Passion to Action with Mufti Nabbil Khan & Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed

Welcome & Introduction

And you feel your night was spent in the most productive manner. So our host for tonight will be Hafiz Abdullah Islam from Tampa, who is here, alhamdulillah, studying for a year. He took a year off between his undergrad and his medical school to come study. He studied the one-year program three, four years ago, went back to do his undergrad, and now, mashallah, married. He's here with his wife, who's in the one-year program, and he's in his third year. And alhamdulillah, he's a man of many talents.

So, inshallah, he will begin the night with a recitation of the Qur'an. And then, inshallah, we'll be hosting the program between myself and Mufti Nabil. Mufti Nabil, inshallah, will be sharing certain really amazing aspects of his own journey, which will get the mind, inshallah, thinking. And I'll share certain points, inshallah. We'll have an opportunity for anonymous Q&A through Slido as well. So the purpose is all of us, inshallah, leave tonight inspired, ready to work, inshallah, ready to make our own specific outstanding goals for our lives, and not just to make Ramadan beautiful, but, inshallah, the rest of our long, healthy, beautiful life, inshallah, very productive. So I look forward to having a really great evening tonight with all of you.

Please try to fill up the spaces that are in front of you, get as close as possible, both for, as we mentioned last time, a spiritual and a physical benefit, as the speaker system comes right in the middle, right here. Instead of providing a bio for our dear, esteemed guest, Mufti Nabil Sahib, he specifically asked not to give a bio because his entire talk and the lessons will be derived from himself and the bio that he gives, inshallah. So, please turn your attention to Mufti Nabil Khan, inshallah, as he gracefully delivers advice for us.

Mufti Nabil Khan: From Passion to Action — A Personal Journey

Assalamu alaikum, Alhamdulillah. First of all, I just wanted to appreciate, mashallah, all of you here today. Alhamdulillah, it's pretty late, but mashallah, you guys are all here, ready to listen. So, I pray and make du'a, and you should as well, that this discussion isn't simply a one-and-done type of situation, but rather that we're able to take something meaningful out of this that stays with us for years to come.

So, there are those of you who know me, and many of you who may not. I'm hoping that some of you may have been my former students at Dar al-Salam's Weekend Tafheem program, or maybe even current students at Mentor Agile. Either way, I hope to impart on you what was once done for me.

In preparation for this short talk, I was forced to do some deep introspection about many of the events and decisions that took place throughout my life to culminate in who I am today, and the various projects and ventures I'm passionately involved in.

In an average lifetime, from the age of two until the age of 80 years old, you have roughly 85,000 significant conversations. The vast majority of these conversations provide some incremental value at the time frame in which they're occurring. For example, maybe you're discussing with your friends about which car you'd look to purchase, or maybe you're negotiating with your wife about how long your boys' trip should last. It isn't these day-to-day mundane conversations that move the needle, but rather the few unique gems wrapped within them. Discussions that, unlike the rest, transcend the time frame in which they occurred and instead, like seeds, plant firmly in your mind and begin to grow. Others said gems have an even more potent effect. They cause change in oneself, like the flip of a switch, and completely shift your paradigm on life, recharting its course to an entirely new one.

A Core Memory: The Speech That Planted a Seed

I had been reflecting deeply about where my passion originated from when I came across a video that's now over 10 years old. It was a speech by Dr. Yasir Nadeem al-Wajidi Sahib. He had just completed his doctorate from IIUM and was back in the States sharing his journey, accounting the luminaries in his life that provided him guidance at key moments and those that inspired and illuminated the path ahead of him. While I was realizing that this is actually a core memory of mine, I could swear I was there that day, when, to my surprise, the camera in the video shifted. Lo and behold, there sat a wide-eyed 14-year-old Nabeel at the very front, completely enamored, soaking in every second of Dr. Mufti Yasir Nadeem's journey.

So look, I'm here for two reasons. Firstly, due to Mufti Azeemuddin Sahib's love and good thoughts of me, and due to a commitment that I made to my Tafheem students. While we touched on some topics in the few minutes that we had between lessons, I had promised them a detailed account of my journey, and this is the fulfillment of that request. While I'll be going into detail regarding my mission to make a lasting deeni and dunyawi impact, I'd like to preface this discussion with the obvious fact that this story is one that is still being written. Given that I'm now 29 years old, on the precipice of 30, I find this to be an excellent opportunity to impart some of the wisdoms that I've collected from the grades and lessons that I've learned along the way.

The Dichotomy of Deen and Dunya

I've always had a passion for science and technology. During my high school days, I would read the Scientific American publications to stay up to date with the latest breakthroughs. I always found innovation and scientific discoveries fascinating, as they held the power to cause paradigm shifts in society. I recognize that these breakthroughs are only possible due to the efforts of generations of passionate men and women that had dedicated their lives to advancing their respective domains. The Western minds, Muslim polymaths, and Greek philosophers all lent their best and brightest to reveal the secrets of our physical universe, insights that went on to allow the technological revolution that we're experiencing today.

With that said, I also understood that a person's fixation with innovation should be kept for the physical dunya. Our deen, on the other hand, holds tight to our tradition, passed along to us from generation to generation with unbroken chains of narration. Our deen is complete and preserved from our teachers to theirs all the way back to our beloved Nabi ﷺ. This contrast of deen and dunya is nothing short of poetic.

In a situation where you do not have a complete understanding and continuous experimentation uncovers new aspects of reality, it would be utterly foolish to hold on to tradition. And that is the state of dunya. But in a situation where objective truth has been divinely revealed and diligently maintained by robust Islamic academic systems of preservation, it would be utterly foolish to insist on innovation.

Understanding this dichotomy, while admittedly at a much more rudimentary level, I decided to join the Alimiyyah course right after high school. This was the beginning of a journey that continues to run on two parallel tracks to this very day. My passion for learning the deen did not detract from my interest and study in science and technology, but rather exemplified it further. I kept both these passions alive, which continues to prove invaluable to me in my daily life.

Studies, Technology & the Blockchain Discovery

So I studied for over four years in Elgin at Ma'had Ta'lim al-Islam, also known as IIE, where I learned various Islamic sciences from basic to intermediate level. It's here that I found my passion for fiqh, which is Islamic jurisprudence. And in my free time, I learned about cypherpunks and recognized the emergence of a new paradigm shift in technology.

Alhamdulillah, I didn't just sit on this knowledge, but rather acted on it. While only 17 years old, I used what little funds I had to make certain purchases back in 2012, the cost of which, at the time, was only two digits and a decimal. I wasn't stingy with my knowledge. I told my friends and family, even had an hour-long sit-down with my ustad, explaining blockchain technology in great detail, urging him to make a purchase. As you can imagine, no one listened. And how could I blame them?

Coming back on track to deeni studies, I dreamt of a day when I would be able to apply the principles I had learned of fiqh to modern challenges. I recognized that the rate of technological progress would only increase, and so would the need for Islamic guidance based on the precedents set by our predecessors.

Darul Ulum Karachi & the Wisdom of Mawlana Abdul Halim Chishti

For my final year of the Alimiyyah course, I traveled to Karachi, Pakistan, to complete my studies and graduate from Darul Ulum Karachi. Under the tutelage of Mufti Taqi Uthmani, hafizahullah, Mufti Rafi Uthmani, rahimahullah, and many other esteemed scholars, some of whom are no longer with us now. May Allah have mercy on them, and allow us to be a sadaqah jariyah for them.

In that one year, I seized the opportunity to travel throughout Pakistan and meet as many of the notable scholars as possible. My friends and I looked to gain wisdom from them directly before Allah takes them from us. The most notable encounter took place when three of my close friends and I used one of our breaks to spend a few days studying under the late Mawlana Abdul Halim Chishti Sahib, who graciously hosted us at his home. While the academic aspects of his informal lessons were impressive, what captivated me was the life lessons that he would pause to impart on us like a caring grandfather.

He ingrained in our minds that while we are soon to graduate from one of the most reputable Islamic institutions in the world, that itself is not enough. He explained that our true objective is not to impress people with whom we've studied under. Rather, success is measured by the acceptance of Allah and the impact that we have in the society around us. He stressed to us the importance of going back home and gaining some level of mastery in this dunya. He taught us not to be so arrogant as to assume that there's no wisdom outside of Islamic sciences. His parting advice for us was to take the road less traveled, ensure that we pursue a form of worldly mastery. He was adamant that it's the marriage of deeni and dunyawi capabilities that will allow us to have the greatest impact and benefit to our societies.

The Iftaa Course, First-Principle Thinking & Building Businesses

Upon returning back to the US, I was presented with the opportunity to join Mufti Abrar Sahib's Iftaa course at Darul Iftaa, Chicago. I was always impressed with Mufti Abrar Sahib, having studied fiqh under him at IAE in the years prior. He's an individual who, while balancing an illustrious career in corporate America, exudes ihsan in all his deeni khidmat. Suffice it to say, that if Mufti Abrar Sahib is teaching something or giving a lecture, you could rest assured that it would be at a world-class caliber.

While he taught us many advanced principles that fall outside the scope of this discussion, one of the most impactful takeaways I still carry with me is not to assume strength in conventional wisdoms. He allowed me to experience a level of study that I had yet to encounter in my years prior. One of the many gems he ingrained in us was the importance of first-principle thinking, a lesson that proved invaluable not only in Iftaa, but also in life.

In 2017, while undergoing the Iftaa course, I taught myself how to build PCs, which eventually led me to build a commercial-grade blockchain mining operation set up in a warehouse. Unfortunately, the maintenance of these jerry-rigged systems proved to be a full-time job. This was time I did not have, as my deeni studies were soon to take me to Malaysia. I ultimately decided to wrap up the operation, but it's the experiences I gained from this abandoned venture that now allows me to conduct annual blockchain workshops for Iftaa students. Part philosophical and part technical, these annual workshops bypass the hype of crypto and get into the detailed nuts and bolts of what exactly constitutes a blockchain.

After graduating from the Iftaa course, I travelled to Malaysia and was accepted into INCEIF, which is one of the world's most prominent institutions in Islamic finance. While in Malaysia, I was able to spend a month with a number of PhD candidates who opened my eyes to the power of an effective modern-day waqf system. Unfortunately, however, I ended up having a student visa issue, which caused me to have to delay my studies.

It's in what I had thought to only be a gap year that I seized an excellent opportunity to learn business from my father and assist him in his ventures. There's a famous quote from Jack Ma that highlights the unique lessons that can be derived from working in a large corporation versus a small business. He states that if you want to learn organizational structure, work at a large corporation, but if you want to learn raw passion, that's only found in a small business. And I can attest to this without a shadow of a doubt. It was a year marked by 18-hour workdays, and God forbid I tried to take a weekend off. Suffice it to say, it was the real deal.

While I felt proud learning how to do whatever it takes to get the job done, I was pulled back by Mufti Ibrahim Syed. He recognized my unsustainable work schedule and gave me a piece of advice that shifted my thought process completely. He said that while I was, at the time, unmarried and could technically pull off the kind of hours I was putting in, I should instead create a schedule that accommodates inevitable future obligations. Otherwise, I would begin to build bad habits that could cause serious damage to my future relationship. Now, alhamdulillah, six years later, as a married man with a newborn child, I can say that my family benefits every day from that key advice he had mentioned only once a whole six years ago.

In pursuit of living life on my own terms, I started my own first business venture. I sought to pull from my passions in technology, which is why I chose virtual reality. This was back in 2018, when I incorporated Meta Legacy LLC. After being ridiculed by my friends and family for such an esoteric name, I decided to DBA it as Gamma VR, and it was one of the first dedicated virtual reality facilities opened in the United States. Note that this was three years before Facebook renamed themselves Meta. And what do you know? People didn't find it so silly when Facebook did it. Fast forward to today, Gamma VR, alhamdulillah, has served over 15,000 customers with locations in Chicagoland as well as California.

While at the height of my Gamma VR days in 2018, I had a close eye on the increasingly significant advancements in artificial intelligence. I attended a full-stack coding boot camp and subsequently founded my second venture, a B2B professional service company named Tensor Solutions, which some of you might realize is named after Google's very own TensorFlow library.

2018 was quite a year. Along with my commitments to Gamma VR and Tensor Solutions, I was honored by Dar al-Salam to teach some of the Tafheem program classes on the weekend. I tried my best to display the same level of ihsan in my lessons that I was so fortunate to receive from Mufti Ibrahim and others during the throwback Dar al-Hikmah days.

The American Fiqh Academy & Things Coming Full Circle

In 2019, I was given the honor to contribute to the American Fiqh Academy, which is a registered non-for-profit dedicated to academic research on contemporary juristic matters facing the American Muslim community. This was without a doubt one of the most significant moments in my life. This is the first time I had felt things had come full circle for me. I now had both the credentials and the ability to contribute meaningful research on contemporary topics and be a small part of resolutions that impact the lives of modern-day Muslims. Alhamdulillah.

While there have been a host of significant milestones in the subsequent five years from 2019 to 2024, I'd hate to be considered a shill using this platform to consistently plug myself. I feel this is enough to give you a good intimate understanding of my journey.

Your Call to Action

While I'm blessed to have had, in most aspects of my life, support, there have always been detractors trying to place me in their own contrived boxes. I'm a maulvi, they'd say. What business do I have starting ventures or getting certified as a developer? While your journey may be the inverse of mine, having spent most of your time maybe in the pursuit of dunya and are now hearing the call to action to learn your deen, know that you too may have detractors in your life who look to box you into their own understanding of your capabilities.

We read tons of books and attend various lectures acquiring knowledge from each one of them. But from amongst the various resources that we consume, there are some that, unbeknownst to us, unlock something great. An entire paradigm shift where you're given the opportunity to recreate yourself with new facets to your identity. Throughout my journey, I've been fortunate to answer many such calls to action and have refined a number of different facets, each one lending itself in my ongoing journey to both contribute meaningfully in this deen and to attain financial dominance.

There's a lot left unsaid, but one thing is certain. You too can tread this path in your own manner. In doing so, you would not only attain invaluable knowledge and principles of our beautiful deen, but you would also build relationships with individuals who can help guide you through life's twists and turns. Whether it be joining the one-year intensive or going all-in with the Alimiyyah course, one thing is for certain — we need more individuals that are willing to cross this bridge. Secularly trained professionals willing to make serious commitments in studying this beautiful deen of ours, and ulama willing to attain some form of mastery of this fleeting dunya. It's with such dualistic individuals that we can mature our civilization and transcend beyond mediocrity and into undeniable forces of change.

This is your call to action, my beloved brothers. And whatever you may ultimately choose to do, just know, without a doubt, history has its eyes on you.

Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed: Raising the Bar for Muslim Youth

Jazakumullah khairan Mufti Nabil. I think from all of the ventures you mentioned, creative and able writing must have been one of them as well, mashallah.

Just building off of that, it seems as though we have a lot of young professionals here or maybe high school and college students that are thinking about their various career paths that they're going to venture on. So I wanted to hear a little bit more — what are your thoughts, Mufti Sahib, on the aptitude and the passion that Muslim youth of today need to have going forward to push our Muslim civilization forward? And is that lacking in any way?

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim. Alhamdulillah. First of all, I want to say a loud takbir for Mufti Sahib's story. MashAllah. It was very inspiring. And for people to simply follow along — if you're on your phone or if you were just texting away, you wouldn't understand what's happening. If you simply were able to put your phone away and listen for 20 minutes, that's a good sign. Because nowadays, also a big chunk of our population can't do that. So alhamdulillah. It requires a level of calmness and deliberation to simply follow along and listen. Can you imagine how much level of deliberation and commitment it requires to even achieve whatever he spoke about today?

Life Is Eternal — The Perspective of the Believer

For a believer, for a Muslim, the motivation for us is the fact that life is very, very, very long. How long? Eternity. It never finishes. Because the life of this world is just a teeny tiny dot that is just a starting. The real life is the life of the hereafter.

This worldly life is just plain amusement. The real life is yet to come. So when you have such a long life, you want to make sure you're sitting in the right place. If a person is boarding a plane or a bus, and you don't have the best seat — you're sitting in a middle seat in the back where the seat can't recline — if it's a short one-hour flight on Frontier or Spirit, it's a short flight, okay. But to travel like that internationally for 12–14 hours, I don't think it would be a good idea.

When we are boarding our life, to understand that this is a life that will never end:

A person will remain in paradise or hell forever. You want to make sure you get a good spot. You know how people rush to board first in their flight, paying extra to board early, because they just want to have a nice spot? There's a huge difference in the seat you get in the Akhirah — hell and paradise.

There is a huge difference in the type of levels in paradise, as well as the different types of darajat and levels in hellfire. And it's all dependent on how you and I spend the few 60, 70, 80 years that we have on this earth.

So when we think about this — the fact that every moment of my life, every moment, tonight, you're gonna be in the masjid for this one hour — this one hour is equivalent to hundreds and thousands of years of the Akhirah. Because let's say you got 60 or 70 years on this earth, and you divide that up over infinity. So basically, every single moment we have is priceless. However you spend every moment is gonna have a massive effect on the long term of where you and I are gonna be headed.

So when a Muslim has that perspective, that's a good enough reason not to lead a mediocre life. That's a good enough reason to be ambitious. That's a good enough reason to really try to reach the horizon, to rise to the heavens, to really work hard to make your life as productive as possible because it will all play out. As soon as you and I leave this world, the result will be very clear in front of us.

So I think for a Muslim, it's a no-brainer for you to be number one in your class, to be number one entrepreneur, to be a number one medical professional, to be a number one lawyer, to be a number one real estate agent, to be a number one non-for-profit organization, to be the number one in anything. Because you've got one chance to make an impact, and it's not about making an impact so you receive a reward by some organization. It's that you will make the impact on people, but that impact will make directly an impact on your hereafter. So it's about you. The impact you do on the world is gonna directly come back right to you. And so the greater the impact on the world, the greater impact it will have on having a nice, better, beautiful place in paradise, inshallah.

The Golden Era of Muslim Civilization

And so this is why we see the golden era of science is when Muslims were leading that wave. And Muslims are the best entrepreneurs. They're gonna be the best scientists. They're gonna be the best inventors. Why? True Muslims. It's because their motivation is not money.

SubhanAllah, yesterday, one medical student, mashallah, told me — he's one of our students here — he said his Jewish professor told him: "I want to ensure that when you get into medical school and you're trying to plan out your residencies and what you're getting into, make sure that your passion does not become money. Make sure that doesn't be your driving force. Otherwise you'll lose the true spirit and soul of medicine when it just becomes money." And he said the majority of people unfortunately fall into this trap. The Jewish non-Muslim professor was telling him this. And subhanAllah, for us as Muslims, we're like — this should come to us naturally because we believe in the hereafter.

Why was the golden era of science led by Muslims, while Europe was in the middle ages, looking towards the Muslim civilization to provide inspiration? It's because Muslims were being led not by money, not by desire to control the world, not by a desire to become the most powerful, but by a desire to unlock the secrets of the heavens — to understand an even greater level of Allah's ma'rifah. They were unlocking the secrets of medicine to serve Allah's creation. They were unlocking the secrets of physics and biology and chemistry and astronomy, all for a bigger, grander purpose than themselves and their stomachs and their wealth. When you have that type of pure, larger grand vision, then there is no shortage of passion. There is no shortage of vision. There is no shortage of passion to work hard.

But my dear brothers, when Muslims lost their iman, lost their Islam — not only did we become like the rest, we became the worst. So not only did we lose our deen, but we lost our passion for dunya as well. So it's so sad to see overseas as well as over here, that many Muslim youth are absolutely unambitious when it comes to deen or dunya.

Spirituality as the Root of All Productivity

In the madrasah, whenever I ask students, "How are your a'mal? How is your spirituality? How is your night? How is your adhkar?" — if that's good, I know you're good. Because if you're on top of your individual ibadah, you're staying away from sin, you've got your tongue moist in the remembrance of Allah, you're reading your Qur'an regularly, you're praying your sunnah, your nawafil, you have your basics down — then that will give you the motivation to be studious in class. That will give you the motivation to burn the midnight oil and study subjects that are breaking your back, that seem like your brain is gonna burst because of how hard they are. But you will stay motivated because you're doing it for Allah.

But no sooner do our spirituality start slipping — we get involved in haram, we start looking at what we shouldn't, listening to what we shouldn't, saying what we shouldn't, and become negligent in our prayers — what will happen? Then we will ourselves start becoming deflated. Our spirit will become deflated. Our ambition will become deflated. And you will see that reflection in class: start showing up late, missing class, not doing your homework, not coming prepared, failing your exams. It's all directly connected to your spirituality.

And so if this is in madrasah studies, most definitely this is outside as well. If you serve Allah and you truly think, "I am a servant of Allah with a mission," — how can you be at the bottom of your class in school? How can you not be at the top 5%, 10% of your school? How can you not be ambitious in whatever you're doing? Because you're not doing it for a grade. You're not doing it to impress your mom and dad only. You're not doing it to impress anyone. You realize that your dunya is your deen.

This is what the Muslim does. A Muslim does not think the deen is in the masjid only. He thinks deen is at university, at college, at the workplace, and in the corporate world — wherever he is, he's out there to serve deen. And when you have to serve Allah and the deen, then you will make the most use of whatever opportunities Allah gives you.

Learning from the Revivers of Islam

Hence I feel a Muslim of today needs to reflect on the amazing stories of the giants of the past, the revivers of Islam — not only of the era of the sahaba, because sometimes we read that and we're like, "Oh man, that's a bygone era." No, right now too. The revivers of Islam of today, whether it's Mawlana Qasim al-Nanotwi, whether it's Mawlana Ilyas al-Kandalwi, whether it's Shaykh Zakariyya al-Kandalwi, whether it is your own teachers, the leaders and founding fathers of the Muslim community of Chicago and beyond — they may not have been ulama, they may not have been graduates of formally established educational institutions, but their passion and their desire to serve deen in this country, even though they just had maybe an engineering degree, or a medical degree, or a law degree — mashallah, they did their work and they left. And they left behind such an amazing legacy that they're gone, but now we're building on that legacy.

So I think for all of us Muslims, if we want to have a bright future and we want to leave a beautiful legacy, it goes directly back to strengthening our relationship with our faith. Strengthening our relationship with Allah. And to have a very clear vision: why do I go to school? Do not go to medical school, or law school, or any other school for that matter, because it's a cool thing to do, because it's what my mom and dad want — that's honestly a very low, cheap type of intention. Whatever you're doing, have a very lofty reason. And there's nothing more lofty than, "I'm trying to please Allah and trying to build my Akhirah." When that comes into you, then no obstacle will remain an obstacle. Every obstacle you will regard as an opportunity to get even closer to Allah.

So mashallah, this beautiful group of brothers who are here tonight — I'm hoping as we continue this discussion that we divorce mediocrity. Done. Khalas. I'm done with this. We have to learn how to become ambitious. And Mufti Nabil, and for that matter any of you who are high achievers, will never be able to achieve this if we are phone addicts. If we are TikTok addicts. If we just sit there and scroll, scroll, scroll — all that does is makes you dumber every single day. Makes you slower, makes you an addict. Doesn't get you anywhere in life.

If you really want to become something, learn how not to be a scroller of the screen. Learn how to actually create programs. No one says don't embrace technology — Mufti Sahib has got multiple companies. He only spoke about two or three. He's got many other businesses in the technology sector. A lot can be done there. But the idea is we should be the ones who are the innovators, the trendsetters — not just the consumers. We're the ones who are actually going to set the trend. We're the ones who are going to provide solutions to the problems.

And we are not going to just create a product that will sell well but that we know long-term would be harmful to the ummah. We can't do that. Our conscience will not allow us to create a product that we know deep down is harmful to the youth or to the future of the ummah — Muslim and non-Muslim. Where do you learn these ethics? No business school is going to teach you these ethics. The best MBA programs of our country will create capitalists and policy makers, but will not teach the morals, ethics, and values. Because the people in office within this country and the rest of the world — including the Muslim world — they have all sorts of fancy degrees, but they don't have the ethics and values and morals that Islam gives. And when you are devoid of those ethics, morals, and values, then Allah forbid you become this unbelievable monster that is just focused on fulfilling its own appetite and does not care how much blood is shed, how many lives are ruined, or how much of the environment is destroyed.

Yes, we care about the environment. When you hear about global warming, when you hear about the destruction of the oceans and the forests — this is not some "Ghora thing," this is our thing. Why are we destroying the amanah Allah has given us? Just for increased profits? Why are the capitalists not thinking about it? Because they think:

"We only have this worldly life, that's it." And the Muslim says, "No, we don't. This is just one blip. The Akhirah is coming." If you destroy this earth, you destroy the water, you destroy the trees, you destroy nature — you will pay the price for it. Not only in this world; Allah will hold us accountable.

What did the Prophet ﷺ tell us about wudu? He said that if you're doing wudu at the banks of a river, be careful not to waste water — even if you're doing wudu at the banks of a river, make sure you do not waste water. What would he say to what's happening in the world today? So environmental protection is an Islamic thing. Protection of animals is an Islamic thing. Protection of children's rights, women's rights, men's rights, non-Muslim rights, Muslim rights, prisoners' rights — all of that is part of our Islam.

So what we need from this amazing group of brothers who are listening here is for you tonight, as you continue asking questions and engaging with Mufti Nabil and Abdullah and myself, to start thinking of your own course. Where do you see your life taking you? We said only 18 and above are here. There are no kids. There are all supposed to be young men who are baligh. We are at the age of the sahaba and the tabi'een who were conquering countries. Each one of you could have been not just a foot soldier or a battalion commander, but rather a general of an entire army if you were during the time of the Prophet ﷺ. Yes or no? Every one of you sitting on the ground in the back — you could, subhanAllah, have been battalion commanders during the time of the Prophet ﷺ.

Now we've got to start thinking about that. What is it gonna take from where I'm sitting now to become something great? What is it gonna take for my journey from where I am now to become someone that — subhanAllah — a hundred years later, people will say, "We don't know who his name was fully, but this man left an impact."

And so tonight is about taking the passion to action. For some of us we already have the passion — we need to now generate an action plan on how to make it practical. And for some of us tonight, hopefully it's about creating within us passion. And I hope whichever part of these two you are from, that you walk away having achieved it, inshallah.

Q&A: From Passion to Practical Action Plans

Question: How Do We Translate Passion Into a Real Action Plan?

It seems like Ramadan comes and we're filled with passion and then not even four or five days later it's gone. Or we listen to a talk and we're filled up with passion once again. We hear Mufti Nabil, we may hear a TED talk, and suddenly we want to create a business the next night. But by the time we wake up, we forgot what that incredible idea was. So what are the real action steps? What do we start doing right then when an amazing thought comes into our mind and this passion builds? How do we transfer that to the next step and create a three-month, six-month, and long-term plan for it to actualize?

Mufti Nabil: So there's a famous saying in Urdu: رات گئی بات گئی — "the night has passed, and the matter has passed." Often times guys will be discussing with their friends — "oh we should do this, we should do that, we should do this amazing thing" — and they'll talk, they'll chat up each other's ears all night and come up with elaborate discussions. And then the next morning all of that goes straight out the window.

So there are a couple of aspects I want to touch on. First and foremost, you shouldn't necessarily jump to do any wild idea that just pops into your head. That would actually be counterintuitive to making good, sustainable progress towards your goals. Rather, when you find something that makes sense, you do the due diligence first. You check to see: does this truly make sense? Just because my intuition is inclined towards it — that's not a sufficient variable to say it's something I'm going to be dedicating months or years of my life to. It's often very easy, before you engage in actually doing the work, to trivialize how difficult it's truly going to be. So I highly encourage due diligence to be done first before making any decisions to go all in.

Now once you've done the necessary due diligence, what I personally do is I pull from a method that's used by Asana. Where it's essentially a pyramid with different layers. The topmost layer is the mission. What are we trying to achieve here? What is the ultimate mission of this venture? One step below that is the one-year plan. Realistically, making plans beyond a year — of course everyone has different opinions, but making these elaborate five-year plans and eight-year plans, the setting in which you're doing the work also contributes as a factor, and this setting is constantly transforming. So for you to spend too much time planning beyond a year ahead, in terms of a venture, it might have depleting returns.

Under that you have internal targets — what are the KPIs, the key performance indicators, that if you were to hit those, you'd assume that you'll be successful in hitting your goals? There are those things you can control, there are those things you cannot control. But if you commit to hitting these key markers, then the rest is up to Allah. You'd hope that Allah will give you success. And then the last layer of that pyramid is going to be your monthly progress. What do you literally have to do on a day-to-day basis to ensure that you're hitting your monthly targets that will be hitting your internal goals that would be allowing for you to achieve the mission that you're embarking on?

Now a couple of things I want to mention. I want to build quickly off of Mufti Sahib's, mashallah, very passionate speech. He mentioned something about having your spirituality in check. Now, a beautiful thing to note here — if you do have your spirituality in check, you're waking up for tahajjud, you're putting in the work, you're praying all of your salat — you will find such barakah in your time that, if there are 12 months in a year, you will find, as I do, that you have 13.

As a Muslim, you know how in business — whether Charlie Munger or Warren Buffett — they have the concept of a moat around your business. There's a castle. The castle has defenses. One of the most common defenses is a drawbridge over a moat — a huge hole that's dug around that castle to keep it safe. If the drawbridge is up, nobody can get in. So the concept is to have this moat around your business, making it difficult for other people to replicate what you're doing because you have that competitive advantage.

There is without a shadow of a doubt that if you have your spirituality in check, as a Muslim, this is your competitive advantage — even in the dunya. This is the moat around your business — even in the dunya. People are not going to be able to have that level of passion that you do. Look at Muslim armies — how were they indestructible? You have a group of people that are engaging with the dunya for the sake of the dunya, and then you have another group of people that aren't even afraid to die — that find it a success if Allah accepts them as a shaheed. And they're not engaging in the dunya for the sake of dunya. They're engaging in the dunya for the sake of Allah. There's no comparison.

You'll find that the majority of people around you are like zombies. They're not in tune with reality. They're completely distracted — and that is your advantage. What do non-Muslims do to get that edge? Everybody is chewing nicotine right now. You don't need that. If you have clarity of thought and clarity of mind that Allah provides for you — if you have your spirituality in check — you'll find that you have such a competitive advantage that everyone around you, as Sheikh Hussain Abdul Sattar pretty much describes them, are like zombies walking around.

Mufti Azeemuddin: The Spiritual Edge in Every Field

SubhanAllah. There are many brothers and sisters who are running for office. And they come and ask, "Can we pass out some flyers? Can we run for this position or that position?" I say, "Mashallah, no problem, we can talk about that." But whenever I tell them — you have all these people doing door-to-door, passing out leaflets, campaigning, all that — that's good stuff. But what Mufti Nabil just said: you have an edge. You have this outstanding tool, if you use it.

I said: make sure your staffers — if they're Muslim staffers — that you have a group that is dedicated to doing dhikr of Allah. Monday and Thursday fasting. Every day two raka'at salatul hajah. Daily giving sadaqa. Support an orphan, support something else. Give sadaqa on behalf of your campaign. And then have set goals of how much dhikr you're going to do every single day as a group. That will give you an advantage over anyone else. Then on top of that you do your calls and robocalls and ads and everything else. And you'll see, subhanAllah, there will be such amazing barakah in that campaign.

But unfortunately we have relegated all of this dhikr and du'a to "the masjid people." Just brothers, you guys take care of this stuff. We're doing the real work outside. But there's no real work happening outside. That's why unfortunately most of the people who even win end up losing their faith. They're not representing the faith. The reason we pushed them into politics and supported them — they don't represent Islam as soon as they get into office. Many of them don't.

So this is something I think all of us need to incorporate: whatever field you're in, include those night a'mal. As they say about the Sahaba:

They used to ride the horses by day and ride their musallas at night. They were knights by day and monks by night.

You have to bring these two things together. SubhanAllah, this is what will give us an edge wherever we go.

Question: How Do We Maintain Our Spirituality After Ramadan?

It seems like Ramadan, the purpose of this is:

Wiqayah — protection — to create that moat. So, do we also set up a pyramid or some sort of action plan for ourselves right after Ramadan to maintain our spirituality throughout the year? And if we didn't do so previously, should we start writing these out, make charts for it, set monthly goals?

Mufti Nabil: Yes, without a shadow of a doubt — as they say, you can't improve that which you don't track. It's very common to have somewhat of a diary that has your objectives or your to-do list that you're trying to achieve for that day. Allah makes things very easy during Ramadan, alhamdulillah. But maintaining a working diary, inshallah, will keep you accountable later on as well. Because if you're consistent with it, even if you don't do the actions, you're going to find a bunch of empty squares staring right back at you.

But if you're doing it solely by yourself, there's a certain level that you'll be able to achieve. Oftentimes, people just ditch it altogether because they're like, "I don't even want to stare at those empty boxes." But if you have someone connected to you that's holding you accountable — maybe every month at the end of the month, you're sharing your diary with them just for them to look through it and sign off on it — that's exactly what we used to do during the Iftaa course. We had a regimen that we had to follow, and we'd be checking those boxes and the diary would get checked as well. So there's that accountability factor. It's always good to hold yourself accountable in that manner.

Now here's the thing — there are certain things that if you're able to instill in yourself early on, you're only doing yourself a benefit. One of those things that was advised to me — alhamdulillah, I took it and ran with it — is: if you're attending a lecture or a discussion, you should make it a goal that without a shadow of a doubt, you are going to take something from it that you will apply to your life. And you have to be vigorous, you have to be adamant with yourself that there is something — if not all the various things discussed — there must be something that you're taking with you and running with it. Otherwise, you're just adding on to your collection that serves no benefit or no purpose. That's one piece of advice that has helped me so much in my life. And I pray that Allah inspires you to also take that lesson, inshallah. That's gonna help, because there are a lot of discussions that are going to happen during Ramadan, and if for every discussion you take something and run with it, you'll be in a good spot after Ramadan's over as well.

Mufti Azeemuddin: Ramadan as a Season for Complete Renewal

Talking about building good habits — Ramadan is a time of reshuffling our entire day. It's upside down, inside out. Our sleeping habits, our eating habits, everything. It's like a complete shakedown of our entire schedule. So when you are doing a major renovation, as someone has given the example — if you're spending time doing a major renovation and all the workers are there, you're changing the painting, you're adding a light here and there — what do we say? With all this stuff that we're doing, we might as well just change the carpet as well. A new carpet gives a whole nice fresh look. Because the whole place is getting messy and dusty anyway. Let's just go all out and change everything else too.

Ramadan is a time when our pre-Ramadan life is completely shaken up. We should use this opportunity to just go all out and say, "That's it. I'm going to do a deep cleaning." Let me go and figure out what are all the bad habits that I've got right now as an 18-year-old, or as a 25-year-old. Write a list. Just recognizing your flaws and faults — that's 50% of the problem. Then the next 50% is the working on it — you will get there once you recognize your destination. Most of us have never given enough thought to: "These are my major flaws and faults that I need to improve on." That needs to be written down. That's your own personal journey. And then use Ramadan — when everything is already upside down — to say, "Khalas, I'm going to get rid of these bad habits."

For example, let's say you have the habit of drinking coffee or tea every single day multiple times. Or — Allah forbid — a common habit nowadays, way too common, is different forms of stimulants, different forms of intoxicants, different forms of marijuana. E-cigarettes, vapes, and marijuana of different types is unfortunately a pandemic right now. So Ramadan — at least for those hours a person is not using it — this is the time not to say, "Khalas, let me use it after iftar" or "let me plan to use it after Ramadan ends." No. When I'm already staying away from it, let me write this down: "I have an addiction problem" — and use this opportunity to simply get rid of this bad habit.

Some may have a habit of misusing their social media, looking at what they should not be looking at, spending hours addicted to haram. None of us are proud of it. But this is the time to say: "If I'm staying away from this for 6, 7, 8, 10, 12 hours, let me work on truly getting rid of this habit once and for all."

So if we want to make the most use of Ramadan, dear students — recognize what your flaws and faults are and make a complete makeover. What are the bad habits I need to flush out of my system? And what are some good habits? For example, one great habit that many of us have established in Ramadan is performing salatul fajr and isha in the masjid. Mashallah, the masajid are packed. Obviously, we have a ton of people who weren't praying fajr and isha before in the masjid who are now praying. That's an amazing habit.

But why can't we do this after Ramadan? You didn't go tell your university, "I'm in Ramadan, so I'm taking off." You didn't tell school you weren't going to show up. All of us are going to school or college. You have NBA players, mashallah, playing while fasting. So we can do it. We can seriously say: there's no reason for me not to be performing fajr and isha in the masjid after Ramadan. But you won't be able to do it until you make a commitment that this is a good habit you want to have within yourself.

So Ramadan is that opportunity to highlight the negative components from our life and say: "By the end of Ramadan, I'm going to get at least these three things out of my system. By hajj, I'm going to get these next three out. By next September, October, I'm going to get these other ones out. By next Ramadan, I've got nine or twelve bad habits out of my system."

And never underestimate the value of the mother's du'a. How many of you have asked your mom: "Mama, please make du'a for me that I become more productive. Can you please make du'a for me that I spend time in the company of motivated, good friends? Please can you make du'a for me that I spend less time on my phone?" You know how your mom would feel? Not only would she make du'a from her heart for you — that's going to hit. Mom and dad's du'as are extremely valuable. Make that list and say: "Can you please make du'a that I can get these good habits in me? Can you please make this du'a that I can get rid of these bad habits?" Go ask them — who loves you more than your parents? And whose du'a is more effective than your parents?

The Spiritual Buddy & Mentor System

Mufti Nabil spoke about having a chart. We developed a Ramadan checklist — it's there in the back. We created that just for you, and for myself and all of us. How to spend your 30 days properly. If you spend those 30 days properly, you will be able to spend the rest of the year properly. It's not meant only for Ramadan. What do we have in there? We've got Suhoor. Of course you're not going to be fasting the whole year, but you're going to fast at least maybe Mondays and Thursdays, or the 13th, 14th, and 15th of the lunar month. You've got your Salatul Fajr, with Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha — with tasbeeh: سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ 33 times, الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ 33 times, اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ 34 times. Reading Surah al-Mulk and Surah al-Sajdah before you go to bed. Reading Salatul Ishraq in the morning after sunrise — that's beneficial and will give you barakah in your entire day.

Now in order for us to be motivated to continue to fill out that chart, we need to have a spiritual buddy or a mentor. A mentor meaning someone above us. A spiritual buddy means one of our colleagues and peers. I was traveling with one mufti, a young mawlana, mashallah, maybe in his mid-twenties. And I was so inspired — we were traveling together, staying in the same hotel. At one o'clock, before we got into bed, he's reading. Before fajr, while I was doing wudu, he's reading. Between talks, he's reading. So I asked him, "What are you reading?" He said: "I have my older brother as my mentor in reading. Every single day I have a commitment to read 60 pages of Arabic outside of what I teach. And I have to message him to say I'm done. And until I'm not done, I can't go to sleep."

He's married. He's a teacher of many students. He's been teaching for five to six years. But he realized that he needs someone above him — even if it means an older brother — to keep him motivated for his own self-development. That's what we all need to do. You need to find a spiritual buddy — your own friend — to make sure you're there for Fajr. "Come pick me up please. If I'm not there, you've got to come knock on my door, call me, call me, call me, call me, until I'm up." You have to make sure that you text each other how many cards you've filled out. That you send pictures every single day to each other. You find a spiritual buddy. Ideally, you want to work towards finding an older mentor — a scholar who is well-versed in the sciences of spirituality and well-versed in the field that you're in — who can give you good advice on how to become a successful college student, businessman, or entrepreneur.

Alhamdulillah, most of us are blessed with parents who are alive. So if we have that blessing, mashallah, they are our number one mentors. Utilize them and benefit from them. May Allah give them long life and health. But along with that, we can reach out to a scholar, the local imam of our masjid, a youth director, and say: "Can I reach out to you for advice? Not only when I'm stuck in a deep ditch — that's not what a mentor is supposed to be for. I want to stay connected with you throughout my daily life."

I want you to think about this before you leave tonight: Who is your spiritual buddy? Raise your hand if you already have a mentor. Raise your hand if you already have a spiritual buddy — one of your peers who is there checking with you. So we have a lot of work to do. That's one of our goals for tonight. The first goal is for all of us to figure out what our main flaws are that we need to work on, what good habits we built in Ramadan that we want to keep up afterward. And then we're going to have a mentor or a spiritual buddy who's going to help us achieve that. If we take this practical step, inshallah, we'll see our life will turn around for the better.

Q&A: Overcoming Bad Company & Environmental Influences

Question: How Do We Overcome Haram Environments & Bad Company?

What steps can I take to be a better Muslim while constantly being surrounded by haram? A lot of young brothers struggle with self-control and bad company. What are the non-individual barriers that bar us from coming together, working together, and rising up as one ummah?

Mufti Nabil: In society, people often feel uncomfortable talking about religion to others — it's considered a private matter. This is definitely a stigma that we as Muslims want to make sure we do not have. It was very common for the sahaba to ask each other, "How is your iman doing? Where's your level at?" — a question that, for us, might feel a little bit awkward to ask our friend outside of the masjid. So I would say first and foremost, we need to break down those barriers with one another. It should be commonplace for us to check in with each other to make sure that we're all in a good spot.

With that being said, the environment is extremely important. That one year I was in Pakistan — that was the first time in my life that I ever went, and I was, for an entire year, cold turkey — I didn't come back for any of the breaks. The environment in Pakistan, it's not just the fact that when you're driving on 294 or 355, there are these disgusting billboards wherever you go that you can't avoid. Even when you're on your phone, on a news site, there are all these random things that'll pop up at all times, right? They're unavoidable at some point. In Pakistan, however, a lot of these things are banned. First of all, there were no billboards like that. And frankly, I was in a madrasah for the whole year. I found it was so simple and easy for me to do the a'mal that back here at home, it's a lot more difficult.

The point I'm trying to make is: you should be a guard at the door of your mind. Everyone is vying for your attention. This is an attention economy that we're living in now. They found a way to monetize views. So it's all about how can they get your views. You have to be cognizant of the fact that companies, corporations, organizations, influencers, and people are all vying for your attention. So be very selective about what you allow to enter.

Mufti Sahib mentioned doom scrolling. You've heard of this? Doom scrolling — where you've completely forgotten what time it even is and you've been on there for about two and a half hours. TikTok is even giving you warnings. They send you warnings: "You should go get some water, you've been scrolling for too long." So that's called doom scrolling. When you're doom scrolling, you are allowing an algorithm to decide what your brain — the most precious thing you have — consumes. How could that be? Imagine if it was food. Imagine if there was an algorithm that was just stuffing your face with random garbage. You would not tolerate that. But we tolerate and allow algorithms to feed into our mind whatever random thing they feel would hold our attention the longest.

Be a guard at the door of your mind, be very selective of what you allow your brain to be exposed to, and Allah will make matters easier for you, inshallah.

"A man follows the religion of his friend; so let each one of you look at whom he befriends." (Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 4833; Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2378)

A man will follow the religion of his friend. So be careful who you befriend. Mufti Nabil and I were speaking about this before this event began — if we want to be motivated and high achievers and get somewhere, we have to ensure we're surrounded by people of that sort. If we're surrounded by people who are simply thinking about how to spend the night at this coffee shop or that coffee shop, who do not care to have constructive, beneficial conversations about the deen or the dunya, then we won't get anywhere.

As Mufti Sahib said, anytime you're sitting with someone, you have to see: I am actually spending time here. If I asked your brother, "Can you give me a hundred dollars?" Maybe a few of you would give, for whatever cause. Many would say, "No, I'm tight." But if I say, "Brother, let's sit here for two hours and chitchat" — mashallah, everyone is ready to give. What are we saying? My time is cheaper than money? I won't give you ten bucks, but I'll do an all-nighter at a coffee shop? What did you get at the end of it? Nothing. You missed your Fajr, you missed the whole next morning, everything is wasted. People are so free with their time.

There is an amazing book — Qeemat al-Zaman 'Ind al-'Ulama by Sheikh Abdul Fattah Abu Ghuddah — on the value of time in the eyes of scholars. If you know Arabic, search for Qeemat al-Zaman 'Ind al-'Ulama. It's an outstanding, motivating book. There's a statement of one of the scholars where someone comes to him and says, "Do you have a minute?" And you know what he told him? He said, "Stop the sun — then I'll talk." If you can't stop the sun, then I don't have time. Meaning: stop the movement of time, and then I can give you time. Because time is never stopping for you.

Before you sign up to anything, see what is the return on that investment. The most important thing you have is your time. That's your ra's al-mal — that's your capital. And so be careful who you give it out to.

Question: Does Everyone Need to Become a Scholar?

How do you balance between secular education and religious education? Does everyone need to become a scholar to revitalize themselves?

Mufti Nabil: Something very pertinent to this question is the hadith that the Prophet ﷺ says — that people are like mines of gold and of silver. We all have unique qualities, and we have our role to play in this narrative. Allah chose for us this time frame to live in — it was intentional. Anything that Allah, the most wise, does is never free of wisdom. You should search for that wisdom. You should introspect: "I'm here now, I have certain qualities and passions and ambitions in life, and Allah chose for me to be here to benefit this society. There must be a reason for this."

"People are like mines of gold and silver..." (Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2638)

If you're a professional, you should aim to be the absolute best in that profession. Mediocrity is not allowed — it's not on the table. Along with that, you should infuse knowledge of the deen. You have to of course know your fara'id — that goes without saying. Every single Muslim has to have that level of fard knowledge. But going above and beyond: you don't just want to get by. You want to do something, you want to leave an impact.

No, it's not necessary for everyone to do an extensive multi-year course. But even doing a one-year intensive gives you something invaluable. Look — people who go to Ivy League universities: you can get Harvard's CS courses online for free. But what's the added benefit of actually attending? You also have that alumni base. You have a group of individuals that care about you, that want you to be successful because you're repping the same brand they're repping. We shouldn't diminish the value when you do a course like a one-year intensive. Yes, the knowledge you're gaining is there, but you're also sharing experiences with people who are on the same path. If someone's a professional taking a gap year to learn their deen, that's a serious person. That's not someone joking around. That's the type of person you want to be around. You will be the sum of them.

Ultimately, you don't have to do a full-on extensive study — but you should at least study to the extent that you're at a level beyond mediocrity. Because mediocrity is not acceptable, it is not on the table. Please keep in mind — you are in a non-Muslim country. You must make an impact. You must be different. Mediocrity is not sufficient. If you're here, you're here with a mission. So it's important for us to recognize what that mission is earlier rather than later, inshallah.

Traps of Mediocrity & Practical Productivity Tips

Mufti Nabil: So we've already talked about capacity and how if you have your spirituality in check, you have an increased capacity that others do not — that's your competitive advantage. Another thing is to be wary of pitfalls — what I call traps of mediocrity. Gaming, for example, is a trap of mediocrity. Being too involved with spectator sports — not playing the sport, but just watching and knowing all the names of athletes and their records — that's a trap of mediocrity. And all the bala'at — pornography, for example, is one of the biggest traps of mediocrity. It takes away your willpower. It makes you a shy person. As a man, you have the ability to invoke change. But if you allow these cheap vehicles to take that passion away from you, you'll be a shell of an individual — not willing to do anything big, not willing to do something impactful.

So if you find that you're stuck in some of these traps of mediocrity, try in this Ramadan to free yourself of that. Like Mufti Sahib made an excellent point — your schedule is completely mixed up during Ramadan. It's akin to the benefits of traveling. When you travel, you're able to do deep introspection and make changes in your life. Why? Because you don't have the same routine that you're accustomed to in your normal day. Take advantage of these opportunities to free yourself from the clutches of such traps of mediocrity. That, paired with the fact that you have an increased capacity, inshallah, you'll be an undeniable, unstoppable force in this world, inshallah.

Question: What Specific Systems Help Maximize Time?

Questioner: JazakAllah khair for sharing all this wonderful advice. What systems did you implement that were the most effective in leveraging the time that you have — to make the most out of it and accomplish all that you did in your life?

Mufti Nabil: So there are different types of schedules. If you look at a calendar and you have every 15 minutes another block of something there — that's called a manager's schedule, where you're effectively using every little portion of time. But there's another style called a creator's schedule, where you have large blocks of time blocked out, and in those blocks you're dedicating focused work — let's say two and a half or three hours. It's not necessary that you're optimizing every 10 or 15 minutes. Sometimes that's actually counterproductive.

The main thing is to ensure there isn't waste that's accumulated in your schedule. Whether you're going with a manager's schedule or a creator's schedule — what remains the same between both is that you eliminate any type of useless waste that's depriving you of making progress.

Specifically how I do it: there are excellent productivity tools you can use. For example, if someone wants to have a discussion, I have a booking tool where they can find what time in my schedule works best and book that time and set an agenda — so we have a useful, productive conversation rather than just getting on a random phone call and wasting time. There are also really good tools powered by AI that are essentially acting as a project manager for your life. They'll take all of your various obligations and tasks as a backlog and optimize to tell you the most pertinent thing to do according to the deadlines and priorities you've set. You can even set dependencies between tasks such that it prioritizes completing things that other tasks depend on.

Whether you go a very technical route or manage things in your own notebook or diary — that's not the main purpose of this discussion. Rather, just ensure that there isn't wasted time. There can't be time that's unaccounted for, that you're just scrolling through. One last thing: there's a waterfall method and there's an agile method. In a waterfall approach, you pre-plan the whole next month, you start plotting out everything you're going to do. It's often a wasted exercise — because life happens. You're going to miss that arrangement. Instead of plotting out these extended, long time frames, hold yourself accountable at the end of every single day. Reflect back: how was this day spent? Is there room for improvement? Did I hit my targets? That's more effective than spending all the time planning and none of the time doing. Don't fall into that trap either, okay? Inshallah.

Question: How Do You Get Out of a Freefall of Wasted Time?

If you're on a weekend, already wasting two or three hours, and you just remember the amazing advice from tonight — how do you get out of the freefall?

Mufti Nabil: First of all, how did you get yourself in that position in the first place? If you had set for yourself a lofty objective, you wouldn't find it feasible that you are on a weekend doom-scrolling. If that is the case, then maybe the goal isn't set, or the bar isn't set high enough. A real passion, something you're working towards, prevents you from even being in that situation in the first place.

But to address the question: there's a concept that if you commit a sin, it's easier to commit another sin. But if you do good — even the smallest of actions, like keeping a door open for someone — it actually makes it progressively easier for your next action to also be a good action. So what you need to do in that case is what I call an interrupt. You have to actively do something that will interrupt that cycle and get you back on a productive line of thinking or work. Otherwise, shaitan plays with you: "I already spent an hour doom-scrolling, I might as well play video games. Today's over. I'll start tomorrow." You want to right there do a break in the behavior and make sure you get back on track.

Mufti Azeemuddin: I think one of the best breaks is to go do fresh wudu. And if you live near the masjid — even five minutes away — get in the car and go. Even if your local masjid is closed for salah, if you're getting there ten minutes early, sit outside in the parking lot and use that time in the car outside the masjid to do something productive. Just get out of the environment. You need to leave your bedroom. You need to leave where you wasted three hours. You need to change the environment. Definitely doing wudu and getting in the car and leaving is great. If you cannot do that, then at least do wudu, go to another part of the house, and perform two raka'at salah. Say, "Allah, forgive me for the time I wasted." Maybe you can make up some qada salah, or pray two raka'at nafl, or read a page or two of Qur'an — some spiritual boost to change things up and put a barrier between what happened and your future. Doing wudu is such a beautiful gift of Allah. It just changes everything.

Overcoming Haram: Practical & Spiritual Solutions

Question: How Do We Get Rid of Lustful Desires and Addiction?

Mufti Azeemuddin: Alhamdulillah, the first step is: we acknowledge it. We know these are issues I'm dealing with. That's the first thing. Number two will be, inshallah, to figure out — as Mufti Sahib said — how did we end up in this? Where did I start smoking from? When did I get this lust? Go back in your life. When did I start this sin? And you will realize that it was that one day I downloaded the app and khalas, I'm done.

Dear students, there's no way we can avoid it unless you cut out that cancer from your life. That toxic friend — you have to leave. That toxic app — you have to cut it out. So first and foremost, the basic steps are the control of our phones and social media. That's the number one point. We can't get anywhere if we're stuck with this stuff. If we want to become mature spiritually and academically, we have to work with this.

I remember when I went to some university a few years ago and I spoke about this topic. I said, "Okay, who's ready to go on like a phone fast?" And mashallah, most people had never heard of this concept. I said, "You will see how automatically productive your life will become."

My beloved students, I want you to become the guys who are being quoted by Forbes and Fortune 500. I want Bloomberg to be speaking about you. But you're not gonna get there if you scroll. You're not gonna get there in deen or dunya. So the key thing is: get rid of social media. Get rid of it.

Some of you are going to say, "But I post beneficial things." Someone added me to a WhatsApp group — a young 17 or 18-year-old. At suhoor time he's like, "I'm starting a FAQ Islamic WhatsApp group and I'd love for you to be one of the contributors." I said, "Listen brother, I know you. You need to first learn basic deen. Who told you to go start a WhatsApp group for FAQs?" And then immediately he said, "Thank you, jazakAllah khair. I'm going to try to move to Chicago and join the one-year program." He had josh but no direction. We have this desire of starting our own podcast, our own social media channel. Everyone wants to do that. Relax. First become something.

One of our teachers, Sayyid Na'im, said a beautiful piece of advice: بَڑے بننے سے پہلے چھوٹے بننا سیکھو — "Before you learn how to become big, first learn how to become small. Before you become a teacher, learn how to become a student." And I think in our world, we never become a student. We're straight to teaching. Part of being a student is being ready to be told that you're wrong. That's a big problem. We have a big ego problem. You cannot learn if you have an ego.

The Non-Smartphone Solution

So quickly — putting control on our phones. My students here will tell you of ways they've come up with. Some of them have basic Nokia phones. Simple. Some have the Light Phone — it's got WhatsApp, GPS, text, call, calendar, notes, hotspot. What else do you want? You're not gonna waste time on it. And some have the Caterpillar phone — built by Caterpillar, you can buy a used one for $50, replaceable battery, good Android phone. Call, text, WhatsApp, GPS. That's it. No scrolling.

When I grew up in the 80s and 90s, we used to read at home — Encyclopedia Britannica, almanacs. We'd sit and read on a Friday night or Saturday night because that's all we had. We read about World War II, about anything and everything. Those were beautiful days when we didn't have all this nonsense. SubhanAllah, I'm thankful to Allah that I studied the Alim program before smartphones were around. Otherwise I don't know how I would have wasted my time. It's a very big fitnah. I sympathize with this generation who is surrounded by all of this fitnah and is trying to do something.

So you can downsize — or, rather, upgrade your brain — by getting a non-smartphone that will make you smart. This is the best tool. Use one of these phones. If you really want to become an achiever, this is the first step.

A Powerful Ruqya for Breaking Addiction

Now, when it comes to number two — after you cut out that sin from your life — engage in adhkar. Stay in the state of wudu. Read your morning and evening du'a books. Utilize them. This is your protection.

Number three, along with that, do the dhikr of Allah — اللَّهُ اللَّهُ or لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ in your heart. Get a dhikr counter. Get a tasbih counter and just tap away. When your heart is saying "Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah" without your lips moving, it's very hard for that lustful, shaitani stuff to come into your heart. This is the way to protect your heart from the influence of shaitan. This is called sirri dhikr — silent dhikr.

And dear students, I want to share a ruqya that I have been mentioning for many years — I gave a nearly two-hour presentation on this topic at a retreat — and it has been found to be extremely effective in breaking many bad habits, including addiction to drugs, pornography, and the like. It was shared with me by a scholar. I shared it with many people of the community. Alhamdulillah, they found it to be so beautiful and beneficial. When I went back to South Africa, I shared it with my teachers and said, "This tablet works wonders." The ruqya is as follows:

Step 1: Recite salawat upon the Prophet ﷺ seven times — صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ or any other form of salawat.

Step 2: Recite Surah al-Fatiha seven times.

Step 3: Recite Ayatul Kursi seven times.

Step 4: Recite Surah al-Quraysh seven times.

Step 5: Recite the four Quls — Surah al-Kafirun, Surah al-Ikhlas, Surah al-Falaq, and Surah al-Nas — seven times each.

Step 6: Cap it off with seven more salawat upon the Prophet ﷺ.

The method: after each set of seven, blow over yourself — as we do before bed when we blow on our hands and wipe our body — and blow into a bottle of water. Every time you complete a set of seven, blow over yourself and blow into the bottle. Once you finish the final salawat, that completes one set. Depending on how severe the addiction is, do between three to five sets a day. Each set takes approximately 8 to 12 minutes. At least three sets, if not five. Inshallah tabarak wa ta'ala, within one week, you will see a massive change.

Continue for seven days, fourteen days, twenty-one days — a minimum of twenty-one days. Then you can trim it down. If after seven or eight days you no longer desire the weed, the e-cigarettes, or the haram — and you've already changed your phone — then you can cut it down from five sets to three, then to two. But I would never wean myself off entirely. It's dhikr and Qur'an — keep it at at least once a day as a bare minimum. And Allah forbid, if you ever find yourself desiring it again, quickly do another two or three sets.

My dear students, I'm telling you — I have people who've driven far to come see me and said, "Sheikh, I've got this major problem. I'm involved in this, can you give me some advice?" I said, "Do this." Wallahi, I tell you — the guys were addicts. Five or six days later, I texted them to check in and they're like, "I'm doing okay, everything okay with you?" I said, "I'm just checking in with you. Do you remember? You came to my office, you drove 40 to 50 minutes to come see me about this issue." And they said, "I swear I forgot I even had that problem." Subhanallah. In one week.

Then, months later, a brother came to me and said, "I fell into the same problem." I said, "I gave you that advice, do you remember that?" "Oh, I forgot." I said, "Wallahi, come on man, I gave you the tablet, you've got to take it." I said, "Go right now, take this bottle of water, sit in the masjid corner, and do it right now." Subhanallah — I checked in with him a couple of days later and he said, "Man, thank you so much. I'm back to being normal." This is addictions to weed, drugs, pornography — no doubt there's a huge hand of shaitan in it, along with the nafs. That is why this type of dhikr is a very powerful ruqya to push shaitan back.

I really hope you all take heed to my advice and you start practicing on it. Share this advice with others. My number is available — you're always more than welcome to reach out to me, WhatsApp me. I don't need to know who you are. Just tell me what's going on and inshallah I'll try to help you.

Fasting is of course an added thing. Fasting Mondays and Thursdays, or every other day after Ramadan, will help curb lustful desires. Performing salah with jama'ah — the more times you have to show your face to Allah, the more ashamed you will be of sinning. How can you do all this nonsense and then show up in front of Allah for Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha? That will force you. The more times you're showing up, the more of a reminder it will be to help you stay away from these things.

There are also more detailed tactics, such as muraqabah — reflecting on certain ayat of the Qur'an:

"Does he not know that Allah sees?" and "Allah knows the deception of the eyes." Thinking about these verses. Isn't Allah watching you? Allah knows the deception of the eye. Think about these verses. These are all ways of helping yourself.

And then, guarding your gaze in school and outside. As soon as you see yourself — or your eyes wandering to the opposite gender — say astaghfirullah and bring it back. Remember, the definition of pornography for a Muslim is very different from American pop culture or social media or government standards. For us, looking at the arms, the nape of the neck, the hair, the chest, the legs — all of this is haram. There's no such thing as "soft core" or "hard core" in our framework — it's all haram.

So if we have a habit of allowing our gaze to graze around a room, how are we going to stay away from these other things? When you're walking down the hallways in school, look down. That's the time to be on your tasbih. Just look at the feet. Do dhikr. Or read your emails while walking so your gaze is not wandering. When you're in class, keep your focus on your book and your notebook in front of you. And be careful about going to mixed events where, unfortunately, even if the talk is spiritual, the environment becomes a distraction.

My dear beloved students — if you can handle these enemies of intoxicants and guard your gaze, inshallah you'll become a wali of Allah. You'll become the friend of Allah. This is our biggest enemy. May Allah give us all the strength to overcome it.

Closing: Recommendations, Books & the One-Year Program

I want to take this moment now — we have multiple students here, alhamdulillah — to go into breakout sessions. What I would suggest, based on everything we've heard in the past two hours: not everyone can go to Pakistan. Not everyone can go to Mauritania or South Africa. But alhamdulillah, you have a place in Chicago, in the United States, where you're sitting right now. This 15-acre campus is its own little country, its own subculture, its own bubble.

When you are here, just like I'm sure all of you are feeling tonight — you feel different. We haven't even started qiyam yet. We haven't even done dhikr and du'a yet. This is just a talk. But just because you've been here for two hours, you feel the difference. Now imagine if you were in this environment for 11 months, from morning to evening, five and a half days a week. That would give you the opportunity to make a complete 180 change in your life and become a fresh new product.

You know how recycling works? They take the old tires, old bottles, and they tear it all apart, make it into tiny pieces, take the pulp, and make something brand new. Darussalam is a recycling factory. You take that old material — old bottles, torn-up tires, your old smartphones — and you put it into that recycling factory, and you come up with a brand new, amazing product.

I encourage all of you who are listening to please make niyyah tonight, that somewhere in your academic career, you will take out one year of your life. Not to just sit there and do dhikr all day — no. To actually become a better academic. To learn how to use your background in law, medicine, entrepreneurship, engineering, IT, or cybersecurity to serve Islam. Our one-year program has been specifically designed for that — to take people from all walks of life, have them study 11 months, and then run with their life. Alhamdulillah, we have graduated over 450 students from our one-year program. So many of them have been extremely successful in entrepreneurship, business, law, medicine, engineering, and in their own communities.

I encourage all of you here to make that niyyah today. Whether it's this summer, next summer, or somewhere down the line — between undergrad and grad school, between high school and undergrad. Take a gap year. What do I want from this product? When you leave from here, you learn how to think as a Muslim. You're not thinking as desi, Pakistani, Arab, Egyptian, African, doctor, or engineer. You're thinking as an ummati of Rasulullah ﷺ — what should I do? That's what I need.

We need this crowd of 100 brothers here to become Muslim leaders — not Arab leaders or desi leaders or Pakistani leaders or leaders just of your town. We need you to become world leaders. Is that possible? Yes, 100% possible. If it's possible anywhere, it's possible over here.

The one-year program starts in August and ends in June. We also have the one-month program in June through July — just four weeks. If you're not sure about a full year, at least sign up for the one-month program. And if you're not even sure about that, come and audit some classes whenever your school is off. Come to the Darussalam office and say, "I'm here to sit in class today." Just audit. If you're on spring break this week, please come Monday through Friday and audit classes. Sit for two, three, four hours. Mingle with the other guys. That will give you a taste.

Mufti Nabil was a past teacher — inshallah a future teacher as well — of our Tafheem program, which is a weekend program: Saturday morning from 10 to 1, Sunday morning 10 to 1. You can join online or on-site. Alhamdulillah, we've been running it for over 10 years. That is for someone who cannot sign up for a more intensive program. The spring semester ends in May. The fall semester starts, inshallah, in August.

Recommended Books

Before we break, here are some books I'd encourage you to pick up from the bookstore:

1. Saviors of Islamic Spirit — Written by one of the most well-known scholars of the Arab and non-Arab world, Shaykh Abul Hasan Ali al-Nadwi, rahimahullah, in the past century. He has chronicled the most important biographical anecdotes of the movers and shakers of the Muslim world — Hassan al-Basri, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, Abdul Hassan al-Ash'ari, Izz al-Din ibn Abdul Salam, Abu al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Salah al-Din Ayyubi, Nur al-Din al-Zangi, and their encounters with the Tartars. These are the revivers of Islam. As the Prophet ﷺ said, every 100 years Allah sends a reviver.

2. Risalat al-Mustarshidin by Imam al-Muhasibi — An early classic on spirituality. This edition has been translated by Imam Zaid Shakir from Zaytuna. An amazing book to start your journey of spirituality.

3. The Beginning of Guidance (Bidayat al-Hidayah) by Imam al-Ghazali — This is part of our one-year program. I have been teaching it for the past 12 to 13 years, ever since we started the one-year program. It is described as the final book that Imam al-Ghazali wrote, and its last section speaks about relationships and friendships — an outstanding section. I love teaching it and I'm sure you will benefit from it.

Dhikr Session & Closing Du'a

Now, the method of doing dhikr: you can do dhikr out loud, softly, in your heart, with your tongue, individually, collectively, lying down, standing, running. You can do dhikr in any situation. So what we're doing is not bid'ah. If you want to know more details about collective dhikr, there's a book in the bookstore on all the proofs on the permissibility of doing collective dhikr.

I want to take a moment, as we're doing dhikr, to think about what we're saying. لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — we're thinking about "none worthy of worship but Allah." It's not just that; it's that we are negating all false gods from our heart, all false desires — the idol of money, the idol of fame, the idol of name, the idol of friends, the idol of career. We break all that with لَا إِلَهَ, and then with إِلَّا اللَّهُ we bring in only Allah into our heart.

And then we send salutations upon the Prophet ﷺ — an extremely virtuous act. Every time we send salutations, Allah himself sends salutations upon us, and we get levels in paradise increased, and we get our sins forgiven. This is the blessing of sending salutations. And then we seek forgiveness from Allah on this blessed night. And then we'll do the silent dhikr — اللَّهُ اللَّهُ اللَّهُ — without moving our lips, just focusing on the heart.

Now thinking about our major and minor sins that we've been involved in the past or are involved in now — with full remorse we ask Allah forgiveness, as we do istighfar. With genuine remorse in our hearts, as we are begging Allah to give us the ability to shun sin and begging Him of His forgiveness.

The Du'a

Oh Allah, we ask You to accept this gathering, accept this majlis. Oh Allah, all those who wanted to join but were not able to, and those who were able to join for a portion of the time, those who were able to join for the entire time — oh Allah, those who spoke, those who listened, those who advertised, those who marketed, those who designed the flyer, those who provided the dinner tonight and the snacks — oh Allah, those who in any way, shape, or form assisted in these programs to take place, behind the scenes in logistics and backend and frontend — ya Allah, we ask You to forgive one and all.

Oh Allah, forgive every one of us, ya Allah. We are a bunch, a group of sinners collectively gathered on this night — you have gathered us at your home. Oh Allah, why would You have gathered us if You did not want to forgive us? The fact that You allowed us at 2:30 AM to be in Your home on this blessed night with so many youth — oh Allah, I can only think that this is a sign of absolute love and mercy from Your side. Oh Allah, I cannot imagine You would allow us to leave Your house except in a state where our sins have been forgiven.

We've come here, ya Allah, not to argue. We've come here not to defend ourselves. We've come here as acknowledging sinners. We beg You, ya Allah, as humble sinners — we have come to You. We ask You, ya Allah, please do not punish us. Oh Allah, please do not punish us, for indeed we cannot handle Your punishment. Oh Allah, rather forgive us, ya Allah. Forgive our major and minor sins, ya Allah.

Oh Allah, all the sins that we committed by day, those we committed by night, those committed individually, those committed collectively, those we did once, those we did many times, those we did knowingly, those we did unknowingly, those we did, ya Allah, after we repented, and those we've never repented from before — oh Allah, we ask You to forgive all of those sins, ya Allah.

Oh Allah, forgive the sins committed by the hands, by the feet, by the ears, by the eyes, by the tongue, by the mind, by the heart, by the private part, by our money, by our position, by our power, by our connections. Oh Allah, whatever sins we have committed against You, against Your Prophet, against the Qur'an, against the deen, against our parents, against our spouse, our children, against our siblings, against any creation of Yours, ya Allah — we ask You to forgive us from all these sins, ya Allah.

Oh Allah, grant within every one of us remorse and a dedication to change, ya Allah. Grant us all the willpower to change. Grant us all the willpower to become serious. Grant us all the willpower to make our life that is left far better than the life that has passed. Oh Allah, we ask You, ya Allah, to allow the remaining decades and years of our life to be far more productive, far more superior than our past life.

Oh Allah, make every one of us an amazing source of sadaqah jariyah for our parents, for our teachers, and for our beloved Prophet, Habibuna ﷺ. Oh Allah, allow us to become a means of happiness for our parents and for our Habib ﷺ. Oh Allah, allow us to become go-getters, allow us to become movers and shakers of society. Allow us to take deen to all corners of the world. Oh Allah, allow us to take Islam and deen from the masjid to corporate world, ya Allah — to the hospitals, to the law offices, to the courts. Oh Allah, take it to political activism, take it to environmental activism. Oh Allah, allow us to take the deen and the sunnah of our Habib ﷺ and allow that to become the driving force for the change that we usher into this world.

Oh Allah, allow this generation and this group — especially our brothers who are here who are listening — oh Allah, allow this group to become from amongst the revivers of Islam of this century. Oh Allah, allow Islam to rise from the west and allow it to spread across the west and into the east as well, ya Allah. Oh Allah, allow Darussalam to become a great source of that beautiful change and revival of Islam across the globe, ya Allah. Oh Allah, allow it to become a means of bridging the gap between the east and the west, between dunya and deen, between the people of politics and the people of deen, the people of corporate world and the people of deen.

Oh Allah, whatever intentions the youth made tonight — of giving up and changing their cellphones, of studying one year, ya Allah, of finding a mentor, of finding a spiritual guide, of finding a spiritual buddy, of staying connected to the masjid, of praying Fajr and Isha in the local masjid, of attending circles of knowledge in their own communities — oh Allah, allow every one of us to be able to achieve those goals.

Oh Allah, allow all of us to walk away having learned about ourselves and acknowledging our own mistakes and sins. Oh Allah, allow us all to become more cognizant of our weaknesses. We beg You, ya Allah, that You never allow us to become blinded to our faults. Oh Allah, allow us to always keep our eyes on our faults and flaws and allow us to work to get rid of them. Oh Allah, cure all of us of our spiritual diseases. Oh Allah, cure all of us of our physical diseases, emotional and mental illnesses. Ya Allah, put Your love and the love of the Qur'an and Sunnah in our hearts.

Oh Allah, allow all of us to give everything You have given us back to You and back to the deen. Oh Allah, allow all of us to become ambitious. Oh Allah, allow all of us — regarding whatever intentions we made — we are not going to be able to fulfill those intentions without Your help. Oh Allah, give us all the means necessary to fulfill our good intentions. Oh Allah, we don't even know what to ask. We don't even know what to desire. We don't even know what type of intentions we should have. Ya Allah, teach us, ya Allah. Oh Allah, inspire us, ya Allah — to make lofty intentions, ya Allah. Oh Allah, grant all of us success in our endeavors — deeni and dunya endeavors. Oh Allah, grant us all halal rizq and barakah, ya Allah.

Oh Allah, make it easy for everyone who is not married to find the most amazing spouse — matching in temperament, matching in character — one who will push us to become better people and protect us from falling into sin. Oh Allah, protect all of us from falling into any and all major and minor sins. Oh Allah, especially of haram and zina, ya Allah — any and all forms of zina, and any and all forms of intoxicants — protect our generation from falling into that, ya Allah. Oh Allah, protect all of us at our campuses, at universities, colleges, and in the workforce. Protect our siblings from haram. Protect our cousins from haram. Protect our friends from haram. Protect our relatives from haram. Oh Allah, allow us all to find righteous, pious friends that will allow us to bring a change within ourselves.

Oh Allah, allow the barakah of Ramadan to stay with us after Ramadan. Allow us to truly bring a change within our lives so that we stay connected to Your house well after Ramadan. Oh Allah, as the second 'ashra has begun, allow us to enjoy the forgiveness of these 10 days, and allow us to become worthy of being emancipated from the fire of Jahannam in the last 10 days. Oh Allah, grant us all Laylatul Qadr. Grant us all the ibadah of Laylatul Qadr. Allow all of us to spend some time in the last 10 nights in the masjid — whether it's sunnah i'tikaf of full 10 days, or nafil i'tikaf of a few days.

Oh Allah, we beg You on this blessed night — Oh Allah, have mercy upon our brothers and sisters in Palestine. Oh Allah, provide for them food. Provide for them water. Provide for them shelter. Oh Allah, the world has given up on them, but they have not given up on You. Ya Allah, they have full reliance that You are there. You are of course there. Oh Allah, the test has become unbearable. Too many lives have been lost, ya Allah. Too much destruction has happened. Oh Allah, it's painful for us to listen. People have gotten tired of listening and watching — but they have not gotten tired of being killed, ya Allah. Their blood continues to get spilled every single night and every single day. Ya Allah, we beg You — we beg You, ya Allah — to have mercy on our brothers and sisters in Palestine. Oh Allah, end their suffering. End the genocide. Oh Allah, end this brutal beating and destruction of their entire society.

Oh Allah, accept the martyrdom of those 38,000, ya Allah. Oh Allah, make every single one of them enjoy the highest levels of Jannatul Firdaus. And allow all the relatives they have left behind to remain resilient, continue to remain patient. And make their life on this earth easy, ya Allah.

Oh Allah, fulfill all of our permissible desires and needs. Whoever has come here with whatever problems on their mind — oh Allah, allow them to leave this gathering only in a state where their needs are being fulfilled, their sins have been forgiven, and they feel a rejuvenation in their faith, a renewed connection with You. Ya Allah, keep us all on the truth. Keep us away from any and all forms of innovation in deen. Oh Allah, save us from any type of diluted deen or any type of deen that was not found during the time of the Prophet ﷺ. Oh Allah, keep us on the haqq and the truth till our last breath. Oh Allah, save us from ever having doubts in Islam. From ever falling into temptations. Oh Allah, give us death on لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ. Oh Allah, raise us on the Day of Judgment under the banner of Rasulullah ﷺ. And grant us entry into Jannatul Firdaus without any reckoning.

Closing Announcements

Good spiritual buddy first — someone from your friend circle or from your masjid — and slowly working towards finding a mentor. And ensure that we're connected to these type of gatherings on a regular basis.

Inshallah, the last 10 nights of Ramadan, every single night we'll have a gathering like this. Every single night. It's called the Candlelight Conversations. Every single night from 12 to 1:30 or 2:00 AM, myself and a different host, every night a different topic. The topics are already out. If you are in the events group — scan it on the way out. That way you will receive the links to all the talks. If you're from out of town, you can listen to the talks online. Or if you're here in Chicago, you can drive out.

The program starts on the 21st night of Ramadan. Inshallah, we have a full 10-day program. It starts from Tarawih to Tarawih. After Tarawih is Tafsir. Then a break and snacks. Then our session starts at 12 o'clock. Then a break, dhikr and du'a. Then suhoor. Then individual tahajjud. Then Fajr. After Fajr, a one-hour session on more advanced topics. Then sleep till before Dhuhr. After Dhuhr, guided dhikr and du'a. Then your own Qur'an or sleep till Asr. After Asr, a session on the stories of the Sahaba — every single Asr, one quality of the Sahaba. Then dhikr and du'a till Iftar. And after Iftar, time to relax till Isha. It's a full 10-day regimen. If you can't come for all 10 days, try your best to come for at least the weekends.

You can sign up on the website: masjiiddeas.org/itikaf. Make sure you don't forget your Ramadan daily tracker. Stop by at the booth if you want. We have students waiting to give you tours — the library, the gym, the classrooms. Please go ahead and meet the students.

Fajr Salat at Darussalam is at 5:25 AM. Whatever your local masjid is, or here — make sure you don't miss your Fajr. Otherwise, this night is of no benefit if you miss your Fajr. Make sure you pray your Fajr, inshallah.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.