Why the Afterlife Changes Everything

Idement.

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Woman. Alhamdulillah.

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Allah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in some of the closing verses in Alab he tells us that which translates to and behold the parables and the analogies that we present to the people which are only going to be understood by the knowledgeable. And he says subhanahu wa ta'ala in the closing verses of indeed in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the changing the intermittent changing between and the cycling between day and night is enough evidence and there are signs for the people or the men of understanding, the men of true understanding. These verses, what do they contain? What is common between these two verses? What do they share in their meaning? They share in their meaning presenting us with perspective. And this is the issue we'd to discuss this evening. The issue of perspective. If a person is standing in the hereafter and looking back at the dunya, who would they view from that vantage point to be the people of knowledge and the people of understanding? Would they from the hereafter looking through the lens of the hereafter standing on the day of judgment in front of Allah looking back at the dunya that we are in right now today? Who would we consider from that vantage point to be the men of understanding? Who would we consider to be the people of knowledge? Who would we consider to be the fortunate? Who would we consider to be the truly impoverished and poor? Who would we consider to be wealthy? From that vantage point, from that place. When we look at the dunya and we are here in this dunya, we have different understandings of who the people of knowledge are. Who the men of understanding are, who we consider to be wealthy, who we consider to be poor, who we consider to be fortunate, who we consider to be unfortunate in the dunya. But in the hereafter that perspective is going to change and the true people of understanding and knowledge and wealth will become apparent to us from that place at that time. You notice here how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran he gives us definitions. He gives us definitions of the people of wealth, the people of knowledge, the people of understanding. He gives us in the Quran definitions for the losers. Who is a loser? Who is a person who is a winner? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us definitions that are contrary to what our culture or our time and place dictate. We consider the wealthy to be someone who has a lot of money. We consider a poor person to be someone who doesn't. We consider a fortunate person to be someone who is healthy and strong and someone who has all of his children and a person who is free of misery and sadness and hardship. And we consider a person who is unfortunate to be a person who has hardship in his life. We consider the people of knowledge and the intellectuals amongst us to be the people with the most degrees and the most plaques on their walls. And we consider the winners to be the most accomplished in this world. However, even us, if we were to stand on the landscape of the hereafter and think back to the dunya and look at those same people today and consider who of them we view as wealthy or poor, it would change drastically. When we look at the definitions given to us in the Quran, they are given to us from the perspective of the hereafter. When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions a person of knowledge, he is speaking about the people of knowledge in the hereafter. those who were given knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah and were granted the success by Allah to implement that knowledge in their life. Those are the people of understanding. Those who say those are the men of intellect. Those are the intellectuals. Even if they don't know how to write or read, those are the intellectuals. Because all of this busy work in the hereafter, we will shed it when we die. We will shed everything that will not be of immediate consequence to our souls in the hereafter. I want to share a story with you and this is a very interesting story and I want you when you hear this story know that this is something that absolutely happened. This is something that occurred. And I want you to think when you hear this story about your immediate reaction to it. What do you consider this story to be? I want you to think about that when listening to it. Many of us, most of us have heard of the great Khalifa Omarbiz Abd Aziz was only the Khalifa for a couple of years. But he came at a time when oppression had spread and corruption had made its way into the Muslima and government where murder and fitna had become commonplace and within those couple of years Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala restored the balance and the justice this to the land and filled it with light as it had previously been filled with darkness just in those two years with Omar Abd Aziz. He was a scholar. He grew up a prince. He was later the Khalifa of the Muslim and he restored the Quran and Sunnah and he restored the balance and the legacy of the prophet Muhammad sallall.aii alaihi wasallam and his successors. Just in a couple of years because of his knowledge and his dedication and sincerity, Omarb Abd Aziz is considered so virtuous amongst the Muslims and the scholars specifically that they refer to him as the fifth Khalifa of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. The prophet sallallah.aii wasallam had four four successors. However, even though Omarb Abd Aziz came so far after and even though he was not a companion and even though he was came up in a time that was a rather shady time in the history of Islamic government. However, his sil and his biography and his ethic was so superb that it belongs on the shelf on the same shelf as the of the companions the four Abu Bakr and Ali Omar Abd we've heard of him many of us have. However, a lot of us haven't heard of where this man came from. What kind of environment did he grow up in? He was once a boy, a young child, and he grew up in a particular environment that set him on the course and trajectory that he later ended up on. one of the stories that kind of highlights this environment that he grew up in. Even though he was a prince and he grew up extremely wealthy, he grew up so wealthy that he never had to really use money. That's how wealthy he grew up. You know when a person becomes so wealthy that they don't even use money anymore. This kind of wealth that he grew up around and his father sent him to a scholar of hadith and linguistics named one of the great narrators of hadith of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. a muhadith and major scholar of his time. He sent him to teach him etiquets and knowledge. And this is what people aspired to back then. The Muslims, they would send their children not to boarding school, not to private schools, not to go. They would send them to the most knowledgeable of scholars of Islam so that they would grow up under the watching eye of the greatest scholars of Islam. And so one of his first teachers was Salahban. One of the first things that he told Omar Abd Aziz that he was responsible for was coming to every salah in J and he was never to be late. What is late? late is considered walking in the masid or joining after the imam has already said Allahbar you come in at that moment you're already late and so one day he noticed that came in after the imam had make that made that initial so he missed the initial. He missed it. He didn't miss the first. He missed the first. Do any of us consider that? It's like not a big deal at all. What's the problem? in case noticed this and he asked him after why were you late? I saw you missed the first technique of why. He said that he said I was having my hair braided. As we mentioned before in the time of the companions, the prophet sallall.aii wasallam their and the Arab culture at that time long hair was the norm. It was very unusual to see a man with short hair. And the way they would keep their hair is it would be long and they would braid it in big braids and then wear their imama over it. Well, this is a process. This takes time. If you shower and take your braids out, it takes time for it to be braided again. And so he had a servant that was braiding his hair. And it took a little longer than he expected. And because of that, he missed the first tech. So he wasn't playing around. He wasn't being negligent. And soban said, "I'm going to tell your father about this." And he sent a message to his father immediately because was in Medina. He sent a message to his father immediately. your son missed and he claims it's because he was having his hair braided. If you received that message about your son or your daughter, think about it. You got a complaint from your child's teacher that they missed because they were having their hair braid. What would your reaction be? Most of us, what would we think about that, right? Most of us. However, what was his father's reaction? He sent a message back to his son. I will not speak to you again until you shave your head. And he had his head shaved so as to learn the lesson that this and this they are not on the same level. This is not an excuse for this. Now, your first reaction, your immediate reaction to that story. This is what we want to talk about tonight. What was your immediate reaction to that story? In your heart of hearts, you don't have to tell me, but a lot of us would kind of look at this and say, you know, that's that's a little bit extreme. In your heart of hearts, you might think that's a little bit extreme. That's a little bit overboard, right? However, this issue of extreme and moderate, this is an issue of perspective. It's not an issue of this is something which is unacceptable or this is something which is inappropriate. It's an issue it's an issue of perspective. If your reaction to that is that this is a little bit extreme, tell me what if your child was in swimming and they shaved their head so that they could swim in the swim team swim faster. Is your reaction to that that that is extreme? Is it extreme? That's normal for that sport. What about if your child had lice? He shaved his head because he had lice and he can't go back to school as long as he has this lice. Had to shave his head. What about if it was the the custom of our culture that boys shave their head? Would it be extreme? No. These things aren't extreme. So, it's not that the issue itself is extreme. It's an issue of perspective. That act itself is not extreme. It's just what are your priorities? If your priorities are the hereafter, that is absolutely part for the course. Then you would understand stories of companions like one of the companions of Ibas who used to spank his son if he would make salah without making the dua at the very end. seeking refuge in Allah from four things. I seek refuge in you, oh Allah, from the fitna of al- and the fitna of the the punishment of the grave. Four things. A well-known hadith. This is not obligatory. It's highly encouraged. He used to spank his son and command him to do the salah over. Make the entire salah over because you missed it. Other companions and would spank their children for making grammatical mistakes when narrating the prophet sallall.aii wasallam's narrations or reciting the Quran or speaking classical Arabic. They would spank their children for making grammatical mistakes. Why is that extreme? What if your child burned your house down? Would you spank them? What if they were playing with matches? What if they took a baseball bat and broke your windshield just for fun? Would you spank them? The act itself is not extreme. It's an issue of priorities. So when you read about Omarb Abd Aziz, this isn't just some fantasy story about how a man just came out of nowhere from nothing and he was so great and turned into the Khalifa of Muhammad Sall.ai wasam even though he came several decades over half a century after him. It was because he was raised by men. Men who had priorities and they instilled those priorities into their children and they taught them what was expected of them and what would not be tolerated and those children grew up to be men and so on it goes. However, when we become softened by the dunya, when our priorities change and our perspectives change and we start to give definitions to things mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah with other than the definitions of Allah and his messenger, this is where we reach and arrive at the junction we find ourselves today.

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We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to teach us that which will benefit us and to benefit us from that which he teaches us. Alhamdulillah.