Do we really have no time?

To always make the words that he said as impactful as possible while at the same time being appropriate. this chapter here that we're going to discuss is regarding or the chapters to come is regarding various things that the prophet would say in certain on certain occasions. So, when he would enter his house, when he would leave his house, when he would, when the would be made, how the should be made, and so forth. Now, I'd to mention something before we proceed And that is that words are very, very impactful. They have a huge impact on the listener. we kind of live in a time We live in a time over overcome with level. We live in a time that is bombarded with and enveloped in level which is idle talk, idle speech. Just saying things all of the time, talking, just a chatty Cathy. not really saying anything to mean anything particularly. Just talking for the sake of talking. Not worrying about what we say and we have this feeling that the things that we say don't really have very big impact on those who are listening and furthermore, even if they do, we can always just say sorry, right? This is the idea. It's kind of funny because You know what the literal translation of the word is? Literal translation. You know a level in the Quran, right? We've heard of a level. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala described the believers. Describe the people eligible for the highest places of paradise he said. Those who refrain and avoid They avoid the level. A level in the Quran is any speech or action that has no positive impact that has no positive result to it or affect, right? That is a level. A level is not just what you say. Allah was also what you do. Not speaking about a level a level in the Quran is not something that is speech or action that is haram. That's different. Is just speech or action that has that is of no consequence. Right? It's not bad but it's not good. It's just it's just you know, it's just action or speech that is idle, right? The literal translation, of in the English language. We were to translate level in English It translates to Twitter. That's actually true. Yeah. It translates to Twitter. You know what level is? Level in the Arabic language is the sound of birds. The Arabs are referred to the sound of birds as a level. Right? It will say the birds tell who. In the sound chirping of birds. The Twitter of birds. Right? The literal translation of level is Twitter. So, we are enveloped in a society that is full of just meaningless, mindless chatter that pollutes the mind, pollutes the heart, and waste time in an unimaginable way. You know, we're always speaking about you know, these kind of woke westerners we have to make sure that we don't waste earth's resources, right? And we're so wasteful and yada yada yada, right? But when it comes to time we take pride in wasting it. We take pride in wasting that resource. a level that we live in. A lot of people you ask or if they ask themselves, why why don't I read the Quran? Why don't know Arabic? Why don't I know Arabic? Well, I I I don't have a good teacher. Well, why did why don't you find a good teacher? Well, I really don't have time. you have time. We all have time, right? The issue is we don't want to make time. Why don't we want to make it For various reasons. One of the biggest reasons that we don't want to make time is because we're afraid of what we are going to have to face when we come face to face with the Quran. It's a very frightening book, right? It's a mirror. You look into it and you see exactly your description there. Exactly what you should be and exactly what you should not be and when you me the Quran's meanings. It demands change. And we inherently are afraid of change. It scares us. We're comfortable the way we are. And we don't want anything to change or rock the boat. Right? So this issue of you know we don't have time. We have plenty of time. We have so much time. That we don't know what to do with it. Everybody is kind of you know if you wish if if a person could wish, if I could wish, you know, anything. A lot of people, most people would wish for. More time. I want to live longer. I want, I wish I had more time but if in reality, if we all had more time, we wouldn't know what to do with it. We're mishandling the time that we have now. and so a lot of this issue of time and this is going to tie in to the chapters that we are in right now with regards to words and speech. This is a very big thing. It's very important. We'll discuss why it's so crucial and important inshallah. I want everyone to kind of imagine with me the time of the prophet in your mind's eye imagine yourself living in that time. Okay? What was it to live in that time? Well, a lot of the houses were made out of mud, right? And a house or a home actually was just basically one room. That was the home, right? There were, there were no bathrooms, there were no sinks, there were no kitchens. It's just that one room. We keep that room clean. We sleep in it. We have company and guests into that room. We cook there. We meet there. We cry there. We laugh together there. All everything is happening in this one room. Okay? and this one room has a roof. A lot of times the roofs were actually leaves and branches from date palms that they would place on top of it. and when it would rain really really hard or not even that hard, it would start to eat away at your home. It would start to corrode it. So, after a rainstorm, you have to go out and fix it, right? Get the mud together and put your house back together essentially. water was found in a well. The well is shared by the entirety of the community. Everyone shares this one well. And so we're having hundreds of people flock to this well. Every day. To get an essential amount of water to drink, cook, clean, make wudu, bathe, all of these other things. Now, the well is kind of a big hole in the ground. And at most if it's a very big well, you're going to have two or three people who are putting their buckets into this well at once. So, can you imagine standing in a line or hours every day just to draw a few buckets of water to take to your house? That's just to get started. So, you can just have something to drink for the day, right? On top of that, people that are coming to this well, they're bringing all of their, all of their camels, and their sheep, and everything else to come and drink from this well. We have to wait. Now, if you understand that and you understand that you could very possibly be there for five or 6 hours, right? We understand why it was so important, what Musa did, Alaihi Salam, when the two girls were standing aside waiting for their turn. Like, why is that such a big thing? So, let them wait and you know, five, 10 minutes. This is not a fast food restaurant. They could have been there till night fall. They could have been there until the night. And so when he did that, even though he was exhausted, it was something worthy of Allah mentioning in the Quran, right? So, that's the situation with water. Let's think about the situation with having to relieve yourself. Go to the bathroom. Well, there weren't any privis. There weren't any stalls to use the bathroom. People didn't have restrooms in their home. You would have to walk to areas that were known as El Rawait, right? And in the Arabic language, is the area where people would usually go to relieve themselves? So, you'd have to walk for maybe a quarter mile or maybe half a mile to get out there, to just relieve yourself with some semblance of privacy. You have to go two or three times a day or if you have a bladder problem or something. If you're sick and have some kind of diarrhea, you're going to be going back and forth all day. That's just to use the restroom to relieve yourself. How long would it take to walk a quarter mile back and forth just to relieve a person's self? Maybe half an hour? Maybe 45 minutes? Just to get some water You're spending two, three, four hours at the well every day. Then, we have to feed our livestock, right? Because that's our livelihood. So, we have to take our herd when ever it is and take it out somewhere far where there's some kind of vegetation for them to graze and if anyone's ever been around herds of sheep or goats or what have you and they graze. It takes four, five, 6 hours. Sometimes, people will spend all day with them because they're they they don't get full. And you have to walk back and forth with these things. tilling in the ground and the earth just to grow something. There weren't any big heavy machines If a person have five or 10 acres of farmland, they have to till all of that by hand They have to plant all of that by hand and they have to weed it by hand and they have to water it by hand, right? If a person wants to go to the market, Most people walked at that time. You were considered somewhat wealthy if you had a mule to ride on. or very wealthy if you had a camel or if you had a horse then you're considered a fetish. You're considered a a knight. A person that is able to go to war. Only for sin had horses. Right? you might walk two, three miles to get to the marketplace go and sell whatever you're trying to sell or barter or buy something you're trying to buy. In the midst of all of this, we're still kind of imagining the prophet environment In the midst of all of this, We have issues of illness simple things that we have today could kill a person very easily back then. We have issues of traveling. We jump in our car. We go drive fifty, 60 miles, 200 miles, and come back in a few hours. This were two and three and four-day long trips just to go to the edge of the Medina and come back. Right? There wasn't any transportation. There weren't any cellphones if you needed to say something to someone. You needed to go there physically or send someone. Can you imagine how much time, how time consuming it is just to live with the essentials during that time. Just to have water, how much time you have to invest to get that water. Just to bathe. Just to bathe. If it's cold out, you have to build a fire and you have to then heat this water up and then you have to bathe and then you have to, right? If you want to wash some clothes, you're not throwing them in the the washer with some tide. You have to sit there and scrub these clothes physically and you have to hang them and you have to fold them and all of these things, right? So, your entire day is consumed in doing what? What we do today in our time in about 20 minutes? Think about it. When you wake up, you go, you take a shower, you use the bathroom, you brush your teeth, you drink a glass of water, you have breakfast, you do your laundry or put in a load of laundry. You did all that in twenty, 30 minutes. That used to take a day or two back then. Yet, in spite of that, the companions were somehow able to go for war and they were able to make salah in the Masjid. Every single salah, a single salah might take up to an hour, an hour and a half. They were able to make time for that. They were able to memorize the Quran. They were able to spend time with the prophet they were able to be there for they were able to visit their their relatives. They were able to do all of these things even though just to get the essentials of life that we have today. It would take them hours upon hours. Just to make a little trip to another village and come back might be a two-week thing. So, people kind of imagine that the prophet and his companions, you know, they didn't really have much responsibilities. I mean, what? They just had a few cows or a few sheep and they were just kind of, you know, they didn't have much to do but today, we've got so much going on, you know? So, they could make time but we're just so busy. It couldn't be more incorrect. It couldn't be more opposite. we are comparatively the most non-busy people compared to them. I mean, these people were doing everything that they did to survive and in top of all this, they have to make time to practice with their spears or get their military ready or go and collect the from all of the different villages or they had to you know, maintain all of these things that they were doing. Imagine the responsibilities that the prophet had. From the minute he opens his eyes until he's sleeping and even while he's sleeping, he is either receiving from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or he is giving to people. People are asking him. People are seeking advice. People have issues. People are looking up to him. People are waiting for him to lead salah. They're waiting for him to tell them what to do. They're waiting for him. When he goes home, his his wives are waiting for him to to deal with their situations. He has a whole bunch of children. He has all. Could you imagine how much responsibilities he had? Yet, these men and women were able to make time. And so the question is, when we say, well, I don't really have the time, is that really true? Do we really not have the time? Or if we were to time, it would take away a half hour from the seven hours we spend on average watching TV. Is that what the issue is? Or is the issue that I might have to, you know, sacrifice sleeping, a nice whole 12 hours a day. Or is it that I might have to not play as much PlayStation or am I not I might have to cut down on the card games after a show or I might have to watch a little less football or I might have to. We have time The honest truth is that if a person spent a half hour a night. Just a half hour. Concentrated half hour every night within a month they can read the Quran. They can read the Quran. And if they do that for five years, they will understand the majority of what they read. And if they do that for 10 years, they will have memorized the entirety of the Quran. If we are to just memorize one verse a day in 10 years time, everyone of us would be a half of of the Quran. we have time We don't have to go to a well. We just turn the faucet on. We don't have to cool water in in pottery. We just have plug the fridge in, right? We don't have to heat water up to take a shower. We just turn turn the knob in the shower and we have a nice shower and we've got all these different kinds of showers and you know, showers that massage you and showers that vibrate you and showers that you know, spa showers and hot tubs and all of this stuff, right? I mean, we can't even imagine what it would be to eat the same thing for more than three days in a row. Imagine with me if you ate the same thing every day for 3 days. Most of us have never done that. But the prophet and his companions have spent up to six months eating nothing but dates and water. 6 months. Right? So we have the time. We just we're just not making the time. And one of the things that makes us feel we are crunched for time and hard pressed for it is the amount of level that is in our, that is in our environment. The amount of idle talk, idle, speech, idle, action that is in our environment. The amount of time that we spend on level, right? You turn on the TV, you have these news flashes and information is just dumped on you everywhere you look. An advertisement after advertisement. All it's saying to you is obey, consume, obey, consume, don't question, consume. That's what we're being taught day and night. and so our environment is totally full and saturated with this level to the point where I can say this and I can say this honestly. Think to yourself, when is the last time you spent a solid hour just thinking? Honestly, when is the last time you spent one solid hour just thinking Do you even remember what your own voice sounds like? I mean, we are constantly being flooded with other people's opinions, with other people's voices, with other people, with with advertisements and telling us what to wear and what to eat and what to drink, and if you drink this, your life is going to be great and if you don't, well, it's not going to be that great and if you buy this vacuum, it's going to be awesome and a TV with 500 channels and you know, clothing with different people's names on it, and so on and so forth. It's just hyper consumer just eat, eat, eat. That's it. so that now, when is the last time that we really sat down with our own thoughts? Can we even remember what our own thoughts are? Can we even remember And do we even know? Can we distinguish in our minds? Honestly, the difference between my own produced thoughts and the opinions of others that I think are my own thoughts but they're really not. So, we have all this information coming at us at Bray Connect Speed and we have no time to digest it. So, now, we don't even just watch the news. We watch the news and then we have analysts come on and tell us what should we think about what we just heard? As if what we think matters, it doesn't change the price of tea in China. Why does this matter to me? Why is this important? So this level that we are saturated with, it's very harmful. The prophet used to seek refuge in a law from is to seek refuge in Allah from knowledge that will not be of consequence. Knowledge that will not benefit. Imagine knowledge that is harmful. He's seeking refuge in Allah from knowledge that has no benefit, right? Why? What's the harm if you know something that won't hurt you? The answer is, it's it pollutes your mind. It pollutes your heart. It gunks up your machinery. Your cognitive abilities are going to be less. Every time you allow yourself to be subject to things that are inconsequential and we're not speaking about things that are haram. Things that are haram are far more numerous than that which is inconsequential now. I mean, how many times have we been fooled into this same thing? Well, it's just a two-minute video. It's just a two-and-a-half-minute video and before you know it's, you know, four and a half hours have gone by. Your face is red, you're sweating, Your neck hurts, your back hurts because you're hunched over your phone for four or five hours at a time. So what we need to understand is that words have effects. It's not you know, sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. That's not true. Words have an effect on people. Because words are the communication of ideas and beliefs. Whatever those ideas and beliefs are. and so, it's very important to learn the skill of using words. Many people know how to speak. Few people know how to speak properly And that is a skill that you learn. And that skill is that you think about what you are going to say before you say it. You analyze it. Before you say something, you think to yourself. Is this in itself good? Is it true? Is it correct? Am I sure of that? Is what I'm going to say appropriate? Cuz it may be true may be correct. It's just not appropriate It's just not the appropriate place or time or listener for that to be said. and so, words have an effect We live in a world that overuses very powerful words, a very fake world. We kind of live, you know, we we live in a time of fake, fake news, and fake politics and fake food and and and fake spirituality and fake smiles and fake people and fake physically fake people, right? Artificial, most of everything around us is artificial right? Artificial news, artificial problems, artificial solutions, artificial food, and so, when we live in a place or a time of such superficial existence, what ends up happening is that we become superficial, we become fake, we join the club. It's going to affect you. If you live in that kind of society, no matter what you do, you're going to be affected somehow, someway. More or less based on how much you engage and allow yourself to engage. and in this kind of world that we are living in now, you know, a world of fake feelings, fake problems, you know, people get on the their webcam or their, you know, livestream or whatever it is and cry and pout and about silly things. Most of these people, this is actually a fact. That Fema, we know Fema, right? The Federal Emergency Management Sophie, huh. agency, yes. Federal Emergency Management Agency, right? They have mentioned that if the electricity alone were to go out within 6 months, almost 70% of the entire population would die. 70% That's if we just lost power for 6 months. I mean, a lot of these people, these influencers, and these, these people have no jobs, they have no skills. And they, they aren't, they aren't no help to humanity in any way. If we were to lose power or society, we're to somehow collapse partially even. These people wouldn't even know how to tie their own shoes because there's not an app that tells them how to do it. They can't go to Wiki Howe and and learn how to do it We don't know how to build a fire. We don't know how to cook. We don't know how to clean. We don't know how to do anything. And so, issue here is that we have come to believe in this kind of artificial society that Words are not really very serious and very powerful words the word love or the word hate or the word sorry. These are very powerful meanings, right? We use it so much that it means nothing anymore. So, we think that we can say, you know, whatever we want and then say, well, I'm sorry if I hurt you or if I was inappropriate or if I lied or if I misled you or all of these kind of fancy words, that doesn't, that doesn't erase what happened. What happened happened and it left a scar just your body produces scar tissue when you know, it is cut. Your the skin produces scar tissue in its place. Likewise, is the is the mind. This is why things like lying is haram even if you're joking. Even if you're joking. because when you tell someone a lie as a joke, you you're lying to them, right? And especially children. I mean, that's a type of child abuse. You know, when you tell tell a child, scare a child with something, you know? Oh, you know, the boogeyman's coming for you, you know, or or your parents left you, or you, you, you were actually adopted. We're not your real parent. These kind of jokes that people play on their kids. That scars them deeply. Because what you've done is you've just planted a seed in that person's mind that I have the capacity to lie and be dishonest. You can't always trust me. And if it's a child, that changes their entire world view. For their life to come. Words have meanings. They are very very serious things. Likewise, it is haram in Islam, haram. To scare a Muslim. right? to scare a Muslim. You know, you jump out and you scare em or you blow some horn while they're sleeping or you know, so on and so forth. This is called Muslim. This is haram in Islam. And in the time of the prophet the companions were travelling and you know, they're riding their animals and one of them fellas while he was riding and so some of his friends took one of his ropes. You know, a rope was a big thing back then. He had to, it was cost money and you know, and they took one of his ropes and they made him think that he had dropped it while he was while he was riding. It could be miles back in the dark in the desert. You know, it's gone. So, when he woke up, he saw it, that he was gone, and he started freaking out. And then it was now we have it. You know it's just a joke. And the prophet prohibited that. And prohibited that a person does that. and when you do something like that, you articulate to the subject that you have the capacity to be deceptive. You have the capacity to be treacherous. Even if it's just a joke, if it's a joke, it can happen in real life. It can happen when you're serious. It's just a change of of intention between joking and serious. And so this is very important for us to understand as kind of a preface before we get into the rest here. We see that spends so much time pining over every single narration. Analyzing how the prophet said, what he said, and even choosing words. What kind of word should I choose? Should I choose this word or should I choose this word when I say it? everything that you say and everything that you put out there in the world has a real effect on someone. And that person is going to go on to have a real effect on others. And an effect on a person in this life is an effect on a person in the hereafter. In their eternity. The words are very serious. And learning the skill. And having the skill and honing the skill of using words and being able to articulate exactly what you mean in an appropriate way, that's actually a skill that takes a very long time and a lot of effort to learn and and and master to be able to express yourself. Many people are unable to learn things because they don't know how to ask the right question. They have a particular meaning in their mind but when they go to put it into words, they can put it into words and half of knowledge is knowing how to ask the right question Knowing how to put, put your, your, you know, what you're looking for into a proper question. That's half of knowledge As the scholars have mentioned. Half of knowledge is knowing how to ask a question properly. The other half is learning how to listen. That is what knowledge is. That's how it's attained. So, we've discussed before the importance of vocabulary. We've discussed before the importance of learning as many words as a person can learn and using those words appropriately. This is what eloquence is. Eloquence is not using big words or fancy words or very complex sentence structures, eloquence, in its essence, is using the right words to convey the proper meanings based on the listener. That is what eloquence is. If a person comes and talks a very very fancy talk to a group of middle schoolers and it goes over their head. This person is not considered eloquent. They're not considered articulate. This is very inarticulate. Because an articulate eloquent person is a person who is able to look at his listener and know what you what words to use in order to communicate exactly what is intended. This is what eloquence is. Right? This what's known as in Arabic. Is using the right words for the right listener. And using the right words for the right meanings. And this is why we hear things. Tell me if you if these words don't sound familiar. Sorry. I apologize. That's not what I meant. The prophet said, He said, stay away from anything that you will have to explain to others after doing. Anything that you say, anything that you do, if you have to later explain yourself, just don't do it that way. Stay away from anything that will force you to have to explain yourself Whether it be words or actions or places where you're going to be at or whatever it is. Anything that force you to have to explain yourself to others, just stay clear of it. our next chapters that we are going to get into are chapters regarding what the prophet would say when he would enter his house, how he would enter his house, as well, how he would eat, and the etiquettes of eating, what he would say and do and so forth. After that, we will get into the etiquettes of Assalam. And initiating interactions with others. Likewise to both Muslims and non Muslims. We will later get into chapters regarding which is seeking permission to enter a person's home or interacting with people in an appropriate way so as not to impinge upon their privacy. Likewise, the etiquettes of traveling and continuing on to the etiquettes of a person in his own thoughts, right? This is also a chapter that we will get into. Along with other chapters regarding words and speech. So, that is enough for tonight.

[Arabic recitation]