How Do We Spend Our Time? - Ustadh Aqeel Mahmood

How Do We Spend Our Time?

We know what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, when he said that man is on the religion of his friend.

(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 4833)

So be careful about who you accompany. Be careful about who you become friends with.

The Television — A Companion and a Teacher

Nowadays, it's unfortunate, but the television has become a companion for many of us. People spend more time watching television than talking to their friends. People spend more time in front of the television than doing other activities. Especially children — we tend to just leave the children to watch the television. And if you think about the effect that the television has on the individual, sometimes we underestimate it. We don't think it's a serious thing.

Sometimes a child watches a television show regularly, and when he's not watching that television show — when he's with his family or with his friends — he'll start saying things that he always hears from that television show. A catchphrase or whatever it is. He'll start saying that even though he's not watching that show at the moment. He's so used to watching that show, he's so used to hearing those catchphrases, he says them even when he's not watching television. And maybe it might not have anything to do with what he's doing at the moment or the conversation that he's having. So that's the effect that the television has on the individual.

We've taken the television not just as companions, but also as teachers. Because when you sit down and you watch the television with your family, and you're listening intently, you don't want anybody to talk. If somebody starts to talk, we tell them off — "Stop speaking. Stop talking. I'm listening to the television. I can't hear what the television is telling me." There should be complete silence when the television is on. Nobody should be talking. People don't even have that kind of etiquette and those kinds of manners when it comes to teachers in the classroom, subhanAllah. Yet with the television, that's the power that it has on the individual.

Imagine a person travels from 200 years ago, and he goes into a living room today. And he sees a family — a mother and a father, a daughter and a son — just sitting there, staring at a television, staring at this box. And he's looking at them, and he sees them quiet, not speaking at all, not even moving. And then they'll start laughing once in a while. Or they'll start crying. What would this person think? He'll think these people are possessed. This box has cast some sort of spell on these individuals. These people, their minds are being controlled by the television. But this is the reality. This is what's happening today.

And we're spending, on average, nine years of our lives watching the television. So we really need to take into account what we're doing with our time, and how we're spending this time, and making sure that we're utilising our time effectively.

How We Spend Our Years

Another result of this research that was done was that it said that a person spends 4.3 years of his life driving. Just driving. And if a person was wise, and if a person had some wisdom — some hikma — and he was smart, he would utilise even that time that he was driving to benefit himself. Sometimes we travel and we'll put the radio on so we don't fall asleep. But why don't we put on some Qur'an? Why don't we memorise some Qur'an while we're travelling? Why don't we listen to beneficial lectures? We're spending so much of our time driving and doing these other things, that we don't think about how we can utilise this time in an effective way.

Another result of this research showed that an individual will spend 3.6 years of his life eating. So basically about 55 years of our life we've spent doing these kinds of things.

The Worst Vessel — The Stomach

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ talked about eating and drinking. And he said that the worst vessel that the son of Adam can fill is his stomach. The worst vessel — the single worst vessel — that the son of Adam can fill is his stomach.

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2380; also reported in Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 3349)

Why is this considered to be the worst vessel that the son of Adam can fill? Because when a person eats and when a person drinks, it affects him. It affects him physically. It affects him mentally. It has an effect on the individual.

For example, a person is tired or he wakes up in the morning and he's very tired and he wants some energy — what does he drink? He drinks coffee to wake him up. It gives him more energy. A person is sick and he'll take medicine and that medicine will transform him — it will give him health after he became sick. So when a person eats and when a person drinks, it has an effect on the body. And that's why it's very important for an individual to be careful about what he puts into his body. Because whatever he's putting into his body is like fuel. When a person travels, he fills his car with fuel — with petrol or diesel — before he goes on that journey. A person should think the same thing when it comes to his own body. His body is like a vehicle and he's putting fuel into his body to get to a certain destination, which is Paradise itself. That's how he should view food and drink. It's something which is just fuel for the body. Nothing more and nothing less.

One of the scholars said: don't pay so much attention to what you eat and drink, because whatever you eat, it's all going to come out the same on the other side. It's all going to look the same.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said that it should be enough for the son of Adam to have a few morsels of food to satisfy his hunger. Because it's not a matter of filling ourselves with food — we don't want to waste so much time. We don't want to waste three and a half years of our time eating and drinking. It should just be something which gives us the energy to carry on in our lives, to carry on doing the daily chores that we're doing, and most importantly worshipping Allah. He said that if a person wants more than this, then he should have one third of food, one third of drink, and he should leave one third for air. And this was the advice of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

And it's a shame nowadays that it's become a weakness for many of us — that we have to have certain types of food, that we have to go somewhere to have a type of food we haven't had in a long time. "I have to go to this restaurant. I have to go to this milkshake place. I have a craving." And it's become a weakness for many of us. And this is the state of affairs today.

The Example of Umar

Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) — once some of the companions had conquered a certain part of the Islamic world and they sent back food to Umar from that part of the world. When Umar saw this food, he asked, "What is this?" And they said to him, "It's food from such and such a place." So Umar pointed at this food and he said, "This is going to be our downfall" — meaning a person will fall into these types of desires. He's going to fall into the attractions of the dunya and it's going to distract him from other things. And this is what happens: a person eats and drinks, the time for salah comes and he becomes lazy. He becomes tired. He becomes lethargic. He doesn't want to pray. So it has an effect on the body as we mentioned.

Umar (may Allah be pleased with him), once during a famine, refrained from eating as much. He wouldn't eat much anyway. And his stomach started to rumble. And so he started to talk to his own stomach and he said, "Rumble or don't rumble, you're not going to get any food today. There's no food for you." See, that was the discipline that the companions had when it came to food and drink.

The Example of Ibn Aqeel and Shaykh al-Albani

One of the scholars of the past, Ibn Aqeel, it is said that he used to have a diet of bread and water — that's what he used to eat and drink. And then he found that he was wasting too much time eating bread and drinking water, subhanAllah. And so he decided to replace the bread with dry biscuits to save time. How would he save time? Because when you have dry biscuits and you take water, it soaks up very quickly, you don't have to chew it as much, and he would just swallow it. And so he replaced the bread with biscuits, subhanAllah.

And it is said that Shaykh al-Albani, rahimahullah, he used to have a library. And whenever he used to exit the library, he would have to open the door inwards and then go out. And he felt that he was wasting precious time because of this — because the door would open inwards instead of outwards. And so he called a builder in to make the door open outwards instead, so that he would save more time, subhanAllah.

So you see the extent to which the scholars would go when it came to saving time. And you look at these statistics, you look at the results of this research, and you realise how much time we're wasting. We ask Allah that we make the most of the time that He has blessed us with.

Taking Stock of Our Time

We were talking about the time that a person spends doing daily chores in his life — and how much time he spends doing certain things every day, but doesn't necessarily realise how much time he's spending on those things. We mentioned that a person will spend 25 years of his life sleeping. He'll spend 10 years of his life working. He'll spend 9 years of his life watching television. That's already 45 years. And then he'll spend 4 years driving and 3.6 years eating. So over 50 years of his life he'll be doing these things.

Once we've looked at how much time he's spending doing these things, we have to think about and contemplate — how much time do we spend worshipping Allah in reality?

How Much Has Allah Asked of Us?

Look at, for example, Hajj — it is something that a person has to do once in a lifetime. Just once. When it comes to Zakah, a person gives Zakah once every single year, and it takes about 15 minutes — you calculate how much money you have and you can give it online. It doesn't even take that long. Then he fasts the month of Ramadan — 30 days of the year. And even then he's not even doing anything. In fact he's refraining from food and drink. He's actually saving time! As we mentioned, he's spending so much time eating and drinking — Ramadan is an opportunity for a person to save that time. You're wasting less time. In fact, Ramadan should give you more time to worship Allah.

And then you look at the Salah itself — the five daily prayers. On average a person will pray and it will take him a minimum of five minutes. A person will spend about 25 minutes of the day making Salah, performing the five daily prayers. And if you calculate — a person who prays every single day and he ends up living a full life — you'll see that a person will spend in total in his life performing the Salah: 1.3 years worshipping Allah.

1.3 years. SubhanAllah. Look at the rahma and the mercy of Allah. Look at how Allah hasn't overburdened us with this worship. 1.3 years of our life. We spend 25 years sleeping, and Allah has ordered us to pray to Him for 1.3 years. And even then some of us complain. Even then some of us say, "Oh, this is too much. I just prayed Dhuhr and now it's already Asr. This is too difficult. Why has Allah overburdened me with this?"

Look at how ungrateful we are as human beings. Look at how Allah has shown us so much mercy. We can sleep for a third of the day, yet we can't even pray to Allah for 25 minutes in the day. We can't take that time out to worship Allah.

Gratitude for Allah's Blessings

Allah says:

If you were to simply just try to count the blessings of Allah, you wouldn't be able to do so. Just to count the blessings of Allah — let alone thank Allah for all those blessings. Just to count those blessings, you wouldn't be able to do so, because there are so many blessings that you've been given by Allah azza wa jal.

A person should really contemplate and think about how Allah has blessed us. And the next time a person is at work, or at home watching television, or sleeping, or eating, or travelling, he should think about how he needs to keep his duties to Allah, wherever he is, whatever he may be doing. Because Allah isn't asking for much. Allah isn't asking us to move mountains. He's not asking us to overexert ourselves. And that's the least that we can do as Muslims — to at least do what Allah has ordered us to do, to perform the obligations which Allah has asked from us.

It's not something difficult, brothers and sisters. We really need to be spending more time worshipping Allah — not just the five daily prayers. We should be doing even more, just to show our thanks and our gratefulness to Allah for how He has blessed us. So the next time you're at home and the time for salah comes, don't complain. Take it as an opportunity to show your thanks to Allah, to appreciate that Allah hasn't overburdened you. And be grateful to Allah azza wa jal.

We ask Allah that we make the most of the time that He has blessed us with, worshipping Him and making sure that we have as many good deeds as we can while we are still here, so that on the Day of Judgment, Allah will reward us with Paradise and with Jannah.

Du'a

إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالْإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَيَنْهَىٰ عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ، فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ الْعَظِيمَ الْجَلِيلَ يَذْكُرْكُمْ وَادْعُوهُ عَلَى نِعَمِهِ يَزِدْكُمْ وَلَذِكْرُ اللَّهِ أَعْلَى وَأَوْلَى وَأَكْبَرُ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ، أَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ.