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
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 We came to give, not to take. Islam Spirituality
Episodes
  • Accountability is a blessing

    Accountability is a blessing
    Feb 9 2026
    https://youtu.be/Mouyqr5_pUQ Auto-generated transcript: Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu Wa Salamu Alai Sharafi Al-Anbiya Wa Al-Mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Alaihi Wa Sahibi Wasallam. Tasleeman Kaseera Kaseera. Fammabadu, my brothers and sisters, that is the moon of the 15th of Shaaban. And that's about as big as I can get it. We are at this place, very nice place, which is on the bank of this lake in Bidar, in Karnataka. There is a sanctuary, a black buck sanctuary there in Bidar. And that's where we are. Some forest. Photos also I will upload in due course, inshallah. It's a little bit of a misty morning. But across this lake, there is this beautiful pink forest of gliricidia trees, which are in flower. Looks very pretty, but it's an invasive species, which is destroying the grasslands here. And the grassland is where black buck live. So they are endangered. They're severely endangered. There are two things that are the biggest source of danger for them. One is the destruction of the trees. And the second one is... The destruction of Indian pie dogs, which prey on their fawns, especially newborn ones, which are completely helpless when they are born. Of course, once they stand up and start and then get firm on their feet, then dogs can't catch them. They're very fast. But that period of some minutes, maybe an hour or so, is extremely vulnerable. And dogs are dogs. I mean, they know they are pack animals. They're predators. They hunt in packs. They know when the deer are dropping their fawns. And they're waiting. And that is the tragedy that unfolds. Alhamdulillah. This also shows how much value water... adds to not just the picture, but to life itself. We are in a very dry, deciduous forest. If you look at it, if you look at here, this is how it is. Very, very dry and deciduous. This is a secondary forest. This is not the primary forest here. This is something which is partly what has grown up. And partly which has been planted. But anyway, forest is forest and it adds beauty to the whole environment. But if you look at it, if you take this water away, then what is left is very harsh and dry. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, that's why when He mentions Jannah, He always mentions water. Jannah atin tajree min tahti al-anhaar. Flowing water. This is, of course, a... lake, not flowing, but Allah mentions flowing water. And there's a whole flight of... I'm trying to figure out now what that is. I don't think you can see it in this video. But, or you can. Okay, there you go. See that V formation. Most birds fly like that. It's not only geese. This looks like some kind of cranes or storks or something. This is a very, very dry forest. This is something... Birds which are bigger and longer, not the... not duck. This is a time in the morning when birds also start taking flight. Aquatic birds usually rest and spend the night on water because that's where they are safest. Others spend the night in trees. Others spend the night in trees. And then in the morning, they all take flight and they go into the fields where either they feed on post-harvest the grain that drops on the ground and which is left there accidentally, not deliberately, but it's enough to feed them. Or they feed on grass and other things in the fields which are surrounding these waters. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la's Nizam, the system that He has created where everything gets what is written for it. No one gets what is not written for them. No one can take away what is written for them. And this is the lesson that we human beings don't see. We cannot be sad about anything. accountability to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we may think of it as something which is frightening, which is terrible, which is, you know, I wish it wasn't there kind of thing. But I remind myself, yes, of course, it is frightening to some extent, because to face Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with the kinds of life that we live, obviously, it's not something which is not frightening. But we rely on the tremendous mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, which he has mentioned in the Quran many, many, many times, and much more than he mentioned his punishment and his anger. So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for his mercy and for his forgiveness. And we ask Allah to correct our ways in this life so that we become eligible for his mercy and his forgiveness. And even if we are not eligible, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive us anyway, because it's only Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala who can be that generous, who can forgive even those who patently deserve punishment. The reason I say that accountability is a great ni'mah, it's a great blessing, is for two reasons. One is that the awareness of accountability, the fact that we are accountable. Okay. Okay. That we believe this and we try our best to live our lives knowing that we are accountable to the one from whom nothing is hidden, obviously keeps us on track. I'm not saying that necessarily threat ...
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    13 mins
  • If there’s a God why’s there suffering

    If there’s a God why’s there suffering
    Feb 8 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 Prophet and the messengers. And peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. And peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. And after that, my brothers and sisters, sometimes people who are atheists and people who don't understand, even sometimes, may Allah have mercy on us, Muslims who don't understand Islam, who have not taken the trouble to learn anything. They ask this question, they say that if there is a merciful God, if there is a merciful God, why is there suffering? If there is a God, or a merciful God, why is there suffering? Seems to be a... a reasonable question, if you look at it in one way. That's why I said, people who don't understand, ask this question. Because people who understand and know the Qur'an, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned very clearly, why there is suffering, despite the fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is there, and this is Haqqa. This is the truth. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, in Surah Ar-Rum, Zahara al-fasadu fil barri wal bahri, bi ma kasabat aydi al-nasi li yuziqahum ba'da alladhi amilu la'allahum yarji'oon. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, which means, the fasad, the trials, tribulations, difficulties, calamities, diseases, wars, all the orphans and widows, all the blood and gore, all that you are seeing. Zahara al-fasadu, jo fasad zahir hai, fil barri wal bahar, zameen pe aur paani pe, on the earth and on the oceans. bi ma kasabat aydi al-nasi, yeh insano ke haaton uska kia hua hai, yeh aapki mehnat ka sila hai. Allah said, this is the result of, and the fruits of what your hands have earned. Kasabat aydi al-nasi. Kasab, Urdu ka raaz bhi hai. Kasbe maash. Ayd, aydin, yadam, yada, is hand. Aydi al-nasi. Insano ke haat, kut ki. Bi ma kasabat aydi al-nasi. Now you might say, well, okay, so why doesn't Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala intervene? And why doesn't Allah change everything? Can He do it? Of course He can do it. Why doesn't He do it? Allah says, li yuziqahum ba'da alladhi amilu, la'allahum yarjihu. So that we can allow you to test the result of some of your deeds, so that you may turn towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Ta ke aap apne amal ka maza chakhe, thoda sa, chakhe, poora khaye nahi. Zaa'iqa, yuziqal, li yuziqal ladhi ba'da al-amilu, la'allahum yarjihu. Ta ke Allah ki taraf, Lord Almighty. So that you may turn towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. A good way to understand this is, say for example, the mother is cooking in the kitchen and the, imagine the old days when the stoves would be at the, floor level. So the mother is sitting there cooking and the little kid is trying to put his hand into the fire because the fire looks very nice. Right? Fires are extremely attractive. You look at it, the flames going up and down, the orange and the yellows and the colors and it's very nice to see. So the child doesn't understand what is a fire. So the child is constantly trying to put his hand into the fire and the mother keeps pushing him away, pushing, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Finally, one day, when the child tries to cook, when the child tries to cook, when the child tries to put his hand in the fire, the mother slaps him on the wrist. So when she slaps him on the wrist, it hurts. Right? So he starts crying. Yeah, my mother hit me. Why did she hit you? To prevent you from doing something which would have caused you far more pain. If she had not hit you and she had allowed you to put your hand into the fire, then you would have burnt. And the pain of burning is far, far more than the pain of being slapped on the wrist. So Allah says, we allow you to taste some of the result of your own deeds. Right? So people say, if there is a God, why is there suffering? There is suffering not because there is no God, there is suffering because you are not doing your duty. Another example, in America they have this practice, or this possibility, opportunity. You can go to the local police station and you can say that you would like to enroll for the ride-along program. So the ride-along program is, this is a police public, you know, PR thing they do, where they give you the opportunity to sit in the cruiser of a car, and you take the police officer and go with him on a shift. So you are riding along with the police officer. So you see whatever he sees, you are participating in whatever he is participating. So I did once in Florida, and we caught several people on the highway and gave them tickets. And the, so when I went there, the police officer I went with, Paul Bosco. So he, first of all he deputized me, he gave me a badge. And he says, you are legally, officially a deputy now. And then he gave me a bulletproof vest to wear. So his car, when I saw it, it was freezing cold ...
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    21 mins
  • Preparing for the future

    Preparing for the future
    Feb 7 2026
    https://youtu.be/mnGqUuPFzsc Nvidia CEO on future jobs: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-says-160735219.html?_guc_consent_skip=1770435644 Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ash-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Dasliman kaseeran kaseeran. My brothers and sisters, I'm in Bidar, in the Black Buck Sanctuary. And I'm looking at... You can see what I'm looking at. On my right is a huge strand of Glycidia, which is something that the Forest Department themselves planted here. This is their tendency to plant trees in every open piece of land. Unfortunately, for the Black Buck, this is a terrible thing because Glycidia completely covers the soil and doesn't... does not allow grass to grow. As I'm walking here, there is a Black Buck male, which is in the grass there. I don't think you can see it, but it's there. Now, Black Buck are an endangered species, and they exist on grass. They eat grass. And if the grass... is gone, then the Black Buck is gone. It's as simple as that. But there we have the department in its wisdom. They have planted the place full of Glycidia. As you can see here, they're looking at a beautiful sunrise. Amazing. Beautiful sunrise. MahaAllah. Allah Ta'ala's khawarat is everywhere. You see this whole strand of Glycidia. Glycidia has this very pretty pink flower, pink flower, almost like cherry blossoms, but for grasslands and for Black Buck, it's very bad news. Now, this is a very interesting thing. It's a very interesting thing. The sanctuary itself is about what you can see here, which in terms of the territory, in terms of what their need is, way, way, way less than afternoon. But there you are. And on top of that, grass is obviously susceptible to burning. And so, you know, somebody throws a cigarette butt or something, and that's the end of a huge wave of grassland. You can probably see here. Okay, there you go. Now, that's a nice male. It's a very good male. It's a nice picture. He is standing there looking at me. Okay. And then he's going off on his own. Lovely big buck. . ! This is ideal territory for me to come to the point that I want to talk to you about, and that is the question of looking at ourselves. And I'm especially talking to now the, especially the youth. There's a wonderful, well wonderful for want of another word, but wonderful statement by the head of Nvidia, a man who runs a company which has a market cap, which is more than the GDP of India. And I imagine this one company. If it were to be a market cap, nation state, it would be bigger than India in terms of its GDP. And it's run by one man, obviously he's the head of the company. Now he says that the millionaires of the future will not be people with college degrees. They will be plumbers and electricians. Because AI will automate and take over everything which can be automated and taken over. And the only thing which will be there for you to use and also as a means of livelihood are things which cannot be taken over by AI. And that is things which needs a human being with hands and legs to fix it. So AI is not going to unblock your sink. It's not going to redo your toilets. You need somebody to do that. AI is not going to wire up your houses. You need someone to do that. So he says, get a skill. Get a skill that you can do with your hands. In other words, get a trade. That's a, that's a good idea. As you can see, the clouds are very pretty. And the sun is shining. But this is serious bad news for grasslands. So to come back to my topic. He says, do something with your hands. Get a trade. Now, believe me, I can't possibly agree with that more. I completely agree with it. And I strongly recommend for all of you to go and learn something that your hands are good at. Yeah. you can do with your hands. The issue is that many people seem to have attitudes of, I mean, ridiculous attitudes where they look down on tradespeople, on tradesmen and tradeswomen, and they think that there is something wrong with, you know, something in Fradig and something not so nice about working with your hands. And that's why I say to you, first and foremost, if you have any reluctance to learn, ask yourself, what is the reason? If you say, I don't like to become a plumber, say, ask yourself, what is the reason? That reason might be a cancer of your mind, where you are looking down on something which is, something which is not so nice about working with your hands. And that's why I say to you, if you have any reluctance to do something which is not right, ask yourself, what is the reason? wonderful work and you know they're doing very well for themselves one is Anil who is Bosnian and the other one is Jihad Akal who is Lebanese both of them dear friends of mine and they do a phenomenal work they build houses they do all kinds of stuff all of which is non AIable if I can ...
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    11 mins
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