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Year-end advice: Please become real people!

By - Shaykh Tauqeer Chaudhary (db) Saturday, May 30, 2015

Year-end advice: Please become real people!

Another academic year has ended; another batch is graduating. Life moves on. But the question is if we have understood the reality of gaining knowledge. There is a general issue with humans in our times - we have become superficial people. We don’t understand the realities of things. We all are living a fake life. We have a fake face in the public and a different one in our houses. We are fooling ourselves by getting engaged in the fake world and not thinking about the realities of the Hereafter. When we obey Allah ta'ala, mercy descends. When we disobey Him, mercy stops. Do we feel it? When we sit in a gathering of remembrance of Allah ta'ala and `ilm (knowledge), angels surround that gathering. Do we feel their presence? Do we feel peace in our prayers or are we feeling it as a burden and want to finish it quickly to take care of our other household chores? Do we make long supplications everyday to ask Allah ta'ala to take care of our affairs of that day or are we relying on our own abilities and not in desperate need of the help of Allah ta'ala? Do we think of following sunnah (ways of the Prophet salallaho alaihe wasallam) in everything so that it has blessings and approval from the Almighty, or are we arrogant of our own sophisticated ways that the West has taught us? If we really reflect honestly on all of this, it will show that we don’t have the real heart. Our hearts are dead.

We need to understand that the reality of gaining knowledge is to get closer to Allah ta'ala , and having His khashyah (awe). Allah ta'ala says in the Qur’an:

انما يخشى الله من عباده العلماء ان الله عزيز غفور

“Among His Servants, truly those have the awe of Allah, who are the people of knowledge.” (35:28)

So if the end of the academic year has not improved the state of our hearts and we have not felt closeness to Allah ta'ala and we have not increased in the quality of our worship and have not decreased our sins, then we have lost a golden opportunity in our lives. Allah ta'ala put us into the environment of `ilm, but we failed to understand the reality of it and only focused on the outward of it.

So I request all of us to understand the realities of life and all that we do in it. Life is about Allah ta'ala, gaining His closeness and pleasure. For that we learn knowledge and implement that in our lives. And we need to make an effort for that. How much time do we spend on achieving the worldly goals of this life? How much do we struggle in getting good grades in school? How much effort do we put in to make our businesses successful or to complete a project at our work places? How much thought do we put in designing our clothes or furnishing our houses? But Allah ta'ala says:

 وما الحياة الدنيا الا متاع الغرور

“And the life of this world is nothing but goods of deception.” (3:185)

So let’s put some effort in the real thing. Prefer the Hereafter over the worldly life. Change your lifestyle. Prepare for your graves. Follow complete shari`ah and sunnah. And that is because the Hereafter is real and everlasting. We are travellers, and moving on to the real world. So let’s become real people.

فما اوتيتم من شيء فمتاع الحياة الدنيا وما عند الله خير وابقى للذين امنوا وعلى ربهم يتوكلون

“Whatever you are given (here) is (only for) the convenience of this life: but that which is with Allah is better and everlasting: (but it is only) for those who believe and put their trust in their Lord.” (42:36)

Tauqeer Chaudhary

On behalf of the beautiful students of Nur ul Ilm Academy

Saturday, May 30th, 2015 | Sha’ban 12th, 1436