Valuing the Essence of Time - Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed | Islmaic Reminder | Jummah Khutbah

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. All praise is due to Allah. And sufficient is the prayer and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah. O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our Master Muhammad and upon the family of our Master Muhammad. And blessings and peace be upon you. My Lord, open my chest and ease my affair. And untie the knot from my tongue so that they may understand what I say.

Allah Almighty said in the Glorious Qur'an. I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan.

In this day and age, mankind is in loss except for those who believe and do righteous deeds and enjoin the truth and enjoin patience. Allah Almighty has spoken the truth.

My respected elders and brothers, dear students, mothers and sisters. Peace be upon you. We thank Allah for the countless blessings that we are enjoying and hopefully will continue to enjoy. And we ask Allah the Most Kind, the Most Merciful that He does not deprive us of the blessings that we currently have because of our own mistakes and sins. And that He does not deprive us because of our ungratitude or ungratefulness towards Allah. But instead, we ask Allah through His infinite mercy to continue to shower upon us His choicest of blessings and favor upon all of us. Amin Rabbil Alameen.

The Comprehensive Surah on Time

Respected elders and brothers, Allah has revealed a very powerful and comprehensive surah in the Quran which was just recited. And we all have memorized this and recited it quite often. And we also many times read and discuss this surah amongst our circle of friends and family, hopefully. But nonetheless, it's still necessary and beneficial for us to remind ourselves of this verse and of these verses from this surah because of its important message. And that is, of course, Surah al-Asr. The surah on time that's mentioned and revealed and is part of the last few surahs of the Quran.

We know that the scholars of the past and present have given much importance to this surah. That they have called it one of the most comprehensive verses and one of the most comprehensive surahs of the entire Quran in which the keys of salvation have been put together in two sentences. Allah, He mentions the أَرْكَانُ النَّجَاةِ - the pillars and the keys of salvation mentioned in this verse.

Allah's Oath Upon Time

First of all, Allah, He takes an oath on the time. And says, وَالْعَصْرِ, I take an oath on time. Now when a person takes an oath upon something, that is something which is very dear to them, extremely dear to them. We don't take an oath on things which are of no importance or of value. We take an oath upon something which is of great value. That's why when we say, wallahi, or I take an oath on Allah, that's something huge because Allah is the closest, the greatest thing to us. And is the greatest reality. So that is why when we want to impress something upon someone, we will say, wallahi, I take an oath in the name of Allah. Because that is how important this issue is.

So imagine Allah taking an oath upon something. Imagine how valuable and how important that is for us. For example, Allah takes an oath upon the life of the Prophet. And He says:

That I take an oath on your life, O Muhammad. Indeed, these disbelievers are completely blind, have become blinded in their intoxication. Intoxication of their lustful desires, has blinded them from the reality of things. So Allah says that, and similarly in this ayah, Allah takes an oath on time itself. To allow us to understand how important this is. And this is something that a person, all of us have been gifted.

Breaking Down the Translation

Let's read through quickly the translation first, and then let's visit Surah again.

Allah says, I take an oath by time.

Indeed, humanity is at loss. Indeed, humanity is failing. Indeed, humanity is falling into disaster.

These are the أَرْكَانُ النَّجَاةِ - these are the pillars and the method of gaining salvation. All four of them need to be in place. Except for those who have faith.

And who do righteous deeds.

And invite one another towards the truth.

And invite one another towards patience. This is the ending of this comprehensive beautiful surah.

The Universal Gift of Time

So when we look at people amongst all of us sitting here, and beyond that as well our friends, relatives and so forth, we see Allah has blessed all of us with different talents. And we definitely don't all have the same set of talents. And we all also start off in the race at different parts. It is not a race where everyone starts off at the same starting line.

There's a person who starts off first of all with both parents. There's another one who starts off life with one parent. And yet there's another one who starts off life without any parents. And he's been taken care of by foster parents or by parents who have adopted him. So right there there's this massive huge gap and difference between the starting point of these people, these orphans and the rest of the people.

And then you have people who are born healthy, completely physically healthy. While others may be born with all sorts of different physical deformities, difficulties related to the brain, related to the physical body and so forth. Huge disparity between what can be achieved, what cannot be achieved. The milestone, one is walking at one year old, and one is not able to walk properly by five or six. So there's so much disparity around all of us. Some of us have those blessings and some of us don't. One blessing has been taken away, Allah gave him an additional so many more blessings in lieu of that.

Examples of Allah's Compensation

So if someone is for example blind, but Allah may have given them an amazing memory. Whereas a person who has eyesight and is able to read, is not able to memorize that well. We saw recently a short clip of a madrasa, there's one in Saudi as well, in Ta'if, and one in India as well I've seen short clips of, of an entire Hifz class. Entire Hifz class, teachers sitting there, 12-13 young boys sitting there, wearing their beautiful uniform, all are reading Quran. But when you look at the video, and you look closely, you see that the Quran, you can't see any script in there, this is all braille, they got their hands on it, and they're using the braille to recite the Quran out loud. And you can actually hear the Tajweed as well, amazing Tajweed.

Once each student is coming up and reciting to the teacher, some students are reciting amongst themselves, 100% of the class is blind. But they're all memorizing portions of the Quran, and with Tajweed, reciting it to the teacher, reciting it to themselves. These are different madrasas that have been established, also when we were in South Africa, we went and visited such a school, where even the teacher, one of the top-notch teachers there is a Qari, Alhamdulillah, blind teacher. And he's perfected the Quran, and he's teaching all the students.

So Allah took one blessing away from them, but He replaced it with so many other blessings. This is how the system works. But one blessing that everyone has, whether the person has his hands and feet are working or not, a person has got 20-20 vision or blind, a person's got both parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or he's got none. One thing that we all have is time. That is what Allah granted all of us with. As soon as you're born, the clock is ticking, ticking away. Every one of us has been gifted with that. And that opportunity is given to all of us, that you can make the most usage of it.

Divine Justice in Weighing Actions

Like how we have in our exams in the world, in school and so forth, that points are calculated, weighed indifferently. A final exam is weighed separately than a weekly quiz. One's given 20% of the entire grade, one's given maybe 5%. They're weighed separately. Similarly, Allah weighs our actions separately, not only based on our sincerity, but also of course beyond that, our circumstances.

So the one who doesn't have a car at home, has no license, has no one in his house to drive, he wants to come to the masjid, and he's struggling to come here. And the other person, Alhamdulillah, who's got all of that. The reward is not the same.

I remember I met one person when I was traveling, he came to me after one of the talks, very sad and about to cry, an elderly person. And he was saying that, because of his eyesight not being 100% there correct, the doctor said basically, you cannot get a driver license anymore, and so now he's been stripped away from his license. And the saddest part for him was that, what can happen about my prayers in congregation? I have a habit of coming praying all my prayers in congregation. But now all my kids are at work and I can't drive. And he was just so sad about that. He was sharing with me his dilemma, that I'm missing my prayers in congregation in this old age, even though I want to come, because of this, can you help me out in this? Is there another doctor, maybe you know, who can write me another script to say my eyesight is okay, so I can get my license, because it's really not that bad. This person was just being extra cautious, and my house is just down the street, but I need obviously a car to come here.

Now look at that circumstance there. Another person is healthy, he's got 20-20 vision, he's got a motorcycle, he's got a car, he's got everything available to him, a bicycle, he can come to the masjid. And maybe he does. But how can you say they're the same? The circumstances are different. Allah is looking at each person's circumstances and weighing those actions separately. Your reward is going to be based on the effort you put into it. If the effort and the strength and the difficulty and the sacrifice was a lot, then the reward for that same action will be more for the person who had to struggle. As opposed to the one who did not have to struggle.

So the thing that is found for all of us is time. That we all have that. No matter how apparently blessed we are, or apparently blessed we're not. So we've got time to make patience, and we've got time to make gratitude. Whatever situation you find yourselves in, you have time to just keep on thanking Allah, or you have time to simply say, Ya Allah, I'm going to hold, I'm going to be patient and remain patient in this difficult circumstances that I find myself in. So Allah, that's why He takes an oath on this.

The Wisdom of Hassan Basri

And that's why Hasan Basri, his famous description of human being, he says:

So think about that. All of us have to imagine ourselves that I'm a mere makeup of days. So if 30 years of my life have gone, 40 years of my life have gone, then you can imagine, I should imagine myself standing in the mirror that only half of my body remains. And the other half of the body is gone. Most probably, most of us will live up to 80, 90, mashallah, some very lucky up to 100. Very lucky in a sense that they have a healthy life.

So this is, half of it is gone. For those of us who are 20 or 30, 40, 50, each one of us has to think, half, one third, one fourth of my body is gone. And it's melting away. So this is the importance of time that Allah is taking an oath on it.

The Divine Signs and the Importance of Time

And that's why the scholars of the past have written books, and scholars of today have written books on this very topic: ensuring that we get the most efficient use of our time. Make the most efficient use of our time. Allah عز و جل has in His, in the heavens and the earth, various types of signs that speak and invite us towards His greatness.

There are the ayaat kawniyah, there are the ayaat takweeniyah, and there are the ayaat Quraniyah. And all of these ayaat or signs are pointing towards Allah عز و جل's greatness. The ayaat kawniyah will be, for example, the creation. The heavens and the earth, and everything in between. The amazing world that we see around us. This creation is inviting towards Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى. And you can learn about Allah through that.

And then there are the ayaat takweeniyah, the actions of Allah, the af'al of Allah. What Allah عز و جل does all around us. How He honors someone one minute, how He disgraces someone one minute, He gives life to someone one minute, He gives death to someone one minute, He is providing sustenance for someone, He is constricting sustenance for someone else. All of this up and down that's taking place:

Oh Allah, whatever you've taken far away from me, no one can bring it close. Whatever you brought close to me, no one can take it far away. Whoever you have honored, no one can disgrace. Whoever you have disgraced, no one can honor. Oh Allah, whatever action you have chosen to do, no one can do the opposite of that.

So these ayaat, these signs of Allah are His actions that lead to Him. And the last type of signs are the speech of Allah, more specifically the Quran. The Quran of course leads us to Allah عز و جل.

Surah Al-Asr: A Comprehensive Warning

And so wal-asr is one of those amazing ayaat of Allah, the Quranic verses that is so comprehensive and it makes a person ponder and think that definitely these have to be مَا هَذَا قَوْلُ الْبَشَرِ - "This is not the statement of a human being." This has to be the statements of the Lord of the Heavens and the Earth.

Allah عز و جل then makes this decisive statement upon all of humanity:

That all of humanity is facing utter destruction, except for those who have the following four characteristics.

The First Principle: Faith (Iman)

And the first most important characteristic is:

This is something which needs to be, which I and all of us need to remind ourselves, that the number one رُكْنُ النَّجَاةِ - the number one important principle for a person to have within their life in order to gain salvation is faith. And that no matter how many good deeds a person has, but if this first principle and foundational principle is not present within a person's life, then all their good deeds eventually will be of no benefit in the hereafter.

So it is not sufficient for a person to try to emulate someone who has great skill sets but is devoid of Iman. This is a very common issue within our younger generation that has been taught to look up to so many people who have excellent, definitely excellent traits and have attained amazing goals in the world and broken amazing records. But there's just one small little problem: they don't have Iman.

And it is sometimes that emulation and that love and respect for that person is so strong that a person begins to devalue the importance of Iman. And the person says, "At all cost I want to become like this successful person. And even if that means that they don't have faith, I don't have to worry about that right now. I need to focus on their world record and such and such thing or the fact that they have invented such certain sort of gadget."

Just look at the technology world. There are the heads of certain technological advancements who our youth idolize and read so many books about and look up to so much. They are alive and some of them are dead. But they really look up to them. And the aspect that, brother, we are spending so much time learning about them and looking up to them when they themselves, according to this verse of the Quran, are in ultimate destruction because of not having Iman. If they die without Iman, they are in ultimate destruction.

And even a tenth of that have we spent reading about our Prophet ﷺ or the illustrious companions of the Prophet ﷺ or the righteous people of the past and present? Have we learned about their lives? Have we tried to make a point to emulate their lifestyle? Who are insha'Allah on the path to success, because they have these four things within them.

إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا - Number one, having faith in Allah through these various ayaat - kawniyah, takweeniyah and kalamiyah. Have faith in Allah by looking at all the natural creations in nature. Number two, by looking at all of Allah's actions. And number three, by pondering over the Quran. Those are those three types of signs that we're speaking about.

The Second Principle: Righteous Deeds

And number two, after faith:

That they do the righteous deeds. Righteous deeds, my brothers, a person may think that "I did yesterday, why do I have to do today? Let me take a break." Allah عز و جل says:

Every single person will have a level in paradise in the hereafter based on their actions. You get what you paid for. You get what you did. If a person did good yesterday, did good tomorrow, but left out today, it's not gonna be equal to the person who did it all three days. So every single day that we're missing out on a good deed, definitely we're chipping away from the opportunity to have an even more amazing Jannah.

So Shaytan sometimes comes to us and makes good deeds, makes them insignificant. That it's alright, you can leave this out once in a while. Istiqamah, that's why, is one of the most important things. That remaining steadfast, remaining steadfast is so important. Allah عز و جل, that's why He tells the Prophet ﷺ:

Remain steadfast the way you have been ordered to do so. And whoever has repented and turned to Me along with you, they also have to take this to heart that they have to remain steadfast.

And the Prophet ﷺ told us that it is this verse and the likes of this verse in Surah Hud and in similar surahs that has made the Prophet ﷺ's black hair go white. شَيَّبَتْنِي هُودٌ وَأَخَوَاتُهَا - "Hud and the likes of Surah Hud have made my hair grow white." And what verse was being referred to? This verse, فَاسْتَقِمْ كَمَا أُمِرْتَ - "Remain steadfast the way you have been asked to."

The Challenge of Consistency

It is easy to start doing good actions, we all know that, I can tell you first hand as well, SubhanAllah, this is something we all struggle with. We start something good, and then after that to remain steadfast, then it becomes challenging. You start off with the سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَلَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ after every salah, you start off with that, now just try to remain steadfast.

How about we make a goal like that? From till next Jummah, let's try to not miss any salah. But we'll realize that the rewards are so huge. But why are they so huge? Once the Prophet ﷺ was asked, why is such a huge reward promised for small action? And the answer was that because so few people are able to remain steadfast on that. So few people are able to remain steadfast. In order to get to Paradise, we may not need to do huge actions. Take something small, but remain steadfast on it. And don't give up on it. Realizing that this is something which I do, which I will do on a daily basis.

And that's why, I remember our Ustad would remind us of Ali رضي الله عنه, that when he was asked about this tasbih, which we in our subcontinent call it Tasbih Fatimi, right? Tasbih Fatimi we say, because it was the incident, the story related to it where the Prophet ﷺ advised his daughter that instead of asking me for a servant to help you with the chores at home, make a habit of reciting SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, La ilaha illallah, Allahu Akbar, 33, 33, 33 times, and 34 times after every salah and before going to bed. And you'll see how Allah put immense barakah and will give you strength and energy. So that's why we refer to it usually as Tasbih Fatimi.

But when Ali رضي الله عنه, when he was speaking to his students later on, after the demise of the Prophet ﷺ, he said, "I have remained steadfast on this since I heard it." And so someone asked him, "What about the day you were leading the battle, in the battle of Siffin, when you were the general leading the entire battle, and you performed salah on the battlefield, what about that day?" And he said, "Even on that day, I ensured that I didn't give up my tasbih."

You're a general in the midst of a battlefield, arrows and spears and swords are being thrown from all directions. Imagine, he's sitting there doing his tasbih. How important is it for me to rush out of the masjid after salah? Whatever it is, if by the time I finish 4 rakah, 10 minutes or 8 minutes, definitely that could wait another one more minute, whatever it is. But Shaytan makes you and I run. That this is something, I have no time, I have to run.

After Salatul Jummah, how we run? We're stuck by the shoe rack, you're not going anywhere. We got one entrance there, you're gonna take forever to get out. But Shaytan will say, no, no, no, you gotta run. Then you got someone double parking, you're not getting anywhere. We might as well just sit, finish our tasbih, and ask Allah a nice beautiful dua for 5 minutes. By that time, the path will open up, the parking lot will open up as well. And even if you have to go immediately back to work, it's not gonna take you more than a minute and a half to do that. But the key thing is, take something and stick to it. And this is something which we have to realize under وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ.

Doing righteous deeds on a consistent basis is the second most important aspect of gaining freedom and salvation from hellfire, as well as destruction in this world.

The Third Principle: Inviting to Truth

And number 3, inviting one another towards righteousness and the truth:

This is not the job of only scholars. The scholar's job is to sit there and answer deep level of objections against the Quran, confusions about hadith. Those are the scholars who will sit there, write a paper or give a talk on that. But you heard something beneficial in today's khutbah or any other khutbah, you attended salatul maghrib and fajr at a masjid and you heard the imam sharing a few good words after salah. It is your responsibility to go home and share that with your spouse, with your children, with your co-workers, with your relatives that are getting together this weekend. Whatever good you see and you heard and you've read, it is our responsibility to share it with those around us.

تَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ - That's the third component to gain success. We cannot think that I'm not knowledgeable enough, so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. I'm not gonna share anything. Something as simple as "time for salah, we have to pray." We don't need to know much knowledge about that.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3461)

Share on behalf of Rasulullah ﷺ even if it means one verse, one hadith, whatever you know, share it.

The Fourth Principle: Patience

And lastly:

And invite one another to remain patient. Because when you ask people to do good deeds, there will be an automatic knee-jerk reaction. "Why are you telling me this? Why are you correcting me?" Our Ustad, our Shaykh was with us in Hajj, he was saying, you saw someone in tawaf doing something completely wrong and he corrected him. And the person looked at him and said, آپ اپنا خیال کریں، ہم اپنا خیال کرتے ہیں - "You mind your own business, I mind my own business." People don't even, you know, they don't want to be corrected unfortunately. But so this is the idea, when you're at that time, then you have to remain patient as well.

Valuing the Essence of Time

When you speak the truth, when you invite towards the truth, unfortunately a large group of people will not react positively to that. And that does not mean we should give up. We should remain patient and ask others to remain patient as well. And along with that, you could say, that when you're inviting people to do good deeds, ask them that it's not easy to do istiqamah. You have to be patient on istiqamah. For example, like that goes in well. So the aspect of remaining patient is advice for our own self, and it is also advice for the person we're speaking to that do this good deed and remain steadfast on it. Because صبر (sabr) is of many types, and one of them is remaining steadfast on good deeds.

The Gist of Surah Al-Asr

So again we recap, this was the gist of Surah Al-Asr. Allah Azza wa Jal, after taking oath on the most important and the most commonly found, common denominator, that blessing which we all have, no matter where and when our life started, and how much difficulty it started in. What makes all of us have a fair shot at Jannah, is the fact that we have Al-Asr with us. We have time. And we can fill it up with whatever we want.

And number two aspect that we talked about is that if you're having a difficult start, because of your physical, emotional, financial, home circumstances, Allah Azza wa Jal is going to weigh your deeds appropriately, based on your own specific condition. So your Salah maybe end up becoming more valuable than someone else's Salah, because your circumstances of coming to the Masjid, for example, maybe more challenging and difficult than others.

The Four Pillars of Salvation

And then the third thing was the fact that these are the four most important things for us to gain Najah and salvation from the Hellfire, namely:

First, believing firmly in Allah Azza wa Jal and all that is hidden, that He has asked us to believe in, through the three modes of Ayat and verses that we talked about.

And number two, is to continuously to do righteous good deeds.

And number three, is to share the good that we know with others.

And lastly, to encourage one another to remain patient in doing good deeds and ourselves remain patient when faced with retaliation, when we speak the truth.

Du'a and Closing

I ask Allah Azza wa Jal to make these verses and what was discussed a reality in my life and our lives, and allow us Insha'Allah Ta'ala to have these four qualities in the most complete form within our lives.

Insha'Allah we can stand up and perform our Sunnah Salah. Kindly move forward, fill up all the rows before you begin your Sunnah Salah. جزاكم الله خيرا (Jazakumullah Khairan).