Episodes

  • From Masjid An Nabawi Ash-Shareef

    From Masjid An Nabawi Ash-Shareef
    Nov 20 2025
    https://youtu.be/Ir_IfT4260g Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, Alhamdulillah, wa bilalameen, wa salatu wassalamu ala ashraf, bi zanbi wal mursaleen, Muhammadur Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi, wa sallamu wa sallam, tasliman kaseeran kaseera. Umma baadu, for those of you who can recognize this, you know where I am, I don't need to explain, that is the bottom of the green dome, the raudha of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa alaihi wa sallam, and I am in Masjid Nabiyyat-e-Sharif, Alhamdulillah, it's a beautiful, beautiful scene. May Allah bless all the people here. What you are seeing here is the sufrat, the dastarkhans, the food that is being spread out, and all of this is privately funded. There are families in Medina who have been doing this for literally centuries. We're right through Ramadan, and then throughout the year, every Monday and Thursday, the days of sunnah fasting, they give iftar to anyone who wants to eat. Nobody will even ask you if you are fasting or not. You can just sit down and you will eat, and there's beautiful food. I'm in this area which is normally an open space. It's a small courtyard, but they have these beautiful, these beautiful umbrellas that automatically open and shut. That's a wonderful sight to see also when it happens. So beautiful to be in Masjid Nabiyyat-e-Sharif. I remember the very first time I came here was in 1997, when my wife and I came here for the first hajj. And it was amazing. When I came to Medina itself, and then especially when I entered Masjid Nabiyyat-e-Sharif, it was like coming home. Now, I've been, I've traveled all over the world. I've been to many countries first time, and I know the feeling of first time. I know how it feels. It's some anxiety. There is obviously some excitement, obviously, but there is also anxiety. There is, you know, some level of, I wouldn't say fear, but, you know, you're wondering what's going to happen and so on. But here it was like coming home. And I'm coming to a place for the first time, never been here before. And this is the barakah of Rasulullah ﷺ and his beautiful maqam. Imagine, I remember 2008 when I came here, my wife and I, we came for hajj and I spoke at the International Hajj Conference. When we came to Medina after completing hajj, as we came over the little hill, and we could see the minarets of Al Hanuma Sharif of Rasool Allah ﷺ, I know the thought in my mind was, what is it about this place, which was a little oasis, unheard of probably at the time, which sent out the call for the oneness of the worship of Allah SWT, which echoed all around. And people responded and people answered and people continued to respond and answer, no matter how many people malign Islam, no matter how many Islamophobes they are, no matter what, people come to Islam, Muslims are Muslims, they are proud to be Muslims, they are happy to be Muslims, and they are people who come here, they flock here from every nation in the world. Every country. Every area. Every part of the world. As I said before, another reminder from Makkah, every complexion, every hair color, every shape of nose and eyes and mouth, every stature, the tall ones, the short ones, the large ones, the not so large ones, the thin ones, everybody from, you know, everything, they are here. If Allah made them, they are here. SubhanAllah, they come and they come for the love of Allah and they come for the love of his Habib, of Rasool Allah ﷺ, and they come for the love of the house of Allah and they come for the love of the masjid and abu-yash-sharif. SubhanAllah, imagine, what was it that made this happen? And… Because you're looking at a man who was alone and he had no resources. He had a vision and he had an aim which surpassed anything that anybody can imagine, but he had nothing to make it happen. He had nothing to make it happen. Yet, Allah swt has caused him to be the cause of millions and millions and millions of people, the 1.5 billion already in this world living, and imagine all the millions in 1500 years who came to Islam. We ask Allah swt to help them. We ask Allah swt to keep us in Islam and for us to die in Islam so we can go and meet Rasool Allah ﷺ in Jannatul Firdaus, inshaAllah. My brothers and sisters, the issue is to have a sense of awe and love and majesty of the place. And this is something that we have in both the Hanumai. And frankly, even though these are fabulous buildings, if you look at the buildings, if you look at the magnificent structure, if you look at the Haram Sharif in Makkah, it's like a city, literally like a city. Without a doubt, it's like a whole city. It's, you know, the electric power, you name it. I mean, everything is like a whole city in one mosque. But that's not what impresses. What impresses is the sense of awe and majesty. And that is nothing to do with the building or the architecture or the structure or how big it is, how small it is. It is the history. It is the sense of majesty ...
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    11 mins
  • Death is by Allahﷻ’s decree alone

    Death is by Allahﷻ’s decree alone
    Nov 20 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. A'lamo alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. From my Baadu, my brothers and sisters, there was a tragic accident, I think yesterday, where a bus carrying a group of pilgrims on the Mecca-Madina Highway had an accident with a, had a collision with an oil tanker and caught fire and completely burnt. And in that fire, I think about forty plus pilgrims died. They were Shaheed. And many of them, if not all of them, were from Hyderabad. Terrible tragedy. We ask Allah to forgive them and grant them, grant them Jannah of the Prophet. Grant them the clothes and the, grant them the Dharaja and station of being Shaheed. One of the tragic things of this accident was that eighteen members of the same family, they all died together in this accident, by Allah's mercy. There were forty-six people on this bus. I'm talking about the decree of light. And Ras Mahantala shows this. There are two accidents of this nature. One is this one, in which there were forty-six passengers on this bus. Forty-five died, one walked free. He is being treated for whatever injuries he received. But he seems to be okay. Another accident which happened recently in this way was when the Air India plane in Ahmedabad took off from Ahmedabad airport and crashed onto a hostel, a student's hostel. Imagine these students are sitting there having breakfast, the plane falls on top of the hostel and they die there. And everyone in that plane perished except one person. And that one person walked out. And he was just a minor injury. But everyone has died. Another accident I remember was when there was a plane, if I'm not mistaken, it was one of the Central Asian Republic's plane, meaning the plane belonged to the Central Asian Republic. And it was being flown by Air India on a wet lease. This plane landed in Delhi and broke into two. Literally the fuselage just split into two on the runway. And I know somebody personally who walked away from that plane completely unscathed. And the interesting thing is nobody died in that accident. The plane just broke into two. There was no fire. No one died in that accident. Including there was a small baby. Everybody survived. So Alhamdulillah, life and death is in the hands of Allah . We ask Allah for goodness and well-being in everything. We ask Allah to protect everyone from accidents. All the more important to remind ourselves to drive safely. And not just drive safely but to be in a safe state. Because otherwise, you know, to be in a safe state, because sometimes people, they try to drive safely. Nobody drives. Or rather, let me not say nobody drives. People do. But at least sensible people don't take risks driving. But maybe they are in a situation where they, where they, they are impaired because of lack of sleep or some other, some other reason. And that results in terrible accidents. So this is something to keep, you know, to think about. And to make sure that you are never in that kind of a state. The responsibility of the driver is for himself, for herself and for the passengers as well. So that's one part of the story. But the second reason I am saying all this here, apart from of course asking all of you to make dua for these people, is because some friend of mine, may Allah bless them, and bless them and bless their affection for me and good intention, with which they say these things. They said to me, please avoid road travel. Don't travel by road. Go by train from Makkah to Marina. It's not safe. Road travel is not safe. Now I know the intention with which they are saying that. That is a beautiful intention we have. May Allah swt help us to always wish the best. For each other. So, but having said that, the reason I am saying this is because, let us always be clear in our minds, that life and death is decreed by Allah swt. And if Allah swt decrees that you or I will die in a particular way, that will happen. Nothing that you do is going to change that. Nothing that you don't do is going to change that. And having said that, should you take precautions? Of course. We as human beings have been, as people have been, wanted to do whatever we need to do. So by all means take precautions. By all means, do whatever is reasonable. But to believe that the seat belt saves your life, or to believe that being in a particular model of car, somebody says, oh, you are a car driver, you are a driver, you are a driver, you see if that person had been driving a Mercedes, they would not have died. Well, if Dianna had died in armoured Mercedes, she was in the back, not even in the front. Whereas the, out of the two people in the front, I can't remember if it was the driver or the guard, one of them survived. Even after hitting the pillar of the tunnel, head on. Whereas both the occupants in the back ...
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    Less than 1 minute
  • The call for Hajj

    The call for Hajj
    Nov 19 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wassalatu wassalamu ala al-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbuhu sallam. Tasliman kaseeran kaseera. Wa min baadu. My brothers and sisters, I am here in Mecca. We completed our Umrah yesterday, alhamdulillah. And we have not been able to come for, I think, for the last eight years almost. So, it was very nice, very lovely to be here and to be able to complete the Umrah. Allah made it very easy, alhamdulillah. We completed the Umrah in a very short time, alhamdulillah. Although the crowds, a lot of people, alhamdulillah, to the house of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And among the reminders that I always get, anytime I am feeling tired or something, alhamdulillah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala shows me somebody who is probably, I won't say twice my age because I am now at an age where nobody can live twice my age. But certainly much older than I am. Maybe 10, 20 years older maybe, Allah knows. But doing Hajj, doing Umrah, making Tawaf, as well as little children. So, alhamdulillah, there is no excuse for feeling tired or anything like that. It's the house of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that attracts people from all over the world. The greatest, most cosmopolitan, most multicultural, multiracial gathering in the world is the Hajj. There are many gatherings where people gather in their thousands and in the hundreds of thousands. But if you look at the plurality of the gatherings, there are hundreds of thousands. People from practically every single country, every single nation in the world. And people of all levels of society, from the wealthy, wealthy and the wealthiest to the poorest. They all come to the house of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in Surah Al-Hajj, إِنَّ أَوَّلَ بَيْتٍ وُضِعَ لِلنَّاسِ لَلَّذِي بِبَكَّةَ مُبَارَكًا وَقُدًا لِلْعَالَمِينَ Surely the first house of worship established for humanity is the one at Bakkah, a blessed sanctuary and a guide for all people. The first house of worship, meaning, somebody might argue and say, well, chronologically we know that there have been temples in Egypt, and temples in India and other places, which, Angkor Wat, for example, in Indonesia, in Bali, and different places which are probably much older. The house that Ibrahim alayhi salam built, the Kaaba, is approximately about 4,000 years old. And somebody might argue and say, well, you know, there are temples which are older than that. The house of worship here means, the house of worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the Creator Jalla Jalaluhu wa Manawaluhu, who has no partners. So the house of worship of, in the sense of Tauhid, the house of worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala alone, without partners, without associates, without anyone to share His kingdom, share His power, share His authority, because there is no one who shares His kingdom, who shares His power, who shares His authority. And that is the house that Ibrahim alayhi salam built. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave him the hukm. And he said, And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave him the hukm. Allah said, And call all the people to the pilgrimage. Call all the people to Hajj. They will come to you on foot and on every lean camel from every distant path. And today they come in. Plane loads upon plane loads. I was here once, many, many years ago. And we went to Majid al-Aisha for the mirkhat, to put down the ihram. And I saw there a truck, a container truck in the container. They had made a platform midway. They had made a platform in height. So there were people sleeping on top and people sleeping below. And this had come all the way from Uzbekistan. They had driven this truck all the way from Uzbekistan. And this truck, you looked at it, it looked like it was something manufactured by Adam alayhi salam, who was a young boy, who was a youth. Allah knows. Adam alayhi salam was never a youth. But the point being that this is an ancient truck. And the drivers and the mechanics who keep these things running, they are geniuses in engineering, believe it. People come. And then these people, these are all actually whole families and related families traveling together. So they camp, and they cook their food, and they wash their clothes. The whole thing, it looked so incredible. I really wished that I was... At that time, I was... I wished I was a man. was about 20 years old or something and I would ask to go back with them to Uzbekistan just for the trip just to see how it all happens so people who love Allah people who love the house of Allah people who love to come to the house of Allah and then I said about this house Allah said in in it meaning in this house in Masjid al-Haram are clear signs understanding place of Ibrahim the maqam of Ibrahim whoever enters it should be safe whoever enters the ...
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  • You can never repay anyone

    You can never repay anyone
    Nov 18 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Alhamdulillah, Rabbil Alameen, wassalatu wassalamu ala al-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Muhammad Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam, tasliman kathiran kathiran. Firmabadu, my brothers and sisters. Alhamdulillah, bi-zinillahi ta'ala. My wife and I, we are going for Umrah just now. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept our Umrah, to make it easy and to fill it with khair and barakah and to accept our duas. Inshallah, we will make dua for all of you. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept all your duas with khair and afiyah, inshallah. We'll give you what you ask with afiyah, inshallah. And we request you for your duas for our Umrah. A friend of mine asked me this question. His mother passed away. He said, what can I do or can I do deeds for her which will compensate for the fact that I perhaps did not serve her enough while she was alive? I want to answer that question in two parts. Firstly, a man came to Prophet Muhammad and he said, Ya Rasulullah, I carried my mother on my back for Hajj. So he's talking about carrying her from wherever he lived to Mecca and through all the manasik of Hajj, all the rituals of Hajj. He carried his mother on his back and brought her home. He said, Ya Rasulullah, I have done this. Have I? I fulfilled whatever I owed her for whatever she did for me. Rasulullah said, the action you did was a good action and Allah will reward you. As far as fulfilling her right on you, fulfilling or repaying her for what she did for you, he said, this action of yours, which is to carry his mother on his back for the entire Hajj, he said, this action does not even, doesn't even repay one birth pang that she felt when you were born. Now, this does not mean that we need to lose hope. It does not mean that we need to feel guilty about this, the fact that you were born. But it just puts things in perspective with regard to what we owe our parents. May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, whoever has parents, may Allah give them the tawfiq to serve them and to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la decreed and ordered us to do, which is to serve them. And for those whose parents have passed away, we ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to forgive them and give them to fill their khubur with nur. We have the hadith of Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam also. In Ramadan, where he ascended the mimbar three steps, and he said, Ameen, Ameen, Ameen. And when he finished his khutbah, he descended, the Sahaba asked him, Ya Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, we saw you doing something you have not done before, we have not seen before, which is that you ascended the mimbar and you said Ameen three times. Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Jibreel Alaihissalam came to me on the first step, and he said, Ya Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, if somebody gets Ramadan and is unable, to get the forgiveness of Allah, he gets Ramadan, but he is unable to get the forgiveness of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala punish him and cast him aside, cast him far away. Say Ameen. So he said, I said Ameen. Now this means that somebody got Ramadan, meaning he was there in Ramadan, he found Ramadan, Ramadan came to him, and, but, he did not take advantage of Ramadan. Maybe he didn't fast, maybe he didn't pray, maybe he did something, which was prohibited. And therefore, the forgiveness that Ramadan comes with, this person is deprived of this forgiveness. The person deprived himself of this forgiveness. And Jibreel Alaihissalam is saying, may Allah punish this person and cast him far away. And he said, Jibreel Alaihissalam said, Ameen. And he said to Muhammad , you say Ameen. And he said Ameen. And he said, when I came to the second step, he said, Ya Rasulullah,
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  • Don’t try to find loopholes

    Don’t try to find loopholes
    Nov 17 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu Wa Salamu Ala Ashrafil Anbiya wal Mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Alaihi Wasallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Fahamabadu. My brothers and sisters, I said there are two problems with this whole issue of acquiring knowledge and the desire to acquire knowledge. May Allah protect us from shaitan. Shaitan does not leave any stone unturned and he uses everything that we do and turns it into, turns something which is potentially beneficial into something which is potentially harmful. And he does it in two ways. One of course is to prevent you from doing something which is beneficial, but the other way he does which is very effective is to take that beneficial thing and make you do it in a way which makes it harmful. Right? It takes the beneficial thing and makes you do it in a way which either it becomes harmful, but harmful in the sense that either it becomes completely haram or it reduces the reward of the thing. So, instead of getting, you know, full reward, you get partial reward. It corrupts the reward of the thing. For example, you might be, you know, inclined towards doing charity and alhamdulillah you say, no, I have to do charity. I will do charity. But, you know, you have to do charity. But, shaitan will put it into your mind and your heart to say, well, you're doing this charity, encourage other people by putting it all, putting all this stuff on Facebook and Instagram and so on. So now you are hiring Instagram photographers to take pictures of your charity work and then you're putting it on Instagram and whatnot. And with the idea that you are somehow encouraging people to do it, but also what is hidden in that and which is probably even more true, which is that now your own ego comes into play. You are fantastic. What a great guy I am. I'm a philanthropist. I'm doing this and that. And shaitan will get people to come and praise you and so on. And you know, your articles will be written about you in the newspapers and stuff. So all of this now completely corrupts your niyyah and the ikhlas of your niyyah, the sincerity of your intention. And from being, starting point of where you are doing it to please Allah , now it becomes a self-propagation method where you are propagating your own virtue. And you are not just a person who is doing it for the benefit of people and so that you can get a good name. Now this is something to really, really guard against. Now one of the ways in which shaitan plays games with religious people is by tempting them to use their religious knowledge to find loopholes in the laws of Allah . So what is shaitan doing? Shaitan is trying to make people believe that they are not the only ones who are the only ones doing it. No one else is doing it. Right? So now there is, you are tempted to do something which is wrong. You know it is wrong. You should not be doing it. But because you have religious knowledge, shaitan will put thoughts into your mind of trying to find a way of doing something which you know to be wrong. But because you have religious knowledge, you find a way now around it. Right? Now there is no way around it. This is something which shaitan has put in your mind. This is what I mean. Yeah. So, I mean, it's, I mean, it's a very difficult thing. So, I have to say, I don't know if I can do it in a very perfect way. heart and your mind and you're now finding these so-called arguments in favor of doing something which is actually prohibited. One of the most common ones is this prohibition on interest-based dealings, which is a very clear prohibition. It is something on which Allah declared war in His own name, glorious name, and in the blessed name of Rasulullah . And Allah said, if you will not leave this, if you will not leave this interest-based dealings, borrowing or lending money on interest, then take a declaration of war from Allah and His Prophet .
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  • Adab before Ilm

    Adab before Ilm
    Nov 16 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. Many thanks and blessings. From now on, my brothers and sisters, one of the... Alhamdulillah, we are living in times where there is a lot of interest in Islam. I have lots of young friends of mine, some students, some not students, but people who are who I know in many countries, who are very interested in Islam. Also, similarly, people who are interested in... therefore, this interest in Islam, for a lot of them, it's... it translates into, you know, harakas and conferences and so on and so forth. Of course, lots of stuff on social media and so on. So people are interested in the deen. But there are two... simultaneously... two problems that I find which are... which seem to go hand in hand. The first problem is that, thanks to the deen, we are able to go to our home. Thanks to the ease with which information... I want you to distinguish between information and knowledge. Between malumaat and ilm. Information and knowledge. I want you to distinguish between these two things. They're very, very important. So, the one thing is that, because information is easily accessible, easily available, whether it is multiple translations and tafaseer of the Quran al-Kareem, whether it is the siyasita or other books of hadith, whether it is reference material, you go to chat GPT or you go and do any kind of a search, and you put a prompt and it gets you information from all over the place. So, because there is this ease of accessing information, there seems to be a loss of the awe and majesty of the knowledge. And people I see treat the knowledge of the Kitab of Allah and the teachings of Muhammad Rasulullah like they treat any other kind of knowledge. So, the awe and the majesty of this knowledge, that this is Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala Himself speaking, that awe and majesty seems to take a backstage and may Allah have mercy in the case of some people, it disappears. So, therefore, for example, when we hear the stories of the importance of adab, the importance of the manners, the methodology of preparing yourself to receive the knowledge. The famous story of Imam Malik bin Anas , whose mother used to . She used to tie a turban on his head for him to go to learn with Rabia Turai, Rahatul Ali, who was his teacher. And his mother used to tell him, learn from the adab of Rabia before you take from his knowledge. Take from his adab before you take from his knowledge. And this is when Imam Malik was a little boy and his mother used to take him, they say she would take him for, in time for Salatul Fajr to the masjid, the masjid of the Nabi wa Sharif. And she would leave him there all dressed up. So, imagine he's being woken up before the time of Fajr and then he is being prepared by his mother. And then she takes him there, walks him there, leaves him there. He is in the masjid of the Nabi wa Sharif immediately after Salatul Fajr, he is there in the class of Rabia Turai. And he is there in the class of Rabia Turai. And he is there in the class of Rabia Turai until the time for Zuhar and then after Salatul Zuhar, his mother would pick him up and bring him home. Now, I don't know whether there was a breakfast program at that time or what, or whether this little boy didn't even eat any food all the way until Zuhar. And that's the time when he would have gone home and he would have had a meal. These are things to think about and say that today people walk around with buckets in their hands, what amounts to buckets, saying that they get dehydrated, unless they drink this gazelle down, this liters and liters and liters of water. You need to have food like little babies every hour. But whereas these people,
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  • Voices in the head

    Voices in the head
    Nov 15 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Now, most of the time, this is not conscious. So, we just give people permission to come and occupy, to live rent-free in your mind, in your head. Don't do that. Don't do that. Your mind is a very precious, very precious, precious thing. The mind is like a fertile field. The mind is like a fertile field. The mind is like a fertile field. The mind is like a fertile field. The mind is like a fertile field. fertile field, it will, whatever you plant in it, it will give you a harvest for that thing. Whatever you plant in it, the mind will give you a harvest for that thing. It makes it grow and it gives you a harvest. That is the reason why it's very important for you to choose what to plant in your mind. Because you plant wheat, you get wheat. You plant rice, you get rice. You plant wheat and you want rice, you will not get. So you have to decide, what is it that I'm going to allow into my mind? What will I allow to live rent-free in my mind? So choose who you want to listen to. And then listen to them very carefully. That's the second part. For the first part, we listen to everybody. Which is detrimental because everybody does not have the competence to say or tell us anything that is beneficial for us. And then the other part of it is that we disregard, again, consciously or unconsciously, real advice which can benefit us. And this would be the advice from experts. And advice from people who are... Who are genuinely concerned about you. So that's the other thing. So therefore, it's very important to pay close attention to that advice. Advice coming from people who are experts. And understand that that advice is coming to you and most of the time it will come to you free, is to be appreciated, deeply appreciated. Because it's not your right. That people must... So, that's the third part. That's the fourth part. That people must spend their time with you. People must share their hard-earned life lessons with you. Right? It's not... It's not something that is necessary for those people to do. If somebody's doing it, they are doing you a favor. And that is something that we need to appreciate. Not just take it for granted. If somebody is sharing their knowledge and their experience, it must be respected. One of the very detrimental things that I have noticed, especially this Gen Z, is this completely arrogant assumption. That anyone who's not... I don't know. I don't know. I don't think anyone can do that. I don't think anyone who's under 20 is not worth listening to. That the only people who are worth listening to are people of your age, people of this generation. Now that's about the most stupid thing that you can think about. Because experience comes with age. Experience comes with living life. You cannot have 40 years of experience when you are age 20. The only way to have 40 years of experience is to be 40 plus. It's not... is to be 40 plus. Now, having said that, not everyone who has 40 years of life experience can teach you something useful because of another very important factor, which is the tendency to document that experience. Because what is not documented is not learned. It's as simple as that. What is not documented is not learned. People live the life. So I'm 70 years old. There are millions of people who are 70 years old. But the 70-year-old who can teach you something will be the one who has taken the time and trouble to live reflectively and thoughtfully and he or she has documented their learnings. If they have done that, then what they have documented is potentially useful for you. I'm not saying everything is useful, but potentially useful for you.
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  • See with our nose

    See with our nose
    Nov 14 2025
    https://youtu.be/rWvlGzItHqY Auto-generated transcript:I'm back again in my favorite place in Hyderabad, KBR Park. And as I'm walking, I'm hearing the bulbul calls. All kinds of names it has, Indian nightingale, also they call it and so on. I don't know what it is. It's a bulbul. And whenever I think about these zoological names, and I can't remember one, I console myself and say, well, I don't know or I can't recall the name of this bird, but the bird doesn't know either. I don't mean that entirely facetiously. Of course, you know, feel free to laugh. But the reason I'm saying that is because one of the downsides of knowledge is that it makes you jaded. I was speaking to a young friend of mine, may Allah bless him, very, very knowledgeable. He's a high school kid, but extremely knowledgeable about wildlife, birds. He has a special interest in, literally passion for, insects. I call him Spider-Man. He loves spiders and scorpions and all kinds of loving beasts like that. And knows a hell of a lot about them. And his bird identification is incredible. Knows all the names. But yesterday when I was having a conversation with him, I went over the weekend to Sarpanparli Lake, which is a very beautiful lake. I'm saying this for those who are listeners from here, who know the places on the way to Viharbas. And we saw a bunch of birds. So, point herons, cattle egrets, painted storks, stilts and What is turns, river turns and so on. So, as I was telling him these things, for every one of them, he said, Oh common, oh common, oh common. Meaning, these are common species. It's not a rare one. Thought that came into my mind was, that this is the first sign of being jaded. Where you're looking at, looking for some, you know, scintillating experience, some aha moment, every time in life. Now, the bad news is, it doesn't exist. Because most of life is repetition. Most of life is seeing the same thing again and again. So, you have two options. One is, you are constantly seeking this aha experience, this new thing. And so, therefore, when you see the same thing again and again, you're just bored. You don't want to see it again and again. But guess what? That's your fate. You will see it again and again. On the other hand, you have another person like me, for example. I don't care how many times I see the same thing. I never cease to be amazed. I never cease to be astonished. I never cease to marvel at the glory and magnificence of the creation of my Rab, Jalal Jalal Hu. I don't care if I see the same thing 50 times, 100 times, 1000 times. Incidentally, this is also the secret of my life. The secret of marriage, of a good marriage. As I have said many times before, I fall in love with my wife every morning, and every evening, and every afternoon. Same wife for the last 40 years. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. The thing is, if you find beauty in something, the beauty is there. And the more you can look at the same thing and enjoy that beauty, the happier person you are, the happier you will be. Because there are that many opportunities of enjoying that beauty. Whereas if you are looking for new things all the time, you will get them once in a while, but only once in a while. The major aha experiences of life, the major thresholds of life, are very few. Getting married, the day of the ceremony, the anticipation of it, and then the ceremony itself, and so forth, is one experience in your entire life. But your wife or your husband, you are going to be seeing them every single morning, every single afternoon, every single evening. And what happens to a lot of people, and I have seen this also happening, is that over time, they get bored. They get just used to seeing each other. They don't take care of their appearance. If you see them, if you turn up at their house, that's why I have, I make it an absolute rule, I always take an appointment before I go to some people. Because I want to share, save myself the shock of seeing this person,
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