The Essence Of A Perfect Life: Safety, Health, And Sustenance

The Perfect Life

First and foremost, I want to start by thanking Allah Azza wa Jal for allowing us to witness this blessed month of Ramadan, a month that the Prophet ﷺ describes as a month of barakah.

A month of barakah has come to you as a great guest.

And in this month of Ramadan:

The doors of Jannah are opened and the gates of Jahannam are closed.

And it has a night greater than a thousand months — which is 83 plus years, subhanAllah. In this very limited time that we have today, I want to talk about a topic called the perfect life. And why the topic of a perfect life? Because subhanAllah, naturally as human beings, from the day we are born until the very last day of our lives, every one of us is seeking and wants what's called a perfect life.

But when you think about the term "perfect life," it's so subjective, where every one of us probably in this room has their own definition of what is called a perfect life. Someone in their college years — his perfect life at the time may be wanting to graduate and find a good career. After he has a job, his perfect life at that time may change: wanting to get married and have kids. When you're 40, 50, you want to make sure that your kids are doing well and are in good schools. When you're 70 or 80 years old, at that time, literally your definition of a perfect life is simply to have good health.

And Nabi ﷺ describes to us in a hadith that many of us may know and have heard of so many times — what is Islamically a definition of a perfect life:

"Whoever among you wakes up in the morning safe in his dwelling, healthy in his body, and has food to sustain him for that day — it is as if the entire world and everything in it has been granted to him."

(Sunan al-Tirmidhī, Hadith 2346 — graded Hasan)

Now, being that we've heard this hadith, I want to dissect it in depth today.

The First Blessing: Safety (أَمْن)

The first aspect and definition and characteristic of a perfect life the Prophet mentions is amn — safety. As human beings, wallahi, we will never understand and appreciate and value the true blessing of amn and safety until we no longer have it.

Let's take a prime example today of what's been happening in Gaza for the last two and a half years, or what's been going on in Sudan for the last three years, or other countries around the globe. Some of those individuals in those countries have had a much better life than you and I — whether financially, in status, jobs, or businesses; some of them are a lot better off than us. But once their lives became a constant war, day in and day out, they are constantly in fear. Bombs and missiles coming in and out. People are literally, every single day they wake up, having no idea whether or not they will make it to the night. When you're living in that kind of fear, nothing else around you actually matters. You don't think about what nice car you have or what nice home you have. You don't think about any of those things.

Allah in the Qur'an, when He describes the ni'mah that He has given the people of Quraysh, what does He say?

Vice versa, Allah mentions an example of a nation:

Allah sets an example of a nation that was safeguarded and secure, and was being sustained and blessed from literally everywhere — yet they were not grateful for the ni'mah of Allah Azza wa Jal. And Allah also uses in the Qur'an the term kufr as the opposite of shukr:

And what was the punishment in return?

Allah tested and punished them with a severe level of hunger and fear. When we think about how difficult life is right now, when we think about all the things that we don't have, when you think about how businesses are going down, when you think about the tariffs, when you think about the job market, and how people are literally being so overwhelmed — chasing money day in and day out — you realize that you have forgotten one of the greatest ni'mah that you have: the ni'mah of aman, safety. We all can go to sleep every single night and not worry about anything happening to us. No matter where you are — whether it's in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, wherever you think you're at — no matter how dangerous you think the area you're in is, none of us have ever slept thinking that someone may come and kill us, or that a missile will come and kill us.

I used to speak, subhanAllah, with our uncle Khalid Nabhan — the grandfather of Reem from Gaza, the famous man who carried his granddaughter and called her Ruh Ruh. I was, alhamdulillah, blessed to be the first American Muslim to actually get in contact with him. And I have videos, recordings, and pictures of me and him speaking constantly on WhatsApp video. Ironically, subhanAllah, my daughter is three years old and looks very identical to his granddaughter, subhanAllah. And when I would carry my daughter on my lap while I'm talking to him, he would look at my daughter and say, هذي روح روح — subhanAllah.

And I would tell him, "Shaykh, how are you guys doing?" And he would tell me, "Do you hear that sound? The sound of that drone?" I said, "Yes." He said, "That drone can at any minute strike any one of us." And by the qadr of Allah, his granddaughter died through a drone strike, and 11 months later, he dies from a drone strike as well.

We don't have that fear. We don't have the fear of where and how we will break our iftar today, or where we will sleep. So when you think about all of the things that you don't have, appreciate the ni'mah of amn.

The Second Blessing: Physical Health (مُعَافًى فِي الْبَدَن)

The second blessing of a perfect life the Prophet ﷺ mentions is مُعَافًى فِي بَدَنِهِ — being physically healthy. Now subhanAllah, in one of the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, he says:

"There are two blessings that the vast majority of mankind neglect and fail to appreciate: health and free time."

(Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Hadith 6412)

When it comes to health, subhanAllah, I want to mention a very quick personal story. Allah Azza wa Jal has tested me, and I am thankful for that test. For the last 13 years, I have had severe kidney stones, where my right kidney has literally become a manufacturer of kidney stones. It damaged my kidney enough that medically, I can no longer fast — for the last two and a half years.

The first time I had a kidney stone, in 2012, I had severe pain and had no idea what it was. The stones, when they travel from the kidney, either pass through naturally or are removed surgically. My stone was pretty large, so when it reached the exit of the bladder to pass naturally, it blocked the exit and I couldn't urinate. I didn't know what was going on — I felt the need to urinate but I couldn't. There was something blocking it.

So I called a family doctor and asked him what was going on. He told me I had a kidney stone and to go to the ER, and to drink lots of water — it would help break down the stone. So I'm drinking lots of water for eight hours. And what's happening is my bladder is expanding and I cannot urinate. Eight hours later I finally go to the hospital and I go to the ER. I remember the minute the doctor comes in, he says, "Good evening, how can I help you? What's going on?" And I said, "Doctor, I need a catheter now." That was my first response. He was trying to explain to me that even a catheter is painful, that it's not what you think it is, that it's not an easy process — "Let's put you on some pain medication, some IVs." And I said, "Doctor, I will give you anything you want. Please give me a catheter."

They finally administered the catheter, subhanAllah. The urine was released. The pain decreased significantly. And wallahi, 30 minutes later, I sat to myself and said, subhanAllah — just 30 minutes ago I was really willing to give this man, whom I don't even know, everything I had, just so that I could urinate again.

While you're here thinking about how and what you want in this dunya, chasing a perfect life — wallahi, you can have a billion dollars in your accounts, you can have all the wealth in the world, and just that one functionality of your body — if it stops working — wallahi, you will give up everything that you have just so that you can urinate again. So when you think about all these ni'mah that you think you don't have, or think that you want and need, appreciate what you have.

Al-Hasan al-Basri rahimahullah once heard a man complaining about how difficult life was, and he told him: "If I give you alf dinar — a thousand dinars — would you give me your eyesight?" He said, "No." "Would you give me your hearing?" He said, "No." "Would you give me your hands?" He said, "No." He said, "Idhhab — you don't know that you are already walking with a tremendous amount of wealth that you don't appreciate."

The Third Blessing: Daily Sustenance (قُوتُ يَوْمِهِ)

And the last part of the hadith: عِنْدَهُ قُوتُ يَوْمِهِ — has what sustains him for that day. Now I know financial advisors teach us, and our parents and elders always tell us, to prepare and save for the future — save for a rainy day, have six months or a year's worth of savings. And Islamically there is nothing wrong with that, so long as you are earning your wealth in a halal manner and spending it in a halal manner.

But subhanAllah, today when someone describes to you that they are financially struggling, we have this famous term that people use: "I'm living paycheck to paycheck." We think about paycheck to paycheck — it signifies that your check sustains you from when you receive it until you get your next check. You just don't have any extra to live beyond that, or to save, or build wealth.

The Prophet ﷺ is telling us that if you wake up safe, and you wake up healthy, and you have literally what sustains you for that day — and tomorrow you have no idea where your income is coming from — that day that you are living, you have the most perfect life.

The Crisis in Sudan

Brothers and sisters, I am visiting today on behalf of Sudan Relief USA, a non-profit organization that operates in Sudan. SubhanAllah, I have been traveling the country for the last almost three years — literally every single weekend — to different states, raising awareness and funds for Sudan, as I am a citizen of Sudan as well, alhamdulillah rabb al-'alamin.

My biggest challenge for the last almost three years, when I went to masajid and talked about Sudan, was trying to draw the picture for the audience in front of me of what is actually happening in Sudan. Due to the fact that there was no social media coverage at the time of what was going on in Sudan, and logically and psychologically — we have this saying in Arabic — the one who only hears will never have the same emotional and psychological reaction as the one who also sees.

A prime example: we've heard about the Uyghurs in China, the Rohingyas, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, the earthquake in Morocco, the floods in Libya — we've heard about them all but never seen them. The reaction is never the same. When you think about Gaza, when you think about what happened in Syria — they both had constant, daily media coverage. Gaza for two and a half years: we have been watching the massacre, the genocide, the killing, the illegal occupation that is happening. You're seeing children literally dismembered, bombs destroying buildings, families dying, a father carrying three or four of his dead children. You see it. And naturally, aside from everything else — aside from the injustice of the Zionists attacking the Muslims — naturally you will be deeply impacted by it.

Sudan has been going through a genocide for three straight years — and subhanAllah — with no media coverage. People only heard about it and never really understood what was going on. People thought that what was happening in Sudan was simply two military forces fighting each other, and that was it.

Until 953 days later — which was on October 20th and 21st of this past year — something unique happened that doesn't usually happen in any war. Usually war criminals, when they commit their crimes, try their best to hide those crimes — just as we've seen with Israel, trying through algorithms to hide content, and they killed many journalists in Gaza. But Allah Azza wa Jal insisted that the world see what happened in Gaza.

The RSF in Sudan did something very unique: they were committing their genocide and decided — subhanAllah — to broadcast their killing to the world. And at that moment is when the world finally woke up and saw what has been going on — not in all of Sudan, but in a portion of a portion of Sudan, which is the western side of Darfur, in Al-Fashir — where literally in three days, 10,000 people were massacred.

We've all seen the videos on social media — videos that are still there — of the RSF lining up over a thousand people with their hands tied behind their backs and shooting every single one of them. We've seen the videos of them walking into hospitals and literally killing every single patient and every single doctor in that hospital. We've seen the famous video that went viral of the man they tied to a tree with his hands tied behind his back, screaming and begging for mercy until his shoulders popped — and finally they put him on the ground and shot him dead. We've seen the video of the mother holding three of her children very tight, and one of the RSF soldiers shooting bullets in the air to terrorize them, and every time a bullet went off she covered her children's ears. They ultimately killed two of her children and left her with one child alive.

I can talk about what's been going on in Sudan. And the fact that we haven't seen much lately is not because it stopped — it's because they stopped broadcasting it. They realized what broadcasting was doing. 85% of Sudan's medical systems and hospitals — and I'm not talking about a strip, or a city, or a state; I'm talking about an entire nation — have been completely destroyed or shut down.

A Call to Action: Giving Sadaqah for Sudan

I want to conclude by saying, brothers and sisters, I know and I've heard a lot about this generous community. And I know that you've seen and have heard from many organizations that come and stand before you and talk about their cause and the urgency of it. And probably in this Ramadan you will see many other organizations that will come and talk about Gaza, about this situation, about that situation. Naturally, when you consistently hear "give, give, support, support," we get this feeling of donor fatigue. You're exhausted. Some of us even get irritated — "How much more do we have to give? How much more are we going to keep being asked and asked?"

Naturally, the act of giving sadaqah is one of the most difficult acts of worship upon our nafs to do — it is how we are naturally created. Which ironically happens to be the very act of worship that every single one of us, as death approaches, Allah mentions, will make the very same du'a — to go back and give one last act of charity.

Brothers and sisters, I am here on behalf of the people of Sudan. And wallahi, if there is an ayah that describes the nation of Sudan, it is the ayah in the Qur'an where Allah distinguishes linguistically between the word faqir and miskeen. A lot of us think that they are the same. Miskeen means someone who has very little, but it's not enough. Faqir is someone who has absolutely nothing.

Allah tells us that there are many fuqara among us — they could be in this community, they can be around us in the neighborhood, they can be around the world. The people of Sudan have literally reached the stage of faqir — nothing. Allah says they have absolutely nothing and they don't even have the means to travel from one place to another. I have people that call me from Sudan almost daily: "I need money for transportation to literally make it from here to Ethiopia, to make it to Egypt, to make it to Saudi Arabia — and from there I will find any job. I don't have the means to go anywhere."

Allah says that someone who is ignorant — when they look at these people's physical appearance — because of their dignity, self-respect, and self-preservation, they will never come and extend their hands publicly. They will not ask. They are poor, they have nothing, they look normal, they may even look wealthy — and they will not come and ask. But they are in need.

So why, Allah, do we need to know about this, if we are barely going to figure out who they are and they are not going to come and ask us for help? Why is this important to us? The first lesson we take from this ayah is that Allah took the honor upon Himself to speak on their behalf. And if Allah asked us on their behalf, I am much less — and I will come, and you should be the first to sit and help them.

Brothers and sisters, in summary — when you are helping individuals like those in Sudan, the orphans who do not have a father or a mother to help and support them — while you are donating to them:

You are perfecting their dunya, and they are perfecting your akhirah for you. JazakumAllahu khayran.