[Music] What is the objective of the future? One step closer. One step closer.
I look back and I say, I didn't get a 100. I didn't do everything I wanted. I think I need to ask a different question.
Did I get closer? My ultimate objective is not the destination. My ultimate objective is progress.
It's as if Allah is teaching us that the place you're in is exactly the place you're supposed to be. So you can see what your next step is, then what your next step is, then what your next step is. And that is the mindset of your entire life.
Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. foram.
Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah.
for Muhammad. sai wasallam. forch.
today inshallah not too much Arabic because you have enough Arabic going on in your life and you have an exam coming up. So today's will be short so that you get more time to review find yourselves and inshallah make dua that you do do very very well on your tests. Um first thing I'd like to remind all the students in regards to that just as a principle in life.
Um in many societies tests examinations uh are a mark of your value as a learner. So how you do on a test is what kind of student you are. It speaks to you as a it it doesn't just value your knowledge, it values you.
It values you as a person. Um tests only serve one actual purpose in reality. For those who are seeking knowledge, there's a difference between someone who seeks knowledge and someone who seeks graduation.
It's a big difference because someone who's seeking graduation can cram, take a test, pass, move on, and then whatever they studied is gone. They weren't seeking that anyway. They were seeking the validation of having gotten that degree or having passed that test.
That was their objective, right? And because societies in the world value that so much, what degree do you have? What did you score on the test?
We've now confused that with the pursuit of knowledge. Those two things have become confused with each other. They're not the same.
You didn't come here because you're pursuing a degree. You didn't come to study all this month away from family to get a credential. Well, if you did, then I think you came for the wrong reason.
So even even though that may have may not have been your intention before uh also you can fix your intention before you leave. Right? So it's it's not too late to correct course actually somebody can come into Islam even for the wrong reasons and then change their way after they come into Islam.
famously who was upset that wasallam was hit and he came and out of anger accepted Islam. There was no da just got mad and he accepted Islam. You could argue he accepted Islam for the quote unquote wrong reasons.
That's not the reason to accept this religion and he becomes one of the big biggest supporters of Islam. Why? Because the the change that comes inside of a person, it's not one pathway.
It could be that he accepts Islam first and his heart inclines towards it later or it was a little bit inclined towards Islam and then Allah opens the door later. His Islam is not the same as the Islam of Abu Bakr. Their path their pathways are different.
The way they come to it is different and some people come to a realization later on and some before. There are many reports of Sahabah who are reported to have been known to be among the like they were known to be allied with the hypocrites and then they say the the historians will say Islam he fixed his Islam he changed he he changed course so if your mindset wasn't the right one in the beginning that doesn't mean you're set in stone it can go through a change so that's a little bit about test then what's the point of taking a test point of taking a test is not what numbers on the p piece of paper uh because if it's a it's a 90s something that you're a 90s something kind of person that's not what it means the entire purpose of a test is to challenge yourself to absorb as much as you can of what you learned, to put yourself under pressure, to absorb, to internalize, and then when you see your test and you see what mistakes you made, you know exactly what you need to work on more. Like there you have to prepare 12 chapters, but you knew, you know, 11.
5 of them really well and that other. 5 is scattered in between. There are gaps in between and you don't know exactly where those gaps are until they get exposed.
And now that they're exposed, now you can address one gap at a time. And what's amazing about that, if you have that mindset, is your mistakes, they're the ones that become your strengths. The thing that you get wrong, the X on a piece of paper, the word that couldn't come to your mind.
If you decide, if that burned you, and you now go look it up and review it and what, you'll never make that mistake again. You'll make new ones, but not that one. Okay?
that that mistake is done with you know so that's that's the reason we want to put ourselves under that kind of pressure that's the reason we want to go and study but what I wanted to talk to you about today is something even longer today alhamdulillah as I walk by students in the hallway I keep saying congratulations congratulations and congratulations but we haven't taken the test yet yes congratulations I'm congratulating you because you did an inc incredible effort many of you haven't sat in a classroom for many years and now you're sitting in a classroom 6 hours a day every day. Sometimes you come back into a class and you feel like I did I even leave this is a continuous nightmare. Right.
Right. So there's a it's um it's a powerful thing to be able to cut yourself off from so many other activities, commitments, distractions and to be able to do this right. And outside of this, it's going to be very hard for you to go back to a life of discipline for for many of you.
You're going to you're not going to know what to do with your free time. It's going to go back to some scrolling or something or the other very very quickly. It's going to deteriorate, right?
So I congratulate you for at least having one month of optimal productivity where every moment was being used for something productive and even the break you got was so that you can come back even stronger when you come back the next session and you're not your mind isn't too tired. Right? On that note, I wanted to share with you something that I I I don't think I've ever shared really before.
Um people ask me all the time, what's my favorite ayah? I think this month I was asked that maybe 15 times. What's your favorite ayad?
And I started thinking about the first time I was asked that question. I was 18 years old. I was asked that question.
So it was 1875. Uh and I was asked the question, "What's your favorite ayah? " And I remember where it was.
It was in New York and it was someone I looked up to who had studied a lot of Quran. Um and he just I barely knew any Quran and he said, "You read Quran, right? " I was like, "Yeah, what's your favorite ayah?
" And in a split second, I recited the ayat that I just read before you. Don't say about anything that you're going to do this in this tomorrow at all. Don't you dare say that.
Don't you dare say that. We all have plans. You have plans of what you're going to do after you leave here.
You have plans. You may have booked your tickets. You have plans of what you're going to do this evening.
You have plans of what you're going to do tomorrow. You have a schedule. Don't you dare say you're going to do this or this or that this or that or the other tomorrow except that Allah wills it to happen.
Allah opens the door for that to happen that Allah's will align with my will. It's almost as if I recognize when I make that statement when we say inshallah so so commonly we lose the spirit of it. The soul of it, the soul of it is none of my plans have any value until they align with Allah's plans.
And it may well be that I made a really good plan, but Allah has a different plan. And he did not want my plan to align with his. So I make all my plans and I still say at the end, I don't say I don't make any plans.
Let Allah do all the planning. That's not what it says either. It says I'm still going to do something tomorrow which means I'm still planning and yet while I'm planning I'm also acknowledging that the final for the final word is with Allah and then you're you're he says and remember Allah when you forget remember your master when you forget which has multiple meanings you forgot to say inshallah you just forgot and then you said it later right hey see you tomorrow see you tomorrow and then you're in the elevator later or I didn't say inshallah.
Okay, that's one way to think about it. But there's another. Maybe you did plan something and it didn't go the way you thought.
Like many of you thought you were going to just after you leave here, you're going to get a job at Alazer, right? And it didn't work out that way. Or you didn't think you made as much progress as you wanted.
You disappointed yourself. Don't raise your hand. Right?
You disappoint you. I could have done better. I could have done more.
I did I can't believe I didn't do as well. Like you have these things that you It was It looked a lot more It looked a lot more romantic. It looked a lot more beautiful in your mind and then the reality hit and it's kind of this it's a it's a sweet thing that you're finishing.
But there's also a kind of look at yourself and say I didn't really get what I was looking for. I'm disappointed in myself. Even then remember your when you forget because you planned you had dreams you had aspirations you had goals but maybe Allah has a different plan so just remember Allah in that time too when when the when the future you envisioned doesn't turn about out to be the future you envisioned it's also a time to remember your and then the dua at the end of this is actually the reason this is my favorite was my favorite place in the Quran at the time and continues to be a pillar in my life and I think in the life of every Muslim and say and the say is also interesting because Allah just said remember remember is in the heart but is speech speech in in psychology they have this entire genre called selft talk you got to talk to yourself you're you're a convers you're in a conversation with yourself why because you need to hear some things even from yourself.
It's as if there's two parts of you. There's two parts of you. There's a part of you that needs to hear something from another part of you.
This idea, it sounds like I'm talking about a split personality is actually true. There is dimensions of our self. There are dimensions of our self.
Allah says for example, whoever can be protected from the greed of their own nuffs, like this thing, this greed and this insensit sensitivity lives inside me and I need protection from a part of myself. So there's something inside me and it's me and it's a scary part of me and I need to be saved from that part of me. The same way I need to have a conversation with me.
So what? Say it. And it's not even say it to somebody else.
It's say it to yourself actually in this ayah. It's say it in the mirror. What are you saying to yourself?
One of the most incredible duas in the Quran. The word is the first thing here. It's an act of humility.
Assa is probably, hopefully, maybe. But is also used in the meaning in a more positive meaning. So when you say it for a king, okay, that or what that means is uh hopefully the king will forgive me is your way of saying please king forgive me.
So the assa is actually now you're coming humbly to Allah and saying ya Allah I'm not going to tell you to do this. I'm just hoping that you my would do this for me. It's also interesting that you could have said guide me like we say in the fat we say what guide us but why go into the third person hopefully my is going to guide me this is actually a kind of an in it's a distance it's a rhetorical rhetorical distance it suggests ya Allah I'm down here and you are the greatest of all great kings and I'm talking to you without even addressing you in the second person.
I'm speaking of you even though I'm talking to you. This is this is you're talking to him but you're talking away from him as if you're coming with so much humility your humility didn't even let you address him directly. That's how humble right you know how if a child to give you a silly example if a son is comes in front of the father and he in the olden days and he knows the father might might listen might not listen and he says father knows best instead of saying dad you know best just father knows best okay like he uses a term of respect out of awe for the presence of his father there okay so this idea and he's very powerful.
So hopefully my will guide me guide me to what? Two words and both those words are powerful. Some of you heard about this this month.
It's a comparative noun closer. So there's there's three versions of the adjective near, nearer, and nearest. This word is nearer.
So it's not near and it's not nearest. Okay. nearer.
He'll guide me to something nearer. Already sounds off because you don't guide someone to get closer. You guide someone to get to their destination.
Somebody says, "I want to go to the airport. " You say to them, "I'll get you near it. " If you take the 10 steps this way, you'll get nearer.
I need to get to my destination. Don't tell me how to get nearer to it. Get me how to reach it.
Do you understand? I want to get to guidance itself. I want to I want to reach.
So or hopefully my my will guide me all the way to the right path to the right way or to the right destination. Nope. Hopefully my master will guide me nearer closer.
powerful thing to say because now I realize my entire purpose in life every tomorrow because this ayah is about tomorrow, isn't it? The whole thing was about don't say what you're going to do tomorrow. Still the same ayah.
This context is actually about what is the objective of the future. One step closer. One step closer.
I look back and I say I didn't get a hundred. I didn't do everything I wanted. I think I need to ask a different question.
Did I get closer? That's the real question. Now, I didn't get as close as I wanted.
I didn't reach the finish line. Okay, I didn't. But did I take steps?
Some people will take 200 steps. Some people 2,000. Some people two steps.
But all of them in their own capacity got closer. They got closer. But one of the most profound words in this ayah is Lee.
Grammarians argue about the difference between and you guys know both of those prepositions and so I guided him to the house. But you don't say who you don't use lamb normally you use there are two sisters but lamb is for the ultimate destination is for the direction and lamb is for the ultimate destination. So if I did say in old Arabic, what that would rhetorically mean is I took him and I made sure I guided him all the way until he got to the house.
If I I just pointed him to the house and said, "You can go. " So the lamb gets you all the way there. This is why you find not in the ayah of Jenna.
Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. for the for the one who guided us all the way to this all the way to Jenna.
He didn't say, he said. Okay, now come back to this ayah. I already said this ayah wasn't about getting you to the destination.
It was just getting you closer. Didn't I say that? That doesn't sound like the ultimate end.
That just sounds like progress in the journey. So the closer word expect expected here is right. But he said not what does the lamb do?
It teaches me that my ultimate objective is to get closer. My ultimate objective is not the destination. My ultimate objective is progress.
growth. Growth is the objective. What happens when someone reaches an objective?
If there's a mountain and you reach the top of the mountain, you're done climbing. I reached it. There's no more to climb.
It's done. Which means you completed your goal. Now you better find some other mountain.
Now you got to get down from here. And you know what people do when their goal is to reach the top? I want to be the top student.
I want to be the top business person. I want to be the top this or top that a top influencer. You know what happens when people, you know, work to get to the top.
All they can think about is who's in front of them? Man, this one's this one's on top and I'm not. So, the only thing you're thinking about is how do I tear that one down and take their place?
And once you get there and you see somebody climbing up, what are you thinking? Oh my god, this person's coming and they're going to take my place. They're going to take my place cuz I already reached the top and they're coming for me.
They're getting more popular. They're getting a better score. The teacher likes them more.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.
There's a constant you're looking at somebody else. But when your ultimate objective becomes, did I take the next step? Did I take the next two steps?
Did I take the next three steps? Are you concerned about other people anymore? They disappear.
The only thing left is did I make progress? You freed yourself from a life of comparison because you concerned yourself with a life of growth. Getting closer is the ultimate objective.
Now look at this. Let's end this ayah. Get closer to him from this min.
The ayah began with that this what is had referring to is referring to where I am standing right now wherever I am it doesn't matter I can get closer I I can be a thousand miles behind everyone else but that's my hava and somebody else is 10,000 miles ahead of me. That's their Hada, they have a different Ha than mine. And they look at their Ha and say, "I can make progress.
" And you look at your HA and say, "I can make progress. " What's the disease? You don't look at your own.
You look at somebody else's. They're they're making they're there and they're making progress. Can they slow down so I can catch up?
Is there any way to slow them down the or maybe reverse them a little bit instead of looking at where you're standing? It's as if Allah is teaching us that the place you're in is exactly the place you're supposed to be. So you can see what your next step is, then what your next step is, then what your next step is.
And that is the mindset of your entire life. That's the entire life. That's a goal.
I pray that allahel gives you a mindset that frees you from anxiety, that frees you from paralysis, that frees you from comparison, that frees you from looking at yesterday. Because Allah didn't say, "I hope you become better than yesterday. " No, I need to move forward from today.
Some people say, "I was doing so much better yesterday and I'm doing so much worse today. Allah could have Allah could have said Allah I hopefully Allah will guide me better today than he guided me yesterday. He didn't he didn't want you to focus on your past.
He wanted you to focus on your present min and then move forward because some of you were much worse before and you're much better now. And some of you were much better before and much worse now. Some of you were much more active before, much more disciplined before, much more productive before, and now your energy has slowed down or you're more distracted or you're not able to focus or you have other problems in life, whatever happened, and you're not what you used to be, and you keep looking back and saying, "How do I get back to where I was?
How do I go back to the way things used to be? I used to be so much better. " That is and this dua is about let go of that.
Focus on this. This is ev that's why every life every day is a new life. every day is alhamdulillah that person died who I was yesterday died then a new person was born today and they have to make two steps today and then this person is going to die tonight when they go to sleep and a new me is going to be born tomorrow morning if Allah wills and when that person takes the next two steps that's their ha this is the thing to never forget this is the thing to live by may allahel make us a people that can truly embody the wisdom of the Quran and the wisdom of this powerful dua.
And I pray that allahel continues to give you and gives you a life of continuous progress through to the last of your moments on this earth.
