working hard

Working Hard

Opening

(السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh)

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

Khutbah al-Hajah (Opening Sermon)

(الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَكَفَى وَسَلَامٌ عَلَى عِبَادِهِ الَّذِينَ اصْطَفَى أَمَّا بَعْدُ فَأَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ - alhamdu lillahi wa kafaa wa salamun ala ibadihil ladhina stafa amma badu fa a'uzu billahi minash shaytanir rajeem)

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

Opening Ayah

(وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سُبُلَنَا - wallazeena jahadu feena lanahdiyannahum subulana)

"Glory to your Lord, the Lord of might, [exalted] above what they describe, And peace upon the messengers. And praise to Allah, Lord of the worlds."

Main Body

Judgment in Context

In the deen, the basis of it or the foundation of it is the fact that each of us will be judged. And that judgment actually will occur in context. For example, on one occasion, the Prophet was sitting with his companions and he mentioned to his companions that were you to leave 10% of what you follow, you would leave the fold of what was Islam.

Meaning the Sahaba basically practiced the vast majority of what the Prophet ﷺ commanded them to practice. Now obviously their minds accepted everything, but basically they were people who enacted the vast majority of what the Prophet ﷺ commanded them to do. And then the Prophet ﷺ he continued and he explained that there will come a people that if they practice 10% of what I have brought, they will remain within the fold of Islam.

Meaning that some place down in the future, whether it be our generation or whether it be some generation to come, we will actually practice 10% of what the Prophet brought. And that 10% will be sufficient to keep us in the fold of Islam or to be called Muslim. So you can see that how much difference context makes.

One group of people is sitting with the Prophet, Wahi is being revealed before them, they watch the crowning of the Prophet, they're watching the victories of the battles between them, etc. And for them, if they were to leave even a tiny portion of what was given to them, they would have left what defined them. And some place down the line when the context changes and the Prophet is no longer present and people are so far away both

in time and place, then practicing 10%, practicing a minority of what the Prophet sent actually results in a great reward.

So context has a lot to do with the way that we are judged in the akhirah. Now, you have to understand that actually human beings are designed like this. I'll just give you some examples and they're actually very interesting examples.

The Weekend Mentality

Alright, today is Sunday. So we consider this the weekend. And psychologically, once the weekend comes, then all of a sudden everybody believes that they should relax.

So there's this concept that I work during the week and then once the weekend comes I'm going to take rest during the weekend, whether that be Saturday, Sunday or both days. And that's what's ingrained in us, that's the context in which we're raised, that's the context in which we exist and so that's what we do. Now, when I was studying abroad, there was no concept of weekend.

There was no such thing as weekend. There was Jummah, which was a special day, and then there was every other day, Saturday, Sunday. There was no Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, every day was the same.

So what happened? We used to work every single day. I wouldn't know. The difference between Saturday and Monday, there would be no difference.

We would just work. So six days a week we worked as if every day was equivalent. And the day of Jummah would come and we would still work.

It's not that we took a break on Jummah. We would work, but we would work in a different way, meaning on those six days we were studying, we went to class, we reviewed. And on Jummah, we woke up early and we spent our day getting ready for the prayer, whether it be doing zikr, whether it be preparing our clothing, whether it be going to the masjid early.

And then once the day was over, we actually began to work again. The day, that break, the quote-unquote break of Jummah, basically lasted until the prayer, because we were expected that we would be back in school on Saturday morning and that we would have reviewed our lesson on Friday night, after the Jummah prayer. So for us, every day was equivalent.

And it was amazing that I had come from this background where Saturday and Sunday was automatically a break, and then all of a sudden that became completely erased because I was in a totally different context. And in that context, every day was equivalent and we used to work every single day. And actually, that is what led to the success of the people who I studied with.

They were very successful people. I was just an observer. I got to observe their success.

But in the end, they were very successful people because they grew up in this... they were raised to recognize that every moment was valuable. One time I was sitting with Sheikh Zulfiqar, and someone came and asked him. It was a close person, otherwise he usually doesn't reveal these kind of things.

Lessons from Sheikh Zulfiqar's College Days

But someone came and asked him that, you know, how did you accomplish so much? Now, for those of you who are familiar with him, you know, he's an engineer, he's a hafidh of the Qur'an, he's a scholar, he's very, very advanced, obviously, in his tasawwuf and the amount of dhikr that he must have done to train to reach that state. The amount of time he gives to people, the amount of speeches he gives, the amount of traveling he does. You just begin to wonder, you know, like, how does one human being accomplish so much? So, someone actually came and asked him.

It was very interesting because we would never dare ask that question. But somebody came and asked him, we just got the opportunity to listen. So he said that the reason we were able to accomplish so much was because of the circumstance that we created around us, the context.

So somebody said, how? What do you mean? So he said that, actually, we used to have some rules. And when we were in college, these rules were engraved. They were like, you know, as if they were rules of the dean.

So rule number one was that there were four roommates, four or five roommates living together. They never spoke to one another. They never spoke to one another.

They were just busy themselves and work. They would walk in and say salam, ask how the other person was doing, but beyond that, there was no speech. So much so that in order to become efficient, they had devised a system that we need to cook because they wouldn't eat food from the outside, so they would eat their own food from inside.

They were all people who were all hardworking, all people who were accomplished in their studies, all people who were struggling and striving towards advancing themselves in the deen. So what they used to do is they used to put a schedule, that today this person will clean, this person will cook, this person will go bring supplies, this person will have this task. And they used to write it a month in advance.

And it would be written on the door in this very organized way so that no one would even have to discuss who was going to cook, what was going to be cooked, who was going to go bring the food, the supplies to cook the food, etc. It was already known, it was written on the door. Once a month they would get together, they would sit down, make a schedule, and then they would follow that schedule.

So that was one thing that they used to do. They created a context of seriousness amongst themselves. There was no room to discuss, because these were people who were working towards a goal.

You know, somebody is working towards a goal, they don't have time to sit and talk. The night before a final exam, who has time to sit around and talk on the phone? Nobody has time. You're worried about the exam, you're worried about preparing for the exam, it's a very different day. That day is different than every other day. So in this way they used to recognize that every moment of theirs was this valuable. So that was one thing.

The Sleep Philosophy

Then he said that the other thing was that we didn't sleep very much. Now what was interesting is that the questioner followed up. He said, what do you mean you didn't sleep very much? How did you decide? What was your schedule? He said there was no schedule.

When it came to our sleep, we didn't have any schedule. The rule was that you don't sleep until you're dying of sleep. That was the rule.

There was no, okay, it's 11 o'clock, so now I'm going to go to bed. When we were passing out because we needed to sleep, that was the time we used to lie down. And then we would sleep just as much as we needed to sleep to refresh our bodies.

And Subhanallah, I'll tell you, I don't have the kind of interaction that perhaps some other people have, just watching Sheikh Zulfiqar and spending time with him. But in the minimal amount of time that I spent with him, and the time that he stayed with me or I've served him or I've assisted him, I've never, never seen him sleep more than three hours in a row. So, I mean, he'll be up all night.

He'll be working on something. He'll have arrived from the plane. Now, think about this, never more than three hours, and I'm catching him from flights where he's jet lagged, coming from here, coming from there.

He's just been in California speaking all night, meeting people. I catch him here, and then he'll take a nap for an hour, take a nap for an hour and a half, not more. And we try to make him sleep.

We put him to sleep. We make the bed as comfortable as possible. We fill up his stomach if we can because he's our guest.

We want him to be able to rest. So, you know, we tiptoe. We close the door, and we tiptoe.

We disconnect the phones. We purposely create the environment that he could sleep. Now, somebody creates that environment for us, we'll sleep for two days, right? Subhanallah, he would pop up.

He would get up in like half an hour, an hour, and I would just look at him, and I'd be shocked that you got up. You know, what happened? Did the phone ring? Did someone bother you? How come you got up so quickly? In fact, one time I vividly remember that he spent the whole night up meeting with people, talking to people.

People brought their questions, et cetera.

Then he went to sleep. It was probably around 9 o'clock in the morning when he went to sleep, and I thought for sure he will sleep till 1. 9:30 he was up walking around. I was just looking at him, shocked that he just slept 20, 30 minutes, and then all of a sudden he popped up.

So that's because he had created within his system and understanding a context, right? Now we have the same type of context, but our context is already established. Everybody knows. My doctor said I need eight hours of sleep, right? So automatically if I don't get eight hours of sleep, then I create the context in my mind that I'm fatigued, right? I create that psychology within myself that I'm fatigued.

Actually, the body doesn't need eight hours of sleep. In an hour or two you can get what you need. Now maybe you need an hour or two or maybe two or three times in the day, but you don't need eight hours straight.

People are just bouncing in and out of room. This is a sleep scientist. He runs a sleep lab.

We can ask him. People, I mean, you can study these things. You don't need that much sleep.

But what happens is that we create an understanding within ourselves. Just like you don't need to rest on the weekends. What is this resting on the weekend business, right? We don't rest on the weekends.

We'll Rest in Our Graves

Somebody said to Sheikh Zulfiqar one time we were sitting together, and they said that, you know, you should rest. That was a mistake. But he said you should rest.

So he said in that, yeah, I'll rest. We'll rest. He said, no, he said we'll rest.

We'll rest in our grave, Inshallah. That's the place where the Muslim rests. It's like a rental.

You know, let's say that you run a business, all right, and you know that you want to rent a van, right, for a day. So what happens, you are a mover, right? So what are you going to do? You're going to schedule all your appointments in that 24-hour rental period. If you know that you're renting, you're a mover, you run a business, you're a mover, and you have to rent a van, and you're going to rent it for 24 hours, you're going to tell everybody, I'll move you at 1, I'll move you at 2, I'll move you at 4, I'll move you at 6, I'll move you at 10.

You're going to set your schedule so that that whole 24 hours gets maximized because you want to take the maximum return out of that car. It's obvious. Any business person can understand this principle.

So it's the same with us. This body is rented. This body, Allah gave us this body for a rental period, which is called life, and this body will disintegrate.

And the goal is to see how much you can churn out of this body, what you can churn out of this body in order to create some sort of reward for you in the hereafter. So now if we know that we've rented this body and we have 50 or 60 years, then what is this sleeping excessively and resting on the weekends and assuming that when a certain hour comes that automatically I have to shut myself off? These things don't exist in the life of the

Muslim, in the life of the Muslim who understands what this world is about and what work is about. Now from that, you'll take home the general one principle, which is what I want to pass off to you, and that is that actually what you have to ingrain in your minds is that you have to work hard in everything you do, because that is what drives your context.

Work Hard in Everything

See, if you decide that I'm going to work hard in the deen, but I'm going to be a lazy person at work, then what's going to happen is that you will always be a lazy person in everything you do. The thing that I've noticed about those people who succeed is that they recognize their time is valuable in every realm in which they apply it. So, SubhanAllah, I can tell you that as many accolades that you have somebody, for example, that I've seen even my teachers or whoever it might be, just taking Sheikh Zulfiqar as an example, as many accolades as I've seen him gain in the deen, he has similar accolades in engineering.

He has this award, that award. He used to place top in his class all the time when he was an engineering student. Very regularly he would be at the top of his class.

He'd attain various awards, etc. And that was because he recognized that whatever he made a decision to do, he had to work hard at that. Because he did it in the context of Allah.

And when we go to work, we make a decision that we're going to go to work, we do that in a context of the deen, to make a halal income, to protect ourselves because busyness is a good thing. When you're free, that's when you begin to sin. But being busy is good, but not being too busy, but not being too free.

So there's a balance. But actually, whatever you do, you have to work hard. That's the context that you have to create.

That individual who recognizes that every moment of my time is valuable and I have to work hard to make that moment special, then they work hard on the week day when they're at work, and then they work hard on the weekend when they're not at work. The person who's lazy at work and then thinks that they're going to become people who strive in the deen, doesn't happen. Doesn't happen.

That laziness takes you over. One, you don't accomplish anything at work. An individual fails to accomplish what their goals were in whatever they might be pursuing, and then two, they begin to assume that they need to rest even after their failure.

That's the worst thing. One thing is to fail in what you were supposed to do and not meet up to your goals that you set for yourself. And then the second thing on top of that is to compound it by saying that now I'm going to rest on Saturday and Sunday.

Now I have to entertain myself on Saturday and Sunday. This is the day I have to relax, so I'm going to play my video games on Saturday and Sunday. These are all things, these ideas that Shaytan generates in a person's mind

in order to derail them.

Because the individual who becomes lazy on Saturday and Sunday, then they become lazy on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That's the way it works. So if you want to be an individual who succeeds in their endeavors then take everything you do seriously.

The Story of the Lawyer

When it comes to work, put 1,000% in. I'll tell you, very interesting that a brother called me just a few weeks back, maybe even less than a week ago. And he told me he's actually a lawyer.

And he told me that he was actually, I'll tell you his history a little bit, he's a lawyer and he was working on the East Coast. And then he made a move to go outside of the country and he took a law job outside of the country. So when he took this law job outside of the country, he went to Sheikh Zulfiqar.

And he said to Sheikh Zulfiqar, I've got this new job, can you give me some advice? Very interesting. So he said, I've got this new job, can you give me some advice? So Sheikh Zulfiqar said to him, Work so hard, you should work so hard that the people at your job will wonder if he leaves us what will happen to the company.

Just imagine.

He said, you should work so hard at your job. He's not even talking about his zikr. He's just talking about his job.

He said, you should work so hard at your job that the people at the company will wonder that if you leave, where will we be? So SubhanAllah, he said that that had such an effect on him that he began to work so hard that he would be there nights, he would be there weekends, he would just constantly be working. And within three months, they called him into the office and they said that we are so happy with your performance that we're giving you a 40% raise. So they gave him a 40% raise in three months.

It was just ajeeb. He was wondering how he could get such a good position in a top-level law firm in another country. And within four months, they're calling him into the office and saying that we're so pleased with your performance that we're giving you a raise on top of that.

Not even just a pat on the back. That would have been enough. We would have been ecstatic with a pat on the back.

Instead, they said, also we're giving you a raise, meaning we want to entice you to stay here because where would we be without you? That's the type of attitude he created with them. Now what ends up happening is that when an individual works that hard, then the body gets used to working that hard. Then when it comes to the weekend, when it comes to free time, then that individual works just as hard because they have that much energy and they apply it to the deen as well.

And that's the individual who moves forward. That what they do, they do seriously and they do with firm intent.

Of course, you have to always keep the sharia in mind.

So it's not like he's missing salats, right? Then people take it to the extreme. They start missing salats and this and that. That's not what we're talking about.

You go to the salah, you do your salah on time, pray your sunnahs, come to the masjid as much as possible, etc. But when you have that time, it's to grab it and take advantage of it. Because either you take advantage of your time, then Allah will take advantage of you.

Take Advantage of Time

He who takes advantage of his time, Allah takes advantage of him. He uses that individual to spread his deen, to share his deen, to guide his family to the deen, to benefit the community and the deen. And the person who wastes his time, Allah will waste him.

It makes no difference to Allah. The same way, you know, you go into a room, you have an ant problem, you spray the raid, and the more the ants die, the happier you are. It makes no difference to you, but the more you get them, you're happier because now you got rid of them.

It's the same way. We're a bunch of ants, right? The whole community could be wiped out. What difference does it make to Allah? How many communities have come, he's just eliminated them, right? In just a moment.

They disobeyed him. They wasted themselves. They did not take advantage of the opportunity present before them, despite the fact that a prophet was calling them clearly to a message.

It makes no difference to Allah. He just flips over the community in a moment. Finishes that community and moves on.

So, we should be people that take advantage of our time. We're lucky that we're in the context that we're in, because were we at the time of the prophesies on them, perhaps we would be the people that they would be coming and giving dawah to, right? So, we live in a context that our laziness is acceptable, right? But it doesn't make it the goal. So, we should use our time, use it wisely, apply ourselves and work hard at those things that we take on as responsibilities towards the deen, whether it be our dhikr, whether it be our learning, whether it be our work, whether it be our families, whether it be the time that we spend with our families, etc.

That same energy should be applied in each and every endeavor, and that's what inshallah will lead us towards success. May Allah give us the tawfiq to be among those who take advantage of every moment and to be among those who apply ourselves diligently in each and every endeavor that we take on.

Closing Dua

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