What Will You Wish For When the Veil is Lifted?
The Three Deeds That Continue After Death: Knowledge, Charity, and Righteous Children
Summary
This lecture explores the reality of death and the afterlife, drawing from Islamic teachings to emphasize how perspectives shift when the veil between this world and the next is lifted. Sh. Ali Mashhour discusses how at that moment, people universally recognize the insignificance of worldly pursuits and desperately wish for good deeds. The core message centers on three types of deeds that continue benefiting a person after death: continuous charity, beneficial knowledge, and righteous children who pray on their behalf. Sh. Ali Mashhour emphasizes that beneficial Islamic knowledge has the greatest longevity, as it continues to generate rewards as long as people implement it, even extending back to Prophet Muhammad. He concludes by highlighting the incalculable value of Islamic knowledge and scholarly teaching, arguing that no monetary compensation can repay teachers who impart life-changing Islamic wisdom.
Note: This transcript was generated using YouTube's automatic captioning, with AI-assisted cleanup for readability. It may contain inaccuracies due to background noise, audio quality, or limitations of the transcription software — particularly during Arabic recitation. Listener discretion is advised; please refer to the original video for precise wording.
My office.
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Alhamdulillah.
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I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine that you die. And when you die, the veil of this dunya and its illusion is lifted. If you want to say what is the overwhelming feeling that is unanimous across the board, every human being will feel it. Whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim, believer or disbeliever, old or young, male or female, wealthy or poor. What will they all feel at the moment of death? They will all come to the crashing realization of just how petty, small, and insignificant this world is. That is the unanimous realization that everyone will have. The great awakening, the dunya will get so tiny and so small that it will be a faint forgotten dream, a faded memory. And the hereafter will be so clear, so visceral, so incredibly vivid, you will think to yourself, "How could I ever have overlooked this?" Now imagine you're in that situation and you got a chance after realizing the reality of this life, the reality of the next life and you reach that point where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says Hadid that at the moment of death the veil is removed from the eyes. What is the veil? It is the illusion of this dunya, right? The beckoning, the I promise. Just come with me. I promise. I promise this is going to be great. I promise. I It's just around the next corner. I've been following you for 50 years. No, no, no. You You're almost there. Next corner. Right around the next corner. It's right there. Right around the next corner. Just 10 more steps. Just one more year. Just six more months. And then once you get there, you're going to rest and you're going to make everything correct at the end. That's what we're all told, right? And then you reach that position where the veil is lifted. You see just how cheap this world really is. and the veil is lifted and your sight is 2020. At that moment, your sight is steel. What would be the thing at that moment you would wish for? What would we all wish for at that moment? Obviously, hassanet, right? Good deeds. That's what we would wish for. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,.
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That's what everybody wishes for. That's what we would all wish for. But then you realize that that is permanent. This was temporary and there is nothing you can do to change it. Not even the.
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Sallall.aii wasallam, not even if all of the prophets and messengers collaborated to intercede on your behalf. If Allah does not accept that intercession, it equals nothing for you. So you're in that position. What is the thing you wish for the most? Even one good deed. Because at the end of the day, when we take a precise scale that has two sides to it, and we put things on this side and things on this side, if it is very precise, what will tip the scale in one of the two ends is one. It is just one. One good deed. That's what will enter you into paradise. And it is just one bad deed that will admit someone into the hellfire. One, just one. Imagine how desperate you would be at that point. Now imagine that somehow you could actually do good deeds but after your death and you can reap the rewards of those good deeds in real time. Well, our prophet sallall.aii wasallam tells us that that that is actually possible. narrates that our messenger said.
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The prophet sallall.aii Wasallam said if the human being dies all of his deeds come to a halt except three types of deeds which continue after his death beyond the grave. a continuous charity or knowledge which is of consequence, beneficial knowledge or a righteous child that will continue to pray on his behalf. This is the only three things that will continue past that transition of death. So right now, right now there are three types of people that are receiving rewards in their grave. Right now those who have given charity and that charity is continuous. It continues to move on and roll on and so it is continuously beneficial. So they continue to reap the rewards of that. But let me ask you, how long can a continuous charity last? Best case scenario, how long?
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Say you build a masjid. How long can that masid last on earth?
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It had to be rebuilt many times. Eventually, it's going to come to an end, right? Or a righteous child. How long is your child going to last? A lifetime. Maybe if he teaches his children, maybe a few generations. Sure. What about knowledge? Beneficial knowledge. Knowledge of the worship of Allah. knowledge of Allah's names and attributes. Can you imagine that if I sit here on this chair and I say one thing that touches your hearts and you all go in your separate ways and that has an effect on your deeds, you implement it, your children pick it up, people around you pick it up. Every single moment that that knowledge is put into action, it comes right back into my into my good deeds. And every word I have ever uttered goes right back into my teacher's good deeds. All of it. And that continues all the way back to our messenger Muhammad sallall.aii wasallam. If you can even imagine how much reward that is. But right but beneficial knowledge is the only thing that will last until Allah takes back the Quran. Until Allah takes back the earth and all that is in it. Charity, yes. Righteous children, yes. But the thing that has the greatest longevity and lifespan on this earth is righteous knowledge. things that people will not cease to implement even when they move on to the next life. And Abu also narrates that a man is sitting in his grave and suddenly his level of bliss is elevated in his grave and he says to Allah, Why was my level of pleasure suddenly increased? He says, he says, "Your son that's still alive, he just made dua for you right now." So we see that these things are connecting. They are working when in real time right now, this moment. And that's what's beautiful about our creator Allah. Subhanahu wa ta'ala. He doesn't wait to reward us until the end. He interacts with us in real time. Every verse of the Quran we recite, he answers. Every dua we make, he responds. Every good deed we do, he implements his pleasure upon us right now in real time. Your life is not you want it to be. You can start changing it right now. tonight, right now, this minute. This minute. And the key to all of that is knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah. And because of this, is there any price that we can ever reach to repay our scholars. Let's say you go to paradise and you remember she Ali taught me the narration or the verse. And I'm here right now because my scales tipped in my direction of paradise because of that one good deed that I happen to hear from Sheikh Ali. Here I am in paradise. Can you repay me for that? Tell me what amount what dollar amount can you put on that to repay me? What dollar amount can I put to repay one of my teachers? You cannot repay me no more than I can repay my teachers. No more than we can repay our prophet Sam. Wasam. It's impossible. This knowledge is priceless. Money is too cheap for this knowledge. This knowledge demands your very heart and soul. That's the only way you get it. Money you can't pay for it. It's not for sale.
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, please go to my office, grab some water bottles and put them here so I can a general.