Key to Success - Yahya Ibrahim

and forever we begin with the praise of allah we send our prayers of peace upon the navy muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam we testify with cur firmness and conviction that none is worthy of worship but allah and that muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is his worshiping slave and final messenger uh it's been a while since i've had an opportunity to stand in front of you here in perth and it's something i do miss although i speak in different parts of the world and in different places in australia it's always nice at home because i don't have to travel very far literally 20 minutes and i'm in my own car so i don't need anyone to pick me up or drop me off alhamdulillah today insha'allah it's really the intent behind it to talk about success and i think this is something that if you were to ask any human being at any point in their life what do you want like what do you really want at the very core of it it's look i want to be happy and sometimes we confuse material success for happiness sometimes at the expense of genuine happiness we push ourselves towards something that actually will not make us happy although we know other people might estimate it as success and i think there's a lot of problems that society faces in terms of materialism greed envy you know could you imagine that allah cautions the prophet muhammad as a prophet of allah and other prophets before him don't let your eyes extend to other people who we have given zahra talhayati those who we may have given a fragrant flower from this worldly life something you know when you look at it's beautiful when you smell it it even before you're near it it's it's magnificent but a flower's life is temporal and it's short-lived and it's not always recurrent and it's under attack and duress the life that is given in that example of the prophet saws don't look to that life because it is nothing more than a test in this temporal worldly life so keep your eyes focused on something that is greater so i want to ask today it's questions that i ask myself my family you i want you to think about these issues and i want you to think about what is the difference between happiness happiness and success what makes you really happy see allah talks about that in the quran in different ways and allah talks about you know that tranquility of heart surely it is but through the remembrance of god allah that the heart finds repose tranquility delight joy and happiness the sahaba would become confused you know sometimes they look at the prophet saws and they would be surprised they would say yani this man sallallahu alaihi wasallam this creative being he's a human being he's like us he's flesh and blood we know that he stands at night until his feet swell although he's promised forgiveness by god although he is the final messenger although there is none after him who will call better than him to the path that is straight that leads to paradise and they would say to him you're forgiving like why why do you do this he would say so i said should i not be thankful for all the happiness i have that's the summary of this talk is a summation of that book the key to the gates of happiness he begins by talking about that the joy of the prophet saws was that after exertion in that which was pleasing allah and only for allah he felt joy and therefore he would say to bilal whenever depressed salallahu in difficulty whenever something was was troubling him he would turn to bilal and he'd say call the prayer isn't it time yet like he was waiting for the next salah have you ever fasted that long day i know it's short in perth currently anyway like have you ever fasted because you know sometimes when you hear those statements of ali he would say if i die the things that i will miss the most is fasting in the midst of the summer in thirst be like that's bizarre like is it like uh punishment for himself no is it like some kind of penance no it's that he knows i've done something maybe others don't do have failed in could not succeed in in what is true success and that brought him delight between him and allah subhanahu he ever fasted that day you know i was talking to my father he's in in ramadan it's in canada like they break fast 9 p.m and it's in the summer and it's humid i know you say toronto really humid yeah it gets warm kind of in a canadian way he's fasting till nine and i say yani why don't you come to perth in the summer in ramadan five o'clock he goes all my life i've been fasting i'm used to this it's my habit see it's my it's what i'm used to i could never imagine not fasting i say listen why don't you pray tarawih at home don't go to the masjid tarawi they used to start taraweeh 11 45 pm finish at 2 stay home i enjoy this i've become accustomed year after year to this habit muscle memory is where your body knows what to do without your brain actively thinking to do it we've all seen that youtube video where the guy's talking and he catches a ball he wasn't looking it's just not it's a natural motion race car drivers they're going 300 kilometers an hour if they have to think about when they turn they die they've trained themselves to such a degree that i can't do anything but drive that car and go that quick i've become an adrenaline junkie and for us we need to rediscover that work ethic of ibadah towards allah subhanahu ta'ala it's tough to talk to people about salah you know people think when you talk about success it's going to be about you know i want to be a good husband yeah start with prayer what does it have to do with being a good husband everything makes you on time your wife will like that because you've got to keep yourself according to a clock of worship you don't fit salah in your life you fit your life around salah everything is around salah just like today you said before no no i'm going to pray and then i'll come because surely the shaykh isn't going to start seven you fit everything around salah where will i pray if i arrive you begin to think in terms of thoughts of success that connection to allah empowers us to becoming better and better human beings so we want to talk about the memory that we seek to have within our body that is reflective of our ibadah to allah any of you who have been to hajj or been to umrah any time you've come back and then you hear that mecca or that medina or you see that short clip or you see a picture of the green dome or you see something similar to that your heart it just shakes flushes for a little bit because your mind and your body it's almost as if your soul goes back to where you experienced happiness and joy and tiredness and at times difficulty and hardship we're going to begin our discussion insha'allah with those very real questions success in that worldly sense versus happiness in the true sense of the heart a brother once back in toronto masha'allah he was a an engineer software engineer and he had a nice job he got married masha'allah he's a friend of mine and he had you know two beautiful children who every day he'd walk with to the masjid he made sure that he bought a home near masjid near isna which is the larger masjid in mississauga there it was just walking distance he could walk to the message with masjid with his two kids they grew up going to the mekhteb classes the quran classes in the masjid for about seven eight years he was happy doing the job he was doing and because he was an honest diligent intelligent young muslim man he was very progressive and they put him on a fast track let's push you forward because we can trust you you don't over bill you don't buy things and claim them on company tax you don't do any of that you're the guy we want really me mashallah listen we got a job for you there's a new opening we're going to create a role for you okay what is it it's going to require a bit of travel how much uh about two maybe three weekends a month no no no but i have a family and my wife and he went home and he said listen i got this job they're gonna give me an extra twenty thousand dollars a year i can buy you a new car we can get a bigger a little bit bigger not one garage two garage it'll have you know we have more room the kids are growing they need a bigger bedroom so you begin to rationalize with all of those things i don't know but how long will you be god won't be long i might come home a little bit later in the day i might you know and that once happy family that ate at the same dinner table that walked to the masjid together that attended every saturday and sunday that was a rock of that community disintegrated before our very eyes before my very eyes and i would sit for hours talking to this brother i say i don't know how i got here and i know how we got there and it's a warning to you and i that sometimes for twenty thousand dollars we lose children sometimes for an extra shift driving a taxi you lose your kids not now but when they're 18 because that father that used to walk with them to the masjid who used to take them to quran class who used to help them who used to read with them who used to struggle in his ibadah who yes had ambition but knew what job to take that was good for the family and what job to leave that was good financially he had a little bit of taqwa sense taqwa sense not common sense see common sense would tell you twenty thousand dollars you could say we could go to hajj we could go to hajj next year twenty thousand dollars but what happens is that the children who loved you and grew up with you they begin to disconnect and the only thing that happens is that when you come home because you've been away for so long your wife leans on you to be that primary disciplinarian so your wife says to you hey you've been away i can't get ahmad to do his work tell him to do his work as soon as you walk through the door ahmed where's your homework everything becomes command based you're negative everything to that son who's 11 years old is put downs and shame how come you didn't do better well you weren't there to help me with my math he should say the absence of our males in our communities is one of the leading problems for much of the difficulties that we see in our young maturing adults it pains me wallahi sometimes when i drive by albany highway and i drive by pot black and i see some of our boys some of our boys our muslim boys standing outside smoking and drinking and because there's an absence there's success see what you will see is that that same father he will drive masha'allah brand new car a nice car and the mother alhamdulillah she has you know a little bit of extra expense that she can pay towards other things every dollar you spend on your child is a savings my father i remember allah yahweh and i refer to you know my family in particular because i didn't grow up in a rich family like my father yeah masha'allah he was an engineer but every dollar he made he spent on me my brothers and my sisters every year he would pay for a plane ticket for seven years go yeah go study go learn about the dean go every year he would send our family as young children to egypt it would he would break his back to earn enough money for our tickets so we could learn our culture and speak our language and learn the quran to have what other people don't have not in material but in a love for our home and our community and therefore you know when you invest in your children the moment the moment you invest in your children the moment your savings plan is that i'm going to educate my son i'm going to put money in him to learn the quran to learn archery to learn how to swim to go to taekwondo to go from one class to the next i remember my father wallahi until i graduated from high school he would pick me up and drop me off every day at school he would leave work pick me up drop me off go back to work he worked near where we lived and where we studied i say i could walk home he goes yeah i know so do they they all walk home yeah but they're my friends yeah they're your friends in school but not on the street you want friends they can come to our house adam my son adam brother zaki he might even be in the audience he's one of our teachers at the langford islamic college he said brother yahya you know you know if you come to our school you'll see some of our staff there wearing the bright even i wear it the bright yellow traffic control mashaallah and sometimes we have to be very you know harsh move right so brother exactly he's standing there you know and he said brother yahya for one week i stood there every day every parent every child that came in i would say as-salaam i was the first one to say salaam alaikum i'm the one that begins and i thought let me wait this week see how many parents parents who give us their children who come have spent money for their children at an islamic school let me see how many of them will begin with the thing that opens the gate of jannah the prophet saws he said to the people you want jannah f salam be the ones who are giving with greetings of peace to others and he said wallahi brother all this morning he would cut every day we would talk about it he said wallahi brother one family today one family why did this conversation start my young son adam he was sitting on my chair in my office and brother zaki walked in and i said to adam um stand up i said you know i've never had this seen this i've been giving salam no one says salaam he said stand up give salam to your uncle he's five he doesn't understand but he needs to learn to understand those things cannot be taught in school they cannot be taught by friends they will never learn it through the internet through television your children will never learn adam the essence of the message of the prophet sallallahu alaihi the thing that gives character that makes you a good man that will be a good father and an amazing husband that comes through learned behavior for a moment for the most part the prophet saws grew up that way for the first five years of his life saw sallam he was put out to study arabic and so on with a wetnur someone who looked after him in the desert away from diseases that could bring harm and stuff from the city life of mecca but after five years of age all of the children would be brought out of the desert when their bodies were a little bit stronger and then they would be given all of the sons would be given to al-qam the word kom in arabi means to the men of a community because men raise men and it is a key to success for your home and for your family and to your people happiness happiness arrives from giving up what others presume is monetary success to please allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to build a home that will remain pleasing to allah and his nabi muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam the second example i want to give you after the absent father is that of hypocrisy see hypocrisy in the arabs they didn't know hypocrisy until after the migration of the prophet to madina if they hated the prophet i said i hate you i disbelieve in you i don't like you but when the prophet moved to medina and he began to consolidate a little bit of authority some who wanted authority with him pretended to be along with him what that meant was that they would pretend to believe in god when in their heart was no faith and therefore this concept of munafir became a part of islamic theology we begin to differentiate what is hypocrisy and the word comes from that word meaning a tunnel and he is characterized by all of the people of hadith as being similar to a rat a rodent because rodents when they build a burrow under the ground they build the nuff up under the ground they build two entrances one that they use all the time the other they never use it they never show it to you they never show you their real face they never show you where they will emerge from until they are pressured or the time is right to use it and therefore that arab they began to describe the monathe as being rodent-like sneaky-like in that sense nifat is of two types one if all of us have it at one point or another and may allah remove from our hearts may we be from those who are purged from hypocrisy and don't think it's strange that i accuse myself and implicitly many of you of what is similar to nifat only on account of what we know from the sahaba there was a sahabi his name is he was sitting with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and after he left a few minutes later in his home with his family with his children who we love like i just told you we must love them and invest in them and care for them he's with his family he ran back crying to the prophet saws and he said stopped him as he's entering upon the prophet he said what's wrong with your man he said i'm a hypocrite and abu bakr allah says i know nothing except good about you you're there for salah you're there to to be always in that which is good why would you accuse yourself of hypocrisy and he said omas and oh abu bakr whenever we sit with the prophet saws. it's as if we feel that we can see genta it's like i can see paradise i know what i need to do i know everything that's right in life what i should do and what should i be stay away from i know right from wrong and i'm with him but when i go home and i play with my children and i sit with my wife and enjoy a little bit of food all of that is out of my mind i forget it i forget it so abu bakr began to cry he said i'm a hypocrite just like you if this is hypocrisy we're both in trouble and they enter upon the prophet saws crying and weeping and he says what's wrong with you and they retell the story and he says rather it is an hour and an hour an hour with your family and time and enjoyment an hour with your wife and your children and an hour that you must dedicate solely to allah the prophet saws his defining characteristic when they ask what did the prophet do for a living basically that's what they're saying what did the prophet do most of his time who you know the prophet what did he do you know because sometimes when you hear speeches in in short uh short bursts you don't study the seerah you don't study the deen you it's almost as if you feel you know he got uh it's like a movie what did the prophet do most of the time she says one sentence she didn't say he prayed all day he made vikral day she said his duty was to serve his family that defines a man it's not something to be embarrassed about that your first call your first thought is my wife and my children my father and my mother before myself and before others before my job before my career sarah that must occupy a part of your time that's a part of your duty that's half of your life and therefore marriage is half of your deen it is half of your religion in your worship of allah subhana wa sarah it's an hour that you spend but there's this other half an hour that you dedicate to allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala and this is what i want to talk to you about an imam and you know sometimes we use these terms but we don't know who these people are al-imam sufyan he's one of the tabi's he lived with the sahaba but he reached a level of knowledge and wisdom that he became a person some sahaba could learn from and would turn to to ask questions he was from the eight people who were known in that lifetime in that generation who were affirmed by our ummah as being abid a worshiper of allah a knowledgeable man of allah him al-hasan al-basri and others this man junai uh sophia nathori he said about himself i made jihad against myself i struggled against myself 20 years that i can stand before allah in prayer at night well um and not once in those 20 years i enjoyed it but what did he do for 20 years he fought himself he struggled he pushed himself and imam he would come to his bed and he would touch it in the middle of the night because it was soft touch his bed and he would make dua against him he would say may god destroy you you're so soft tonight this is imam shafi'i islam worship service to god does not come naturally it comes as an order from allah to our nabi muhammad stand up in the night except but few hours half of it sallallahu you have to you have to push hard you got to be like ali who doesn't like fasting in the heat who doesn't want to be thirsty in the summer months in mecca in medina but he enjoys it after 20 years of for being forced of fighting myself i began to enjoy it sophia thought he says and then he said but i left it for four months in my life in those my lifetime four months i didn't pray to allah and i know what sin kept me from it i know what i did between me and allah that caused allah not to make my heart and my body awake when others are asleep if he says that about tahajud what sins are we doing to keep us asleep during fashion doesn't it annoy you sometimes well it annoys me sometimes you know how you have that one neighbor who wakes up to walk his dog at fisher and he's like all bright and he's just like you know you're like man i'm waking up to pray to allah to allah will do it just to wake up this guy is walking a dog whose poo he's got to pick up where is that you know success that we have between us and allah where's that connection you know that we have with allah subhanahu wa ta'ala where are those secretive deeds that you do that only allah knows you know a lot of people they say are you allowed to let other people know the good that you do yes you know i'm speaking to you this is a good deed may allah put all of you in my scales on the day of judgment insha'allah i'm going to say that one there yes all of you know i'm saying these words no problem but the imams they would teach that for every good public did you do you have to anchor it with privacy private deeds and that's why the private deeds of the prophet saw i sallam by far exceeded his public deeds the private deeds of our navy his prayer and his dua and his worship of allah that is between him and allah was greater than that which is known and practiced in in measure with us that's why you can't attain the level he attained he was said so success is that which you put as a pursuit of true happiness and true happiness is not attained through the material he said he said to abs abstinence you know to to push back this worldly life to push back the allure of the dunya is not that you don't buy nice things it's not that you don't have a nice car and have a nice home zord is not that you don't own things in the dunya is that the worldly life doesn't own you i want you to think about that it's a deep word if you can fill this whole room with with halal earnings and masha allah you can live luxurious bismillah earn it from spending give your zakah alhamdulillah do what you can but don't let your life's focus be so narrow that the dunya has taken control of every decision that you make the calculations you make are only from a worldly sphere and you forget the next fear and that's why some of the most costly acts of worship are the ones that earn you the greatest reward and bring back the greatest i want to hajj this year alhamdulillah and it was a beautiful beautiful trip masha'allah may allah return us many more times it was a difficult hajj this year may allah have mercy upon those who have passed away allah it was difficult not because there were many numbers of people or the weather was hot or it was disorganized no it was difficult because there's so many other priorities in life you know you have a job you have commitments you have to pay rent or a mortgage there's so many commitments in life for me and you and others and it's difficult to make that decision and one thing that i will say to you my dear brothers and sisters here today the younger you are the better you know i had a group with me i was i was helping lead a group and the problem you have is that some people are old but they don't think they're old but because i know they're old which they don't want to admit to themselves and because i know what's still coming ahead see they've only oh i've done a to off this all right i can do it there's six more and then there's running you know sai safa and marwa and then there's more so you say to a brother aki i think i need to get you a wheelchair i said don't worry about it brother if you don't get a wheelchair you will be old you need it so if you're if you're young if you're a young family and if the you know the shaitaan is messing with you sometimes you have a little bit of savings shaytan comes no no no this is the house deposit because it happens and see the wujub of hajj the wajoob of success is that when it's there you go when it's there you go the prophet saws promised he says nothing increases your risk nothing increases your prosperity more than a hajj after a hajj like don't just go once but go again allahu akbar increases your risk puts puts effort spend on yourself go oh no i i you know i haven't i haven't secured myself yet secure yourself through the ibadah of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it is a key to success to change that paradigm you know in your mind that you begin to think about the akhirah instead of the dunya

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Keywords: islam, muslim, muslims, islamic, quran, koran, allah, muhammad, mohammed, mohamed, prophet, hadith, sunnah, shaykh, imam, lecture, khutbah, khutba, ramadan, bilal philips, sufi, salafi, hanafi, hijab, nasheed, nashid, almaghrib, dars, halaqa, bayan, convert, revert, shahada, dawah, da'wah, maher zain, sami yusuf, atheism, science, atheist, qur'an, recitation, surah, afasy, religion, religious, deen, madhhab, shia, sunni, Yahya Ibrahim, Perth, Australia, Key to Success

Id: SIjVQRu8-2E

Length: 37min 26sec (2246 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2015