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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
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 We came to give, not to take. Islam Spirituality
Episodes
  • Resilience is the master hack

    Resilience is the master hack
    Jan 2 2026
    Auto-generated transcript:Resilience is the ability to be resilient. The ability to get up from a fall. And as the Chinese saying goes, if you fall five times, get up six times. The ability to get up from a fall, the ability to deal with failure. This is one of the most important things for success. Because failure is very much a part of life. Everybody fails at something or the other. To be able to get up from the failure, this is what spells success. Now in that context, I read a beautiful story recently, which I want to share with you. That's called the Hershey School. I call it the Hershey Chocolate School because we know Hershey from the chocolates. It's very interesting. I'm just reading what was posted. He sat in a mansion built for children who would never come. And he decided that silence would not be the end of the story. In 1909, in the company town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, Milton Hershey was 43 years old and wildly successful. His chocolate company was thriving. An entire town carried his name. A grand house stood on a hill above the factories and streets he had built from nothing. At night, the house was quiet. Milton and his wife, Catherine, Kitty Hershey, had designed the mansion for children. Bedrooms waited, hallways echoed, gardens sat untouched. Kitty could not have children. And in the early 20th century, childlessness was treated as fate. Wealthy couples were expected to accept it and move on. Milton Hershey did not. To understand why, you have to understand how much failure shaped him. Before success found him, it had missed him repeatedly. His first candy business collapsed. His second failed even worse. By 30, he was broke, embarrassed, and dependent on family support. He knew what it felt like to be written off. So when he looked at that empty house, he did not see an ending. He saw an opening. He saw a new beginning. In 1909, Milton and Kitty announced they were founding a school for orphaned boys. Not a charity they would fund from a distance. A school they would build, run, and shape themselves. People were baffled. Why take on something so demanding when you already had an empire to manage? Because he did not want to donate. He wanted a parent. The boys who arrived had nothing. No money, no security. Often no one left in the world who claimed them. Milton and Kitty met them personally. Milton would kneel to speak to them at eye level and explain that this was not a handout. This was a home. Kitty became the heart of the place. She learned names, checked on homework, asked if the food was good. She mothered the children she could never bear. And the school grew around that. She was loved. Then, in 1915, Kitty died suddenly at 42. Friends assumed the school would fade. It had been their shared dream. And now she was gone. Milton grieved quietly for years, keeping the school running while the world waited for him to step back. In 1918, he did the opposite. Milton Hershey transferred control of the Hershey Chocolate Factory. The Hershey Chocolate Company into a trust for the school. Not a portion, not dividends. Control. The entire enterprise, the Hershey Chocolate Company, now existed to fund the education, housing and care of children who had started life with nothing. Sixty million dollars at the time. An unthinkable sum. His associates warned him. What if he needed the money? What about his legacy? Milton's answer was simple. He was a man. He was a symbol. This was his legacy. He gave away the mansion and turned it into part of the school. He moved into modest quarters. He continued to greet new students, remember faces, ask how they were doing. He lived to see boys graduate and build lives he had made possible. When he died in 1945 at 88, he left behind no heirs by blood. But he left behind a future. Today, the Milton Hershey School serves more than 2,000 children at a time entirely free of charge. Housing, food, clothing, healthcare, education and support are guaranteed. The trust he created now manages tens of billions of dollars, all dedicated to childhoods he would never personally witness. There is a statue on campus of Milton Hershey. It does not show him as an industrial titan, it shows him kneeling beside a child, hand on a small shoulder, eye to eye. That was how he understood family. Most fortunes are built to be inherited by the already fortunate. Milton Hershey had no children to inherit his wealth, so he gave it to children who would have inherited nothing at all. Every piece of chocolate sold under his name still funds the decision. Every year, more lives are shaped by a choice of children. The children are the ones who are the most important. The children are the ones who are shaped by a choice he made more than a century ago. He sat in rooms meant for children who never came. So he made sure they would be filled forever by children who needed them. For one thing, always buy Hershey chocolates and eat only Hershey chocolates. I think that's the least we can...
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  • Live thoughtfully

    Live thoughtfully
    Jan 1 2026
    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 and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and friends. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Faham Badum. My brothers and sisters, as we enter a new year, and today is the 31st of December 2025, tomorrow, inshallah, will be the 1st of January 2026, it's useful to take stock of what we achieved in the last year and decide what we want to do with the year that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given us once again. Another year, another chance to get it right, if we wish to. The reason we need to be concerned about this is because a day will come which will be our last. It will be the last sunrise or sunset that we will see. It will be the last meal we eat. The last salah we pray or choose. The last prayer we choose not to pray. It will be the last words we say to the last person who is destined to hear them. It will be the last place we go to from which we will then be taken away. We will no longer be able to go or come as we wish. Not go on our own, but taken away. That day will come. That day will come. We don't know when, but we know it will come. The sun will rise for the last time for us. Maybe that day is today. As I grow older, I am aware of an ever-increasing sense of urgency. A feeling that I have progressively less time to leave behind a legacy that can be a credit to me. This sense of urgency has nothing to do with the fact that the reality of time running out is one that we all face. It has more to do with a desire to do something to maximize the benefit of the time that I have left. Naturally, like all of us, I have no idea how much exactly is left. So all the time I have left is a time of time. There is no more reason to act fast. Allah SWT warned us in the Quran again and again and again. And Allah SWT said, It's not the dying that is worrying. It is the accounting. We will not die and become dust. We will not die and become dust. We will be resurrected and called to account. What will we do? What will we do? In this process, to help us to work through this, I developed a theory based on my own life experience, which I call living thoughtfully. Living thoughtfully. I believe that before we act, if we think about what we are about to do, the reasons for it, the possible effects of it, and other alternatives that we may have, and then ask ourselves, do I really want to do this thing in this way? Then we will be able to vastly improve our own effectiveness. But, can we do that? In living thoughtfully, the most important matter is to check our intention. We have the first hadith in Bukhari, narrated by Sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattab, that Rasulullah SAW said, the reward of a deed is based on its intention. The rewards of deeds are based on their intention. A bribe, for example, is after all a gift. The difference which makes one right and the other wrong is the intention. A gift is good. A bribe is haram. It's bad. Imam al-Nabawi, Rahmatullah Ali, one of the most eminent scholars, author of this hadith, writing about the importance of intention. In his book, Ar-Riyadh as-Saleheen, he begins by saying, He said, He said to live with the awareness of the intention in all that we say, in all that we do, and in every situation that we find ourselves in. Whether visible or hidden. Whether visible or hidden. Imagine living with such a heightened sense of purpose that before a person says anything, he asks himself, why am I saying this? He thinks of the effect of his words. If I say this, what will happen? And then takes responsibility for that. Yes, I want this to happen. Or he said, no, I don't want this to happen, so I will not speak. Now he does the same with every action of his and reflects on his contribution to a person's life. To any situation that he or she is faced with. If we behaved with such a tremendous sense of responsibility, no matter what our position in life, what a wonderful world we would be able to create, our problems of inequity, poverty, environmental degradation, and moral bankruptcy can all be traced to one source. A lack of responsibility for our speech and actions. We lack concern. We must change that. I call on you to do so. I contrast living thoughtfully with the opposite. Living thoughtlessly. Just remaining alive. Going from sensation to sensation. Like a cow or a goat or a dog. Not that I have anything against cows or goats or dogs, but I would like to believe that I am different. In today's social media dominated world, this is what we are doing even more. Living from dopamine hit to dopamine hit. We must break out of this and realize that our clocks are ticking. And our time is drawing to a close. Age is not an indicator of how much time we have. Old or young, we will die at our appointed time. Nobody will get an instant more or ...
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  • Purpose of knowledge – 1

    Purpose of knowledge – 1
    Dec 31 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:Allah is the Greatest, the Merciful, and the All-Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophets and Messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. My brothers and sisters, Allah SWT taught us about education, about how to educate, about what must prioritize, what should the priorities be in education. Allah SWT told us in Surah Al-Azim Raan, إِنَّ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاقْتِلَافِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لَآيَاتٍ لِأُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ الَّذِينَ يَذْكُرُونَ اللَّهَ قِيَامًا وَقُعُودًا وَعَلَى جُنُوبِهِمْ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقُتَ هَذَا بَاطِلًا سُبْحَانَكَ فَقِنَاظَ بَنَّارٍ Allah SWT said, which means, Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the day and the night are signs for people of intelligence, people who reflect, people who think, people who have minds. And Allah described these people, al-wurid, al-bab, as people, people who remember Allah SWT standing, sitting and lying down. This is the beauty of the economy of the bayan, the narrative of the Quran, wherein just one or two words, Allah SWT collects and encompasses everything that goes under the description of the Quran. This is the beauty of knowledge. So Allah SWT is saying the first condition of a person of intelligence is that they recognize their Rabb, Jalla Jalaluhu, and they are obedient to Him because they reflect, they remember Him in every aspect of life, standing, sitting and lying down. Every aspect of life. They remember their Rabb, whether they are at home or they are in their workplace, whether they are in their home, whether they are in their workplace, Whether they are kings or paupers, whether they are married or single, whether they have children or no children, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are healthy or sick, in every aspect of life, they remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not just a passive state of being. It doesn't mean merely repeating the names and attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this dhikr or that wazifa. Remembering Allah means being aware of the presence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in our lives and becoming totally obedient to His commands as they apply. Being aware means being obedient to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in our lives and becoming totally obedient to His commands as they apply. Remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala means being obedient to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in our lives and becoming totally obedient to His commands as they apply. So the first quality of people of intelligence is that they recognize the presence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So the first quality of people of intelligence is that they recognize the presence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. They think, they ponder, they research. As a result of their research, they discover. They go deep into. All of these means of understanding or phrases of understanding are encompassed in the word yatafakkarun. Fikr. To be concerned. Concerned. In what? In the creation of the heavens and the earth. In the creation of the heavens and the earth. Allah used the preposition and. Now, those of you who know Arabic, if you write a sentence, Alladheena yadhkuruna allaha qiyamahum wa qu'udahum wa ala junubihim aw yatafakkaruna fee khalqis samawati walad. This sentence would be grammatically correct. What it would mean is that these are the people who remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala standing, sitting and lying down. Or those who reflect upon, who are concerned about and who do research in the creation of the heavens and the earth. Now, so in this sentence, though it is grammatically correct, we are talking about two different kinds of people. Who are the people who are al-ulil al-baab? People who remember Allah standing, sitting and lying down. Or. Those who reflect on, research in and who are concerned about the creation of the heavens and the earth. But this is not the ayat of the Quran. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not describing two different kinds of people. Allah is not saying that either this or that both are OK. No. Allah is describing two qualities of the same person, of the same people. The first quality is to be concerned. To be concerned about the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. In everything that we say or we do. And this is the definition of taqwa. To be concerned about the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. In everything we say or do is the definition of taqwa. So Allah is saying the first quality of the person who is fit to be ...
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