure we enjoyed the warmth of the womb,
and I'm sure we were so fortunate to be fed and sustained without any effort.
No effort. What effort did you make?
Nothing. You were sustained.
By whom? By a miracle.
Wallahi. By a miracle.
You were sustained.
You were provided for. You were protected.
If your mother did not eat, guess what?
Nutrients were taken from her in order to make sure that you were okay.
She would have struggled, but not you.
It's a miracle. Guess what?
You began to grow in size, mashAllah.
And organs began to form.
A few weeks later, boom, boom, boom.
They could see that the heart is pumping and they were excited.
That was you. Subhanallah.
That was you. Mashallah.
Guess what happened? You swam all over.
You enjoyed certain things and you went this way, that way.
If someone had to hit your mom's belly, you didn't feel it.
It was cushioned.
You were in a fluid that was filled with goodness.
I'm sure at that particular juncture,
as much as I don't remember, but I'm sure I was in the best possible place,
enjoying, swimming all over carefree, nothing to worry about.
Like you see little children, do they even care where they pee?
They don't even care.
So carefree, you didn't know what came in, what went out.
Nothing.
But you grew and as you grew older, as you grew larger, should I say,
the place you were in became narrow, more and more narrow.
And so you found it difficult to move at some point.
What must have been going through your mind and mind?
I can only imagine, as you kicked, your mother could feel it.
Ask those who are expecting, may Allah make it easy for them.
They'll tell you the kicks.
Sometimes, Hey, kick. First kick.
Normally, it's at 120 days.
First kicks. Why?
Because we believe that's where the soul is blown in.
So even though you have a heartbeat prior to it,
islamically, we say that that's a muscle that just starts pumping,
doing its job from the very beginning,
not necessarily depicting life in a way that we are today.
And that's why we have hearts
that continue pumping way beyond the death of a person.
We also have people who remain alive way beyond the pumping of their hearts.
Does it make sense to you?
In the case of transplants, a guy's heart stopped functioning.
They replaced it with a person's heart who's gone and buried.
He is functioning on someone else's heart and his heart is gone.
The guy who died is alive and the guy who's alive is dead.
Sorry. Sorry.
I hope you understood what I just said, right?
The pumping of the heart in Islam does not necessarily depict full life.
There comes a point when there is life, but Subhanallah, at that juncture,
the kick happens and then it continues further and further.
Then there's a time when you think, That's it.
It's over. I think it's everything's finished.
Everything's over. That's it.
Imagine if there was a person who didn't even believe,
for example, didn't even believe, and they said, That's it.
It's all over. Guess what?
One big push and you were out in a world
that you never dreamed would ever have existed.
Wow.
It was so, so different that you began to cry.
What was there between you and this whole life?
A membrane. What was that membrane?
The womb of your mother. That's it.
Between you and something you never dreamt of,
which was going to be called the life of the dunya.
There was just a membrane.
You had to cross one membrane for you to witness something.
Today you don't remember, but you know you went through it.
Some of us now even have videos of it and photos of it.
That was you when you were born and you all scrunched up small.
They say, so cute.
We wonder what's so cute about
that anyway, besides the fact that it's titchy, so small.
titchy is a word I learned in London, by the way.
So, Subhanallah, it's amazing. What happened?
When you thought there was nothing to come, something came.
What came? A life.
A life I didn't expect.
If you enjoyed anything there, the moment you crossed the membrane,
everything you left behind became not just irrelevant,
but became such that if you were to be told, Would you like any of it?
You would say, Yuck. Agreed?
If I told you anything in your womb that you enjoyed, would you like someone now?
You say, Hey, don't even talk about it.
You're about to have a meal, man.
Whatever you like there, the moment you cross the membrane, Hey,
what's here is something totally different.
For the first time, I'm going to see my mother, the one in whom I existed.
I look and wow, and there's a connection.
I feel that.
I'm lifted and I'm kissed and I'm hugged and everything happened.
I grew older and older and older.
And Allah Almighty tells you, in the same way,
you're going to cross another membrane
one day into a life that's going to be everlasting
and you're going to be in the same and you are terminally ill.
May Allah grant us all cure.
Your bones are aching and you start thinking, I'm going to go.
A believer is told, don't worry,
just prepare for the day by trying to achieve the mercy of Allah,
because the mercy of Allah is what is going to bring you into heaven, paradise.
So if I think for a moment that you know what, that's the end all of everything.
The loss is mine, because Allah has already proven to you
and you know about the first one that the end all did not happen.
It actually was the beginning of something awesome.
Allah has already proven it to you.
He did it once, we're going to do it again.
What is he going to do again?
Now, when I get to the end of this life
and I start thinking, Hey, this is the end of it.
I'm old, I'm 80.
In the case of some, I'm perhaps a little bit more than that.
What's going to happen? Allah says, You know what?
It's going to be.
You have to cross the membrane. What is it?
It's such a thin membrane.
The moment the flash comes and you cross it, you're going to be, Subhanallah.
I should have gotten here long back, man. Subhanallah.
Where am I floating?
I'm somewhere.
I can't describe it for you right now,
besides a little, but it's going to be a good place because you're a good person.
You reach out to others.
You're kind, you're caring, you're amazing.
You don't abuse people, you don't harm them.
You're disciplined. That's what Islam is all about.
That's what faith is all about. It disciplines you.
I'm worshiping my Maker alone,
and I'm respecting all the creatures that He made because He made everything else.
I'm going to be an asset,
not just to my family, to society, to community, to humanity at large.
Then what happens?
As I grow older and older, I have hope in the mercy of Allah.
I know, cross the membrane.