Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center cover art

Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

By: Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
Listen for free

About this listen

 We came to give, not to take. Islam Spirituality
Episodes
  • Two identities

    Two identities
    Dec 30 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions, peace and blessings be upon him. And after that, brothers and sisters, we have two identities. We have two identities. One identity is the identity of this world. It starts from a few days after we are born, when we are given a name by our parents. Until that time, we have no identity. Until the name is given, there is no identity. If somebody has a baby, and then before the naming is done, if the baby dies, who do you say died? So and so's baby. That baby has no identity of its own. So it starts with that. And then throughout our life, this identity builds. And it acquires for itself all the actions, all the things that we speak, all the things. We do all of these, get attached to this identity. So as we grow older, we say, who is this boy? He says, he is from HBS. He is from such and such a school. The man, he grows up, he gets a job. Who is this person? He works for IBM. He has his own business. So there is a connection. He has his own business. He has his own business. Then simultaneously, there is the identity of the family. Who is this? He is so and so's son, so and so's daughter, so and so. In the old days, when we had titles, the titles were there. This is so and so Jung. This is so and so Umara. This is so and so Ja. This is so and so Mulk. And each title had its own level. And so on and so on. So our identity of this world comprises of our profession, our educational qualifications, maybe the money. Yesterday we were walking in KBR Park and met some friends. And as we were, you know, making salaam, we met some friends. Some famous politicians, personality passed by. And one of my friends said, this man is worth three thousand crores. Some number like this. And then he said, in this place when we walk, we don't know how many people we pass. We don't know who is worth how much. We don't know whose position is what. So this is identity, right? And this identity is boosted by also cultures. So in this culture, for example, it is common to have, once you have reached some stage of prominence, then you are never alone. There is some bodyguard with you or there is somebody with you. Not because you are in any danger. Huh? There is no danger. That bodyguard is a status symbol. It's like wearing a watch. You know, you don't wear the watch to tell the time. You wear the watch to tell the world. So this is identity. We build this. Until a time comes when this identity suddenly, without any warning, is taken away from us. The first thing which goes, the first thing which goes is that identity which is taken away from us. This, on Saturday, I led the janaza of my aunt, my mumani, in Majid Baqi. And every time I lead a janaza, I am always, always struck by this. The fact that the identity of the person is gone. I mean, all of us have attended many janazas. So when, for example, when I die, and my janaza is going to be prayed, wherever, Allah knows best, there will be, if there are, you know, even if you guys are here, at that time, if you are there, may Allah make it that you make dua for me, inshallah. The janaza, when it is brought to the masjid, it is kept somewhere on the side, right? Because the salat-e-janaza is done after some first salah. You see, after salat-ul-asr, janaza will be prayed. So while salat-ul-asr is going on, janaza is not in front. Janaza is on the side, or at the back somewhere. So after salat-ul-asr is over, and people stand up for salat-ul-janaza, they will say, bring what? Janaza. Bring the mayyat. Bring the janaza. If somebody says, kya aisa bol rahe hai? Aapke dost, aapke bhai, he prayed with you in the masjid every day, every salah next to you, right? You have forgotten his name. You don't say, yaavar bhai kul aao. Sheikh yaavar kul, nahi molte. Koi bhoi kabhi suna aap. Bade se bada, baasha khatam ho jaye, ho gaya hunga. Maybe the biggest king in the world, maybe the biggest sheikh in the world, the sheikh kul haram, whoever, whatever. Nobody will ever say, will ever take that person's name and say, bring him here, for us to pray salat-ul-janaza. Nobody. Bring the janaza. Bring the mayyat. Mayyat kul aao, janaza kul aao. Nahi bolte nahi. So what happened to all those jangs and daulas and mulk and jaa and this one and that one and doctor fulan and professor fulan and Allah knows what, ha? Teen hazaar karood ka aadmi, bolte, teen hazaar karood ka aadmi kul aao bolte. See? Janaza. So before we got a name, even though we were alive, we were breathing, we were crying, everything. No identity. And the minute the breathing stops, literally the minute the breathing stops, you have converted from whatever you are to mayyat. So this is one identity. Now think about it. This ...
    Show More Show Less
    Less than 1 minute
  • Live a life of purpose

    Live a life of purpose
    Dec 28 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers, and praise be to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions, and peace and blessings be upon them. My brothers and sisters, the most important thing, we are talking about happiness, and we were talking about what I mentioned in the last khatira, the issue of happiness and how do you become happy, what makes you happy. So it's not just a question of saying be happy, be happy doing what. Now, it's very important to understand this because, as I mentioned yesterday, people can be happy in some very negative ways, and therefore happiness is not a reliable meter to judge whether one's life is going on track or not. Now, therefore, what is the right track? How do you measure happiness? And what should you do? Well, I believe... that the correct and the most reliable way of trying to be happy is to live a life of purpose, not just randomly live. To live is not merely to breathe. To live is not merely to draw breath. To live is to achieve something worthwhile, to create a legacy, to do something and create some results which carry on after you, to spread goodness wherever you might be. That to me is the true description of happiness. So live a life of purpose. If you... One of the most valuable and useful things to do is to read biographies. It doesn't matter whose biography you read, but read biographies. The best biography to read, of course, is that of Rasulullah ﷺ, because Allah ﷻ presented His Nabi ﷺ as the best of examples for all people and of all time. The best example for you is the life of my Nabi ﷺ. The best example for you is the life of my Nabi ﷺ, and this is for the person who believes in Allah ﷻ, who believes in the Last Day, Day of Judgement, and looks forward to the meeting with Allah ﷻ. So any person of Iman, the best biography to read must be available for you, and must be available for you, absolutely required reading is the biography of Rasulullah to study the seerah Mubarak of the Rasul because Allah put this forward as the best thing to do so that's the first thing second thing is as I said read any biography right anyone because no matter whose biography you read whether you read the biography of a good person or a bad person he teaches you something and the reason I'm saying biographies is because to the extent possible they are as true as any story might be and though biography is like all histories are colored by the people who write them and no matter how objective a author might say he is or she is or no matter how for how objective they think they are there will be some bias and some leaning towards whatever the author considers to be worthwhile but leave that aside that doesn't matter now that is perfectly okay majority of what you're going to read will be fact will be something which actually occurred which happened I love reading biographies and one of the authors I strongly recommend is a man by the name of John Mann he's written a biography of Sultan Salahuddin by Yubi Rahatul Ali it's called Saladin and he's written another one of Genghis Khan if you read both it's called Genghis if you read these you it's a good way to read these as well as a comparison between two of the most powerful leaders the world has ever seen and who had an amazing impact, but two extremely different people, two totally different people. And it is a good thing to read this and to then reflect and say, well, what is it that makes them different? Quite apart from asking yourself the question and saying, well, who do I want to be like? But even if you don't go there, say, what is it that makes them different? So read biographies. Now, when you do that, you will realize that anyone in this world who has had an impact, irrespective of the kind of impact, anyone who had an impact was able to do that only because they wanted to do that. They were clear in their minds. They had a purpose. They were living with a purpose. They were living for a purpose, to achieve something. And they were able to achieve it to whatever extent. But they were able to achieve it. And the reason they were able to achieve it is because they were clear in their minds as to what they wanted to do. So I remind myself and you, let us learn to live a life of purpose. Live consciously. Live deliberately. Live thoughtfully. Exercise your mind and exercise your thought. Exercise your choices. All of us, no matter who we are, no matter where we find ourselves placed in the story of life, we have choices. I want to give you a measure of comparison. We have choices. But we must convert those choices into options. The way I differentiate that is that if you walk into a store, say you walk into TJ Maxx, what are the choices you have? The choices you have are everything that ...
    Show More Show Less
    Less than 1 minute
  • What makes you happy

    What makes you happy
    Dec 28 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, there is a general feeling, a false feeling, that there is a false feeling in the world that somehow as long as you are happy, all is right with your world. As long as you are happy. So people say, as long as we are happy. People say about their children, for example, that, you know, what are they doing? How are they? Oh, no, no, no. As long as they are happy, it's fine. You know, whatever they are doing. Now, this is, I say this is a fallacy because if you think about it, there are people in the world who are happy doing things which are in themselves ranging from a waste of time to something which, things which are actually evil. The finest example of that is social media. Today, one of the biggest, if not the biggest calamity, the biggest pandemic, the biggest epidemic that is completely, you know, destroying generations, not even one generation. is social media addiction, screen addiction. Imagine we are living in a world where we have managed to turn it upside down. For example, things that we should keep private, things that we kept private, we meaning as human beings, we kept private for centuries, for millennia, generation after generation. Things which we guarded jealously, things which we did not reveal to anyone, many times even to people we should have revealed them to. We didn't share them with anyone except with our very closest, nearest and dearest. People we completely trusted. All that information today, we voluntarily, without being forced to, and without seeking or getting a single cent in compensation, we put it out there for the entire world and his wife to see. On Instagram, on Facebook, on Snapchat and God knows what. Our most private information, starting from something as mundane and apparently, harmless as what you eat, pictures of your food, pictures of your plates, to things which are potentially dangerous, which we should never ever reveal. Everything is out there. And we know very well that those who we are giving this to voluntarily, whether it's these companies who, run these social media, who own the social media, or whether it is people who use information they get from social media, to do other things with it. We know that many of these things, many of these kinds of people, take our information and use it for their purposes. The most benign result of that is that they make humongous amounts of money, while we get nothing. They make a lot of money, while we get nothing. They make humongous amounts of money using our material, our life stories, and we get nothing in return. That's the most benign form of it. Two, some very malevolent and evil things that happen with information that is freely given on the internet. Now, we are happy doing it. And the people who are using this information for their own nefarious, reasons are happy using it. Right? This is the most benign thing and the most common thing. And we get our children addicted to it from, literally from the time they open their eyes. And we have all kinds of excuses, and all kinds of reasons why we do it. Oh, it keeps the child occupied. Otherwise, the child is a nuisance. Otherwise, the child makes a lot of noise. If I didn't do this, what would I do? A simple question is, what did your mother do? What did your grandmother do? Before the social media, they came into the picture. Right? Children were still there. Right? They were still having babies. How did they keep them occupied? Think about this. You know, I remember, and I don't have to go back always into my childhood. I'm saying it right now. If you go into the villages, for example, in India, you will see this anywhere. You have a little kid. All he has is a shoebox, or the equivalent of a shoebox. Something like a shoebox. And he has, he has, he has, he has, he has, he has, some bottle caps, small or big bottle caps. And he has a string. Now this child, first of all, he accesses all of these materials. And then he creates a wheeled vehicle. So he makes axles, he fixes those bottle caps as wheels to that box that he has, the shoe box or its equivalent. He ties the string and then he puts something in it and he drags it around and he calls it his car, he calls it his bus, he calls it his train, he calls it whatever he wants to call it. And in the whole process he is learning to be dexterous, he is learning to use his intelligence, his reasoning powers, he is learning to create something. That thing which he creates is successful part of the time, sometimes it fails. And each time it is successful or fails, he is learning some other lesson. And he is having a hell of a lot of fun. He is having great fun doing all this. And most of the time he is doing this outside. He is getting some sunlight, he is getting some vitamin D, he is breathing fresh air hopefully depending on which place he is living in. All of this is happening. Even in America, I remember seeing exactly this happening in an Amish village in ...
    Show More Show Less
    Less than 1 minute
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.