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Taking advantage of 5 before its too late

Taking advantage of 5 before its too late
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April 12, 2020
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Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

Take advantage of five before five: 1-your youth before your old age, 2-your health before your illness, 3-your wealth before your poverty, 4-your free time before your work, 5-and your life before your death. (Al-Hakim and Al-Bayhaqi, sound narration).

These five blessings apply to every single one of us. We all have these or had them at sometime, if not all of them, almost all of them.

We have variations of this narration, but the essential part of the message is we should utilise what we have been given and benefit from what Allah Almighty gave us.

1-Youth

We may not all be young now, but it is a good reminder. When Allah talked about the people of the cave, he said:

We relate to you their story in truth. They were youths who believed in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance. (18:13)

نَّحْنُ نَقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ نَبَأَهُم بِالْحَقِّ ۚ إِنَّهُمْ فِتْيَةٌ آمَنُوا بِرَبِّهِمْ وَزِدْنَاهُمْ هُدًى

Allah Almighty is talking about the importance of youth in the Quran and the Prophet (peace be on him) was encouraging young people to use their time and their life to please Allah Almighty.

The shade of the throne

In the hadith narrated by Muslim, there are seven categories who have the shade of the throne of Allah on the Day of Judgement and one of these is youths brought up in the worship of Allah Almighty, boys and girls who will get VIP treatment in the akhirah. This will be REAL VIP treatment.

Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (ﷺ) said:

Seven are (the persons) whom Allah will give protection with His Shade on the Day when there will be no shade except His Shade (i.e. the Shade of the throne), and they are: 1-A just ruler; 2- a youth who grew up with the worship of Allah; 3- a person whose heart is attached to the mosques; 4- two persons who love and meet each other and depart from each other for the sake of Allah; 5- a man whom a beautiful and high ranking woman seduces (for illicit relation), but he (rejects this offer by saying): ‘I fear Allah’; 6- a person who gives a charity and conceals it (to such an extent) that the left hand might not know what the right has given; 7- and a person who remembers Allah in solitude and his eyes flooded with tears. (Bukhari and Muslim)

We are not talking about politicians getting VIP treatment, but youths! Unless the politicians are truthful and trustworthy rulers, then they will be under category number one in the Hadith.

These seven categories will get special blessings from Allah Almighty, and particularly the shade of the throne when the sun will be so close to people’s head that people will be sweating. They will sweat according to their bad actions, the more bad deeds they did the higher their sweat will be, some will be drowning in their sweat, which will be up to their chest or higher. May Allah give us special treatment, ya Rabb.

Al-Miqdad (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said:

On the Day of Resurrection, the sun will come so close to people that there would be left only a distance of one Mile. The people then will be submerged in perspiration according to their deeds, some up to their ankles, some up to their knees, some up to the waist and some will have the bridle of perspiration (reaching their mouth and nose) and, while saying this Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) pointed to his mouth with his hands. (Muslim)

Youth = energy

Youth have energy. Maximum energy. They usually don’t have wisdom, but they are full of beans. We need to channel our energy, otherwise it can lead us to slip into the wrong path.

Allah Almighty wants the youth to be on the straight path from a young age, so they can feel close to Allah, and do the right things.

The cycle of life

The Quran beautifully describes the stages  of our life. Allah is the one who created us from weakness. We were fragile in our mothers wombs, quote:

Allah is He Who created you in (a state of) weakness, then gave you strength after weakness, then after strength gave (you) weakness and grey hair. (30:54)

These stages in our life cycle shows us, how frail we are. And though we can’t control our age, though many of us are trying to stay active and fit, some accelerate their age through smoking and consuming junk food. Allah Almighty is saying He made us weak to show us we need Him, and He gave us strength – to read, write and speak.

2-Wealth

Ibn Mas’ud (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Messenger of Allah (peace be on him) said:

The feet of the son of Adam shall not move on the Day of Resurrection before he is asked about five things: about his life and what he did with it, about his youth and what he wore it out in, about his wealth and how he earned it and spent it upon, and what he did with what he knew. (Tirmidhi)

We see from this that on the Day of Judgement that men’s feet will not move, before they have been asked about 5 things, how he spent his earnings. The angels will reveal the record.

On the Day of Hisab, man will have to account for how he spent his life? If you had 60 or 80 years, how did you acquire it and spend it? If it was in a halal way, you can tick the box and you pass inshallah.

Knowledge

Then Allah will ask about the knowledge you had, no matter what you profession, whether you are a doctor or psychiatrist or teacher, did you use your knowledge to benefit others or for evil?

Time

The last thing Allah Almighty will ask about is time. Did you use it wisely or did you waste it?

When you utilise your time and energy in the way of Allah, it protects you.

Take the advantage of heath before illness. Especially now, people are falling ill, many people are not going to the hospital because they are scared. Many people are avoiding hospitals because of the chaos and the risk of contracting covid 19.

Those who fall ill can no longer do what they used to do. If you attended circles and did charity work, this is good news for them, as they were doing a lot of goodness. Abu Musa (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that he heard the Prophet (peace be on him) say many times :

When a servant of Allah is accustomed to do a good work, then becomes ill or goes on journey, what he was accustomed to do when he was well and staying at home will be recorded for him. (Abu Dawoud).

So Allah Almighty will ask the angels to write down the best deeds and write them for them the best they used to do when they were healthy, until they recover or pass away.

If they spent all their time on dunya issues, they will not have any good deeds to be written down when they are sick. They were too busy earning money, not worried about paying sadaqa or zakat or supporting their needy family, so the angels will have very little to write down when they are incapacitated.

The two squandered favours – health and wealth

Ibn Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said:

There are two blessings which many people waste: health and free time. (Bukhari)

Thus the 2 favours many people are not aware of and squander them, are good health and free time. Don’t let dunya pull you away from your true direction which is Allah Almighty and your akhirah.

Focus

Pull your scattered self together and focus your energy on the akhirah. We need Allah Almighty the most these days even more than ever and we need duas to get closer to Him.

We are in Sha’ban, so let’s prepare for Ramadan.

3-Help others

Take the advantage of wealth before poverty.

If Allah gave you wealth, don’t keep it to yourself. Support those who are in need. You could lose it or you could depart without using it. Do the best with your wealth.

Abdullah bin Ash-Shikhkheer (may Allah be pleased with him) said:

I came to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) as he was reciting: ‘Abundance diverts you’. (102:1).

He said: ‘The son of Adam keep saying: “My wealth, my wealth.”

And he (the Prophet) said: ‘ Do you own of your wealth other than what you eat and consume, and what you wear and wear out, or what you give in Sadaqah (charity) (to those who deserve it), and that what you will have in stock for yourself.” (Muslim)

The good things you have done or you paid it for charity it will be recorded in your book and go with you to the akhirah.

4-Improve your relationship with your family

Take the advantage of your free time before you are busy. We have plenty of time on our hands these days. Many of us are working from home now, but we still have time. Without commuting we have saved about 2 hours a day. Use the time to do something good not just ibadah.

Of course salah and siyam and dhikr are our top priorities, but we need to do something beneficial to support others and get to know our relatives and children better.

Work on your anger especially with your children at home, driving you crazy. Improve your communication with your spouse. Make the best of it.

Improve yourself

Utilise the free time which Allah has give you to become a better person and kick some of your bad habits and instil some good new habits.

5- We don’t know how long we have

The last thing the Prophet (peace be on him) mentioned was to take advantage of your life before your death. This week we have lost about 1000 people per day from covid 19, so we are losing people around us and we don’t know whether it might be you or me tomorrow.

Let’s take advantage of our life, time, health and wealth and ask Allah to make the most of this opportunity. To let this coronavirus be a wake up call for us, as Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) said:

People are asleep when they die they wake up.

Let this opportunity make us close to Allah and make us better spouses and parents. We ask Allah to lift this calamity from us. Ameen

The Friday Reminder delivered by Shaykh Haythtam Tamim on 11th April 2020.

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Ramadan 2020

As the masajid are closed we can’t do tarawih in jama’ah, but we can still do it at home. Watch this space to find our upcoming programme for Ramadan events inshallah.

 

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Shaykh Haytham Tamim is the founder and main teacher of the Utrujj Foundation. He has provided a leading vision for Islamic learning in the UK, which has influenced the way Islamic knowledge is disseminated. He has orchestrated the design and delivery of over 200 unique courses since Utrujj started in 2001. His extensive expertise spans over 30 years across the main Islamic jurisprudence schools of thought. He has studied with some of the foremost scholars in their expertise; he holds some of the highest Ijazahs (certificates) in Quran, Hadith (the Prophetic traditions) and Fiqh (Islamic rulings). His own gift for teaching was evident when he gave his first sermon to a large audience at the age of 17 and went on to serve as a senior lecturer of Islamic transactions and comparative jurisprudence at the Islamic University of Beirut (Shariah College). He has continued to teach; travelling around the UK, Europe and wider afield, and won the 2015 BISCA award (British Imams & Scholars Contributions & Achievements Awards) for Outstanding Contribution to Education and Teaching.

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