Mirza Yawar Baig – Maximizing Ramadan
AI: Summary ©
The importance of praising the month in which the Quran was written and the month in which it was written is emphasized. The speaker provides a framework for managing time and prioritizing one's life, emphasizing the need to measure progress and use various communication methods to avoid wasting time. The importance of finding one's own happiness and managing behavior, rather than wasting time on social media, is emphasized, and advises against wasting time on critical tasks.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.
Wasalatu wa s-salamu ala sharafi l-anbiyai
wa l-mursaleen.
Muhammadur Rasulullahi sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa
sahbihi wa sallam.
Tasliman kathiran kathira.
Fama ba'du.
My dear brothers and sisters, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala jalla jalaluhu sent us this beautiful
month of Ramadanul Kareem.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala praised this
month.
And He said, تهر رمضان
الذي أنزل فيه القرآن هدا للناس
وبينات من الهدى والفرقان فمن
شهد منكم الشهر فليصم ومن
كان مريضا أو على سفر فعدة من
أيام الأخر يريد الله بكم اليسر
ولا يريد بكم العسر ولتكمل العدة
ولتكبر الله على ما هداكم ولعلكم
تشكرون Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said which
means Ramadan is the month in which the
Quran was revealed as a guide for humanity
with clear proofs of guidance and the standard
to distinguish between right and wrong.
So whoever is present in this month let
them fast but whoever is ill or on
a journey then let them fast an equal
number of days after Ramadan.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala intends ease for
you not hardship so that you may complete
the prescribed period and proclaim the greatness of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for guiding you
and perhaps you will be grateful.
I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
make us among those who are always grateful
to Him.
Let me begin by saying Ramadan Mubarak, Ramadan
Kareem and by requesting you and reminding myself
to maximize the benefit of this month which
comes loaded with all kinds of goodness.
However it is the sunnah of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala it is the way of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that all His
promises in the Quran and all that He
does are related to what we do.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us multiple
rewards for small deeds but there is no
reward for no deed.
So let us concentrate on ourselves, forget everybody
else concentrate on ourselves and say what is
the best that I can do and do
it.
My brothers and sisters, the most important thing
to do is to thank Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and begin with that.
Thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for this
gift of Ramadan.
Imagine if somebody gives you an expensive watch
or the latest phone or just imagine whatever
you are kind of dreaming and compare that
with the gift that Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala gives.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Himself is not
comparable to anything and neither are His gifts
really speaking.
But just because we live in a materialistic
world and we are stuck in our material
values let us take any gift, no matter
how valuable it might seem to be in
a material sense.
The single important fact and the incontrovertible truth
about every gift is that it is a
gift of this world and its benefit is
restricted to this world.
The most beautiful car, you can drive it
on the street here.
It will not go with you into the
akhira.
Whereas what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives
us and Ramadan ul Karim is one of
them and one of the best of them
goes with us in the akhira.
Everything that we earn in Ramadan as long
as we don't lose it by doing things
which detract from our good deeds will be
with us in the akhira.
On the day of judgement we will find
all of those things which we did to
please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
These will be with Allah and Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala will return them to us
with His reward.
So first and foremost become, let us be
grateful and express our gratitude.
Second thing is to remind ourselves that every
ibadah which includes fasting, which includes salah, which
includes zakat, which includes hajj, which includes charity,
every kind of ibadah is a tool.
It is not in itself and of itself
something to be done by itself or for
itself.
It is a tool to achieve something.
For example about salah, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala said, Inna salata tanha anil fahsha'i
wal munkar Barely the salah separates a person
from all kinds of fahushat and munkarat, all
kinds of shameless things and all kinds of
disobediences.
So also with Ramadan Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala said, Ya ayyuha alladhina amanu, kutiba alaikumus
siyamu kama kutiba ala alladhina min qablikum la
'allakum tattaqun.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, The fasting,
all you who believe, fasting has been prescribed
upon you as it was prescribed for those
before you so that you may become muttaqun.
Pious people who are concerned about the pleasure
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala over and
above anything and everything else.
So let us focus on this, that this
is a tool to achieve something and always
keep this in mind and say, am I
achieving what this tool has been sent and
has been given to me to achieve.
Every tool empowers a person.
You cannot open a nut with your hand
but if you have a tool, you can
open the nut.
So your strength gets multiplied, your power gets
multiplied because of the tool.
So here is this tool and Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is giving us this tool
to multiply our power and our strength to
become muttaqun.
So it's very important for us to start
right and we start right by making sincere
tawbah, by making sincere istighfar, by apologizing to
Allah, by expressing our regret for disobeying Him
and the fact that we are very sorry
to be repentant, to be contrite and firm
resolve to change our ways.
It makes no sense if I am apologizing
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for something
and I continue to do the same evil
that I was doing before.
The point of apologizing, the point of saying
I am sorry is to say that this
was wrong, what I was doing was wrong,
I acknowledge it, I accept it and I
am going to stop doing that.
So let us remember that.
Sincere repentance and change of lifestyle and then
let us monitor progress and make corrections.
Monitor progress and make corrections.
I remind myself in you, just think about
one thing.
Think about all our friends and relatives who
passed away this year before this Ramadan and
ask yourself a single question.
That question is, did they know that last
Ramadan when they were alive was going to
be their last Ramadan in their lives?
Obviously answer is no, they did not know
that.
And then ask another question.
That question is, if they had known that
last Ramadan was going to be their last,
would they have continued to do whatever they
were doing?
What would they have changed?
And the reason I am asking these questions
to myself and you is not because of
them.
As far as they are concerned, their life
is over, their book of deeds is shut.
If they did well, alhamdulillah, if they did
not do well, we ask Allah for forgiveness
for them.
The question is ours.
If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us
this Ramadan, do we know that this is
the last one that we are going to
get?
The solution to that is treat every Ramadan
and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give
you many more to come, this one and
many more to come in good health, inshaAllah,
and good time and the tawfiq to use
it positively and productively.
The thing to do is to treat every
Ramadan as if it is going to be
our last, with the complete and total understanding
that one Ramadan will be our last.
Now why do we fast?
As I mentioned to you the ayat of
Surah Al-Baqarah, Ya ayyuhalladhina amanu qutiba AAalaykumu
as-siyamu kamaa qutiba AAala alladhina min qablikum
laAAallakum tattaqun O you who believe, fasting is
prescribed for you as it was prescribed for
those before you, so that you may become
al-muttaqun.
A muttaqi is a person who is conscious
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, who is
fearful of the punishment of Allah and who
is hopeful of the forgiveness of Allah.
So his position is baina khawfi wa tama
'a, between fear and hope, and who lives
his life or her life in a way
that pleases Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Fasting teaches us uboodiya, and uboodiya is the
purpose of our creation.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, wa maa
khalaqtul jinna wa linsa illa liya'budun We
have not created the jinn and the inns,
the jinn and the human beings, for anything
other than our worship.
So uboodiya is the purpose of our creation,
that is why we exist, we exist to
worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And fasting teaches uboodiya.
Uboodiya is obedience, complete and total obedience and
submission to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, which
is the whole essence of Islam.
Islam means to submit, and fasting teaches us
that, because in the time of the fast,
between dawn and dusk, we stay away even
from things which are normally halal, food, drink,
and our relationship with our spouses, we stay
away from this, why?
Because Allah said so, because Allah ordered.
We don't stay away from it because it
is good for health, or it lowers my
glycemic index, or any other reason, we say
we don't do it because Allah said so.
The fasting has come to emphasize for us
that if you are among those, and may
Allah make us among those, who will leave
even the halal, because Allah said so, what
must you do about the haram?
If there is any haram in your life,
what right does that haram have to remain
in your life?
Fasting comes to emphasize this, and say that
if in the period of the fasting, if
you are leaving even the halal to please
Allah, then what must you do with the
haram throughout your life?
The haram in what we eat, the haram
in what we earn, the haram in how
we deal with people, our transactions, the haram
in what and how we speak, the haram
in our relationships, every form of haram, everything
that Allah has prohibited, and remember, whatever Allah
prohibited, He prohibited for our benefit, because who
is Samad?
He is the one who needs nothing, and
everyone needs from him.
The benefit does not go to Allah.
If I earn halal and eat halal, it
is good for me.
It does not affect Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
So let us show our gratitude to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala for showing us a
path to goodness, and never violate that path.
Abu Huraira radiallahu anhu narrated in a hadith
which is in Bukhari and Muslim, that Rasulullah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala said, so this is a hadith
of Qudsi, All the deeds of the son
of Adam a.s. are his except for
as-siyam, except for fasting.
As-siyam is for me and I will
reward it.
As-siyamu li wa ana ajzibi.
This is the beauty of the fasting.
It is something which is so powerful and
so valuable that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is saying, all the other deeds of the
son of Adam, human beings, each one has
its value, Allah will give that value, and
Allah has specified one deed, Allah will give
it ten likewise and so on.
But with the fasting, Allah said, I will
reward it.
What is the reward of fasting?
Whatever is in keeping with the grace and
majesty of Allah.
What is the benefit of being a Muttaqi?
You might say, well, look, I am becoming
a Muttaqi, how does it help me?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned that very
clearly.
Allah said in Surah At-Talaq, wa man
yattaqi Allahi yaja'allahu makharaja wa yarzuquhu min
haythu la yahtasib wa man yatawakkal ala Allahi
fahuwa hazbu Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said
that whoever has taqwa of Allah, whoever is
a Muttaqi, He jalla jalaluhu will make a
way out for them.
Allah will extract them from their difficulties and
provide for them from sources they could never
imagine.
And whoever puts their trust in Allah, then
He jalla jalaluhu alone is sufficient for them.
The Muttaqi is connected directly to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying
that if the person has taqwa, then I
will take charge of his life.
In any case, Allah is in charge of
our lives, but Allah is not taking responsibility
for our lives.
Allah is saying I'm giving you power, use
it as you want and be accountable for
it.
But for the Muttaqi, Allah is saying I'm
giving you power and I'm also giving you
safety.
I'm giving you the power and I'm also
going to control that in a way that
you don't harm yourself.
And I'm going to give you power and
I'm going to give you power in a
way that all your difficulties are resolved.
And I will provide you from sources you
cannot imagine.
Just ask this question, why must Allah say
this?
So what if Allah gives us from sources
we can imagine?
When Allah gives us from sources we cannot
imagine, we open our eyes and say subhanAllah,
this is my Rabb.
This came for me as a gift.
I couldn't even have imagined that this thing
was going to happen.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying I
will delight you in the way I give
you.
Not just give you, I will delight you
in the way I give you, you will
jump with joy, you will sing my praises
in the streets and you will say this
is my Rabb.
Seriously, let us develop the right desires.
Desire is a very important thing.
Without desire you go into, a person who
has no desire or lost all desire is
a person who is in a state of
depression and despair.
Desire is very good.
The issue is what kind of desires?
Let us break away from this, you know,
this very lower level desires of animal desires.
The food and sensations and, you know, that's
it.
Living from sensation to sensation is the life
of animals.
Let us desire for the pleasure of Allah.
Let us desire for the company of Rasulullah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Let us desire to see Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala as He promised.
Now the blessings of fasting, there are many
of them.
But for want of time and space, I
am going to mention only a few.
Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, the saim,
the fasting person has two happy moments.
One, when he breaks his fast, he is
happy.
And two, when he meets his Rabb jalla
jalaluhu, he is happy because of his fast.
And this is in Bukhari and Muslim.
Then Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said in
another hadith in Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala has those whom He
frees from Jahannam and this happens every night
in Ramadan.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
make us among those whom He will free
from Jahannam every night in Ramadan.
Just think about this, free from Jahannam, what
does it mean?
So, let us fast with awareness, with thankfulness
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, as-siyam,
the fasting and the Quran will intercede on
behalf of the slave.
As-siyam, the fasting says, O Rabb, I
prevented him from eating and drinking and obeying
his desires during the day.
Therefore, please accept my shafa, my intercession on
his behalf.
And the Quran says, I prevented him from
sleeping in the night because he was praying
and he was reciting Quran.
I prevented him from sleeping at night, therefore
accept my shafa, my intercession on his behalf.
And they will be accepted as intercessors.
And this is in Musnad Ibn Muhammad, Al
-Hakim and Al-Bayhaqi.
Our fasting will intercede for us.
Doing all of these things with awareness increases
our thankfulness and increases the joy of doing
something of such amazing lasting value.
Think about this when we, even when we
evaluate things of this life.
For example, if your son or daughter comes
to you and says, I've got a football
match and I've got the final qualification examination
to get into university, which is more important,
you will say, you need a brain transplant.
You even need to ask this question.
A football match, you would have fun, it's
temporary, it's gone.
This is the rest of your life.
You get into university, you're going to, you're
looking at a very different future.
Why do you even need to ask?
What do you think we are doing with
our lives?
On the one hand, we've got something of
this dunya, on the other hand, we've got
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's rida and that
is forever.
Really ask ourselves this question.
May Allah protect us.
We will be faced with the same criteria
that we used to use in this world.
And we will be asked, why is it
that you used a different criteria, a different
meter when it came to looking at things
that please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So I remind myself and you, don't waste
the fast.
Abu Huraira radiallahu anhu narrated in a hadith
which is preserved in Bukhari and Abu Dawood,
that Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, whoever
doesn't give up false speech, now false speech
is everything which is wrong, which is lying
and backbiting and slander and casting aspersions and
ghiva and namima and buhtan and all kinds
of lying and cheating, whoever, also foul language
and stuff, whoever doesn't give up false speech
and evil actions, again, encompasses everything which is
haram and evil, and doesn't abandon foolishness and
stupidity, right?
Whoever doesn't give up false speech and evil
actions and does not abandon foolishness, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is not in need of
his living food and drink.
Please understand, there is a difference between fasting
and starving.
You are not starving.
Ramadan is not the month of starvation.
Ramadan is the month of fasting.
So, therefore, very important for us to create
metrics to measure the improvement in our taqwa,
starting from the first to the last.
How did I become a better human being?
How did I become a more muttaqi person?
How did I become more focused towards Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala?
What happened to the quality of my salah?
What happened to the way I treat my
parents and my children and my colleagues and
my friends and my brothers and sisters?
What happened in the way I behave with
other people?
What happened in the transactions that I do?
What happened in the way I do business?
What am I buying?
What am I selling?
What was I buying and selling?
What am I buying and selling now?
Is there a change?
What happened to the carefulness with which I
would put anything in my mouth with regard
to haram and halal?
So, be very careful.
Create metrics to measure improvement in taqwa.
As I told you, fasting is a tool,
just like salah is a tool.
Make sure that the tool is keen, it
is right, you are using it right, and
it is giving you the results for which
it is designed.
Why is it important to measure?
Because you can only improve what you measure.
The man who invented the Six Sigma quality
standard in Motorola called Michael Harry, he used
to say, if you want to see what
people value, see what they measure.
If you want to know what people value,
see what they measure.
So, let us measure the level of our
taqwa, if we truly value taqwa.
And above everything else, make dua for Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala's help.
Say to Allah, ya Allah, you gave me
this month to become muttaqi.
I want to become muttaqi.
I am making some effort.
Ya Allah, help me.
Put barakah in my effort.
Save me from all kinds of temptations and
this and that.
And inshallah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promised
to accept dua.
Final reminder, this may be my last Ramadan.
And therefore, let us make it the best
Ramadan of our lives.
Use it as an opportunity to transform ourselves.
Resolve all interpersonal conflicts immediately.
Whoever you had a fight with, whoever you
had disagreements with, especially any disagreements and so
on with your parents, especially any disagreements and
so on with your siblings, it is not
worth it.
Believe me, it is not worth it.
Give up your rights for them.
Give up your rights for them.
Allah will give you that and more on
the Day of Judgement.
Pledge before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
earn and eat only halal.
Stop all buying and selling of haram.
Stop all eating of haram.
The biggest problem we have is with eating
food, eating meat, which is non-zabiha.
It is haram.
Machine slaughter is haram.
It's like eating a roadkill.
That also got killed by a machine, your
car.
Don't do it.
I don't have the time to go into
the details.
Anyone interested, come and ask me, I'll explain
to you why.
Machine slaughter, haram.
A halal stamp on a product, I am
very sorry to say, has no meaning.
You have to go into that.
Who gave that stamp?
Who are the people doing that stamping?
Make sure that everything is in order, that
this is actually hand-slaughtered zabiha food.
Then by all means, eat as many chickens
as you want until you start laying eggs.
But make sure that it is zabiha chicken,
zabiha mutton, zabiha beef.
Don't take it for granted.
There is nothing for granted.
It's about you.
Think about it like this.
If you are violently allergic to something, there
are people who have nut allergies.
They cannot even be in the same room
where nuts are being served.
There is a famous case of these two
people who were travelling on an Emirates flight
and they were serving nuts in the plane.
These two people had to go and sit
in the toilet, covering themselves with plastic and
that's why they spent the whole flight.
So, supposing you had some allergy like that,
would you just take, say, bismillah and eat?
You think saying bismillah will turn haram into
halal?
If I take a bottle of beer and
I say bismillah and drink, will it turn
into water?
Then how will a machine-slaughtered or God
knows how it died animal become halal just
by saying bismillah?
Don't fool yourself.
Don't allow anyone else to fool you.
I am saying this for your benefit.
Don't eat anything about which you have a
modicum of doubt that this thing might not
be hand-slaughtered.
Forgive each other and seek each other's forgiveness
and then see how Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala will show His pleasure for you.
Just do these things.
Earn halal, eat halal, forgive everybody and then
ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for help.
See how the help of Allah will come.
It will delight you.
It will blow your mind.
I remind myself and you that everything worth
having in this life is hard.
It is a pain.
It is painful.
So I say to you what I say
to myself.
Choose your pain.
Choose your pain.
Being fit or getting fit is painful.
Being fat is also painful.
Working hard to get a good house, to
buy a good house in a halal way
is painful.
Living on the street with all your possessions
in a stolen shopping cart is also painful.
Living in your car in a parking lot
is also painful.
Having a beautiful marriage, a good relationship is
painful.
It is hard.
It is not easy.
Having a marriage which is like a *
on earth is also painful.
Raising good children who become a means of
sadaqah jariya for you is painful.
It is hard.
Raising children like you raise pets, give them
food, give them water, give them clothing, give
them toys, gadgets and then they grow to
whatever they grow is also painful.
Choose your pain.
Choose your heart.
Anything worth having is hard.
Focusing on Allah, submitting to Allah is hard.
Not submitting to Allah, living a life of
rebelliousness is also hard.
Reading and getting knowledge is hard.
If you think that is hard, try ignorance.
Don't fool yourself.
Do not fool yourself.
Everything is hard.
Therefore, I say to myself and you, every
single one of us must suffer from one
of two kinds of pain.
The pain of discipline or the pain of
regret.
The pain of discipline is temporary.
After a while, that action becomes easy and
pleasurable.
Then you start seeing the benefits of that.
The pain of regret is permanent.
Because regret happens only when the chance of
changing yourself has gone.
You can cry all you want.
Nothing is going to change.
So, choose your pain.
I remind myself and you, let us make
goals for our life.
Because without a goal, you cannot reach any
destination.
The goal is the destination.
If you have no destination, for the person
who has no destination, there is no such
thing as the right path.
The right path is the right path only
in relation to the destination.
So, what are your goals?
Write down for yourself, what do I want
to achieve in Ramadan?
And then say, what is likely to help
me?
And what is likely to hinder me?
And what is my plan to deal with
the hindrances?
Make metrics.
As I told you, I am very focused
on metrics, measurements.
So, what do I want to achieve?
What will help me?
What will not help me?
And what do I plan, how do I
plan to deal with those things which will
not help me?
So, for example, if I say that my
goal is to read one juice, one sipara
of the Quran every day in the whole
month of Ramadan, so that by the end
of Ramadan, I complete one complete presentation of
the Quran.
But khatma.
Say, I set this goal for myself and
I think you should set this goal for
yourself.
Then it means one sipara.
Now that is, if you take the Usmani
script, that is 20 pages.
So, 20 pages of the Quran every day.
So, what is likely to help you?
A structure.
How will you do this?
Just having the need, I want to read
20 pages, no.
How will you read 20 pages?
Make a structure.
One of the easiest ways is, read five
pages at the time of Suhoor, before Fajr,
and then read five pages after every Salah.
Right?
So, before Fajr, five pages, after Fajr, five
pages.
So, ten is over.
Then Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha.
Four.
Five fourths, twenty.
And you read ten already.
So, that is, you read 30 pages instead
of reading 20 pages.
The reason I am saying that is because
in case Ramadhan is 29 days instead of
30 days, you would have made it up
easily.
Even if you don't read the five pages
at Suhoor time, if you just read five
pages after every Salah, you would have read
25 pages.
So, that's the five page buffer you have,
in case Ramadhan is 29 days instead of
30.
So, what helps you and what will help
you is, if you create a structure and
follow that structure strictly.
It's not just a matter of making timetables.
A timetable is only as good as you
follow it.
So, make sure you follow the timetable.
What is likely to hinder you?
Number one issue, social media.
You can't do this with your phone going
beep beep all the time.
So, get out of all social media apps.
Make Ramadhan into a detox thing for social
media for you.
Get out of Instagram, get out of Facebook,
get out of, you know, whatever, Snapchat, Quora,
you name it.
Get out of all of them.
Focus on your Ibadah.
So, what's likely to hinder you?
This one.
And what must you do?
Get out of all this.
Metrics, very simple.
Keep count.
Remember, one of the most important things.
Don't miss that reading.
Because if you miss one day, the next
day you have to read 40 pages.
Becomes impossible.
Becomes impossible and then you will lose the
goal itself.
So, make sure you do that.
And the reason I am saying five pages
every day, after every Salah is because this
becomes a, it's easy to do that.
And the purpose of this is, if possible,
and make this dua, of course it is
possible, make dua that Allah subhana wa ta
'ala enables you to maintain this throughout your
life.
So, imagine that throughout your life you are
going to be reading 12 times the Quran,
you will finish it 12 times in every
year.
Plus if you are praying Taraweeh, the full,
you know, one juz, usually people read one
juz, one sipara per day, whether it is
20 rakaat or 8 rakaat or whatever, one
juz, stay with the Imam through the end,
you would have completed in Ramadan at least
two Khatmas of the Quran.
Now, there are two critical tools to enable
us to do this.
Managing time and prioritisation.
In managing time, the prioritisation is to make
high value choices.
So, in managing time, you have to first
see what you are doing today with your
time.
So, make this, as I have shown you
on the screen, make this, what I call
a time log, which is a snapshot of
how you are doing with managing your time
today.
Or how you are using your time.
You may be managing it or not managing
it.
How you are using your time today.
Start with your wake-up time and go
to the sleep time.
From wake-up time to sleep time, whatever
that wake-up time is, whatever that sleep
time is, record what you do every half
hour for the whole day.
Two ways to do that.
One is, think about yesterday and InshaAllah you
have a good enough memory to remember that
every half hour what were you doing yesterday.
Another way, carry a notebook with you on
a particular day when you are going to
do this.
No praise, no blame, just keep writing.
Every half hour make this table and every
half hour just keep writing what did I
do every half hour.
If it's a working day you are looking
at, don't put a bracket like that and
say at work or in the office.
No.
Every half hour what was I doing, specifically
check that.
Right?
Record what you are doing every half hour
for the whole day.
This is the foundational document that you will
use for the rest of what I am
going to teach you.
Now, what we need to do is, in
this time, we need to maximize our effective
time, ET.
So, I have this formula, AT minus MT
equals ET.
AT is actual time minus MT is maintenance
time equals effective time.
Actual time is 24 hours, same thing for
everyone.
Maintenance time is all the time in activities
that do not contribute to your goal.
So, you start off counting all activities.
So, you say, how many hours a day
do I sleep?
How much time do I take to eat
my meals?
How much time do I take to take
a shower or something?
How much time do I take to, you
know, put on makeup, right, and get dressed,
choosing clothes?
How much time do I take to commute,
going back and forth from work?
How much time do I take, maybe I
am gyming or I am going for walks
or runs or whatever, your whole day, the
time.
Then say, which of these contributes to my
life goal?
So, you say, well, sleep, well, I have
to sleep.
But if I am sleeping 8 hours a
day, 10 hours a day, I know people
who sleep 12 hours a day.
That's 50% of your lifespan.
12 hours a day is half your lifespan.
You are kissing it goodbye, you know, snoring,
because nobody I know can do anything while
they are sleeping.
50% of your life.
Does it make sense?
So, yes, you need sleep.
How much sleep?
The body gets used to whatever you give
it.
So, you decide.
The less you sleep, the more time is
available to do useful things.
I say, and I am saying it to
myself, I am not asking you to do
it, four hours a day is all the
sleep that you need.
More than four hours is excess.
Then see how much time for eating, how
much time for, you know, rest and maintenance
and so on.
Try to reduce that as much as you
can.
Do it properly.
I am not saying don't have a bath.
You have baths.
But you don't have to spend 45 minutes
after the shower.
Apart from wasting of water, it's also, you
know, it's 45 minutes.
Take these activities.
Then say, out of these half, so, you
are going to reduce whatever is wasting.
And then you are going to say what,
for example, you might say, I go for
a walk.
Now, is this useful or not useful?
It is useful, it's part of life, life
goal activity.
It's part of effective life because of two
reasons.
One is, because it helps you maintain your
body.
Without a healthy body, you can't achieve anything.
So, you need a healthy body.
Second thing is, try to use these things
and multitask in a positive way.
For example, while you are walking, listen to
some Koran.
Listen to some good podcasts about, you know,
lectures on some useful thing.
Do a distance learning course.
Listen to all the audios while you are
walking, while you are in the gym.
Instead of listening to, many gyms have, you
know, loud music blasting all the time.
That's one amazing thing I noticed in America.
In America, we don't have that.
You go into the gym, there is no
noise.
In India, they blast your eardrums with all
sorts of nonsense music.
I don't know why they do that.
Here, whoever wants to listen to whatever they
want, they have earbuds, they listen to their
own stuff.
The gym is silent.
You can only hear the sound of the
weights and so on as people put them
down, lift them up.
So, very important.
Use that time, multi-use.
Commuting, if you are driving, you can listen
to something useful.
If you are going on a train, public
transport, you can even read.
How much time do you spend in reading?
Maximize your effective time because that is something
which is going to give you value and
benefits.
Take this equation, A t minus M t
equals E t.
The only thing that you have, actual time
is not in your control.
Maintenance time is in your control.
So, you have in this equation, only one
factor is in your control, but that one
factor has total control on your productivity.
So, maximize your effective time because productivity is
an outcome of determination, an outcome of discipline.
It won't just happen out of the world.
It happens if you make it happen.
The first tool that I want to teach
you is what I call the investment impact
matrix.
It is based on Pareto's principle that 20
% of what you do produces 80%
of the results.
And this is a principle that is applied
across the board in many, many applications and
many situations.
Investment on one axis, impact on the other
axis.
You have four possibilities.
Something which is, which has high investment and
low impact.
And investment is not just money.
Investment can be money, it is time, it
is energy, it is emotion, everything.
So, something which is high investment, zero or
no impact.
Believe me, almost every single thing that passes
for social media, everything that passes for watching
news and sports, everything that passes for watching
all the forwards that we get on WhatsApp,
all of that goes into this.
High investment, no impact.
Just ask yourself, after you have watched this
stuff, ask yourself and say, what did I
get?
I did an analysis the other day, taking
$25 an hour as the wage, hourly rate,
$25 per hour.
And I said, how much does a person
gain or waste if he spends two hours
a day for 50 years?
Two hours a day for 50 years at
$25 per hour amounts to close to a
million dollars.
970 something dollars.
970,000, not 970.
Right?
Close to a million dollars.
Just two hours a day.
The average person, at least in this country,
I don't know, it's probably the same in
most countries, they say that the average person
in this country spends six hours a day
on social media.
So, ask yourself, whether you are spending six
hours or two hours or one hour, I
spent one hour of my lifespan.
Time is life.
I spent one hour of my lifespan on
this thing.
What did I get?
You don't need to measure it in dollars.
It can be anything.
Whatever the measurement, what did I get?
And ask yourself, is it really worth it?
High investment, low impact.
Waste, remove it.
Delete it from your life.
It may never be seen again.
Then you have across high investment, high impact,
which is hard work, which is reading, which
is your gymming, which is your physical fitness,
which is your mental fitness, which is your
tahajjud, which is your prayer.
Not tahajjud, I put tahajjud at a higher
level.
I come to that in a minute.
Which is helping people, which is going out
there.
All the kinds of things, getting better qualifications
in your profession, in the religion, learning better,
learning how to read Quran correctly.
Just go and sit with a tajweed teacher
and ask him to make islah of your
surat ul fatiha, which is the rukun of
salah.
You may have been praying for 50 years,
but the way you recite surat ul fatiha,
probably, if you were doing that with knowledge,
it would invalidate your salah.
Because that's how we read.
Go and sit with an ustad of tajweed
and say, please, Ya Sheikh, make me, you
know, correct my surat ul fatiha.
So, hard work.
You are reading, you are studying.
High investment, takes time, effort, energy, but high
impact.
Then you got low investment and low impact.
Things which you have to do, do them.
Keep them to the minimum.
Some can be leveraged, some can be outsourced,
some can be automated.
And then we have the cherry on the
cake.
Low investment, doesn't take too much time, doesn't
take too much energy, takes probably no money,
but huge impact.
Smiling at a person.
We are the only mammals who show their
teeth when they are happy.
Smiling at a person.
Huge impact.
It is sadhata, also builds relationships.
Two rakat of tahajjud in the night.
When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying,
is there anyone who wants anything from me?
Ya Allah, I am here.
Little effort, huge impact.
Maximize that.
So, in this format, in this matrix, maximize
the two right column.
Two things in the right hand column.
Hard work and leverage.
Then create a timetable for yourself.
Right?
Three columns.
First column on the left, activities in order
of priority.
Second thing is, how much time do you
need to spend in that activity?
And third one, what is the expected benefit
from that activity?
Write the expected benefit because it encourages you.
Prioritize the activities, amount of time you need
to spend and what is the expected benefit.
And very important, you know, the secret of
timetables is to stick to the timetable.
It's no good making timetables and not sticking
to them.
This is one of the problems that we
have today.
People have this app and that app and
that app and the productivity is still useless.
Don't do that.
Stick to the timetable.
Now, every day, make muhaseba, make an account
of your life.
Muhaseba, account of your life and as Sayyidina
Umar R.A. said, do it before it
is done for you.
Four columns, what I did, what did I
get for that, what I did not do
and what did I lose.
What I did, what I got, what I
didn't do, what I lost.
Every day, in the night, sit down and
tally this.
Write down.
See how your life will completely transform.
You do these things, see how your life
will transform.
So, my suggested timetable is, wake up for
tahajjud one hour before the time for fajr
starts.
Pray tahajjud, two, four, six, eight, whatever Allah
gives you taufiq for.
Read one juz of Quran or as much
Quran as you can read.
Do your suhoor and go to the masjid
for salatul fajr.
Then, your daily activity.
In the activity, always be conscious of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, so continue to make
dhikr throughout the day.
SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar, La ilaha illa Allah
and salat and salam and dhurood on Rasulullah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Remember, every SubhanAllah is a tree in Jannah.
Every Alhamdulillah is a tree in Jannah and
so on.
Do it with that consciousness and say, I
am planting my gardens for the day when
I will inshallah, by the mercy of Allah,
I will enter those gardens.
So, plant those gardens and those gardens are
the dhikr of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So, pray tahajjud, read one juz of Quran
or as much as you can read.
Make suhoor, don't make suhoor into a huge
breakfast, couple of dates, maybe an apple or
something of some fruit, more than enough.
If you need to have tea or coffee,
drink your tea or coffee.
That's it.
And then go for salatul fajr.
Daily activity, continuous dhikr.
You need to talk to people, talk to
people.
You need to do something, do something, but
other times continuously keep your tongue moist with
the dhikr of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Then ensure that you pray all your prayers
on time.
In the masjid, for the men, in the
masjid.
Try to pray all the prayers in the
masjid.
Alhamdulillah, wherever masajids are easily accessible, where the
masjid is not easily accessible, try to pray
at least one salah in the masjid.
In Ramadan, you will pray isha and taraweeh
inshallah and then you pray the next day
salatul fajr.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives the reward
and this is for the whole year, not
only Ramadan, Allah gives the reward of praying
the whole night for a person who prays
salatul isha and salatul fajr by jama'at.
And then, end of the day, at iftar
time, don't waste your time in the kitchen,
don't waste your time, you know, running behind
samosas.
Shut the kitchen down.
One o'clock in the day, no more
kitchen.
In the air and don't ask and don't
force those people who are cooking in your
house, whether it's the womenfolk, bedfolk, servants, cooks,
whoever, they are also Muslim, alhamdulillah, let them
go and do their own ibadat.
Iftar time is the time for the acceptance
of dua.
So make dua.
Make lots and lots and lots of dua.
Make dua for yourself, make dua for your
family, make dua for the ummah of Muhammad
Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Make dua for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to grant Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam maqam
al-mahmood.
Make lots and lots of dua at iftar
time.
Then have iftar, just a couple of days,
go pray maghrib, come back home, eat some
food.
Again, don't stuff yourself up to here.
It interferes with your salah, it interferes with
all kinds of things.
Eat light.
Don't allow us and allow yourself to gain
weight in Ramadan.
Do not go to any iftar parties.
Don't give iftar parties, don't go to iftar
parties.
Tell people, I am not coming to any
iftar party.
I will not accept any iftar invitations.
Iftar is a time for ibadah.
It's not a time for having a party.
So don't go.
And then pray taraweeh.
Eat a little bit of food, iftar, light,
keep it light.
And then go and pray taraweeh, alhamdulillah.
Come back home, read the last 5 pages
of whatever I mentioned to you before of
Quran, which is left for the day and
go to sleep early so you can get
up in time for tahajjud.
Before you sleep, assessment, the muhajibah for the
day and plan for the next day.
The next day, what will I do?
What activities will I do in order of
priority?
It is all about discipline.
As I said, the pain of discipline or
the pain of regret.
It's discipline because it is our life.
Now, prioritization is very important because all resources
are finite.
Everything is finite.
Nobody has infinite resources.
Whether it is time or money or health
or strength or whatever, everything is limited.
And therefore, it's only good sense and intelligence
to use it where you can get the
biggest bang for the buck.
Use it in a place where you get
the maximum benefit for that resource.
So, two things to look at.
One is, do a cost-benefit analysis.
What is the ROI?
What is the return on investment for that
activity?
What is the return on investment for two
rakat of tahajjud?
What is the return on investment for one
page of Quran?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala will give you ten hasanat,
ten rewards for every letter of the Quran.
And he said, I do not say that
alif, laam, meem is one letter.
He said, alif is one letter, laam is
one letter, meem is one letter.
So, just by saying alif, laam, meem, we
got ten hasanat, ten good deeds.
Right?
We got thirty, ten each, thirty good deeds.
So, return on investment for everything, whatever you
are going to do.
What is my return on this investment?
What will I get for this?
Do it only if it makes sense.
Definitely don't do it if it is going
in the negative.
And second thing to ask is, because we
live in a world of sensations, you know,
many times, many people are having fun.
Ok, no problem.
Have fun.
Halal fun, yes, no problem.
How long will it last?
How long will this halal fun last?
And how long will the zikr of Allah,
how long will ibadah, how long will charity,
how long will good deeds, how long will
listening or reading something beneficial, how long will
that last?
One is for this world at best and
even that very temporary, the other one is
forever for the akhirah.
Maximum benefit, permanent.
Don't do anything without this evaluation.
Really, your life is far too valuable for
you to just throw it away like the
way we do it.
Your life, I am talking about you, your
life is far too valuable to be squandered,
to be just chucked.
If you don't believe me, if you don't
value your life, that's up to you.
But if you value your life and you
should, then use it wisely.
Use it as the place to invest.
Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, this duniya,
mazraul akhirah.
He said, this is the tilth.
These are the fields.
This is the cultivation for the akhirah.
Use this life to build the akhirah.
This life has not been sent for itself,
just for us to have fun and go.
That's the life of animals.
From sensation to sensation.
The life of human beings is the life
of thoughtfulness.
So, let us use it and let us
live thoughtfully.
Second tool or third tool, I don't know,
I forgot now how many tools I have
taught you.
This is what I call the three by
three rule and this is the tool of
prioritization.
Every day when you do that muhasiba in
the night, when you do the accounting in
the night, after you have accounted for the
day, how did I spend the day, then
you say, for tomorrow, how will you plan?
List three activities that you will do tomorrow
in order of priority.
What is the most important, next important, next
important.
The basis of that is your goals in
Ramadan.
The basis of that can be your life
goals in the case of your other times.
Right?
Three in order of priority.
Then start on the first one, continue until
it finishes.
If you get interrupted, come back and finish
it.
Don't go to the second one until you
finish the first one.
Then go to the second one and so
on.
If you finish all three, all power to
you, maybe you want to add on one,
do that.
But don't make the list of more than
three.
Only three.
And at night, evaluate your day based on
your metrics and make a list of activities
for the next day.
It's very simple.
Don't make excuses because excuses don't change reality.
Excuses do not change reality.
Instead of making the excuse, you say, well,
this happened, which should not have happened, how
am I going to prevent that from tomorrow?
For example, somebody comes and sits with you
and wastes a lot of your time because
they are talking about all kinds of stuff
and, you know, stuff which is not in
your control.
And then you suddenly see, well, you know,
one hour is gone, two hours are gone.
So, don't say, oh, no, no, but this
is why.
No, no, no excuses.
This happened, this was wrong.
Tomorrow I am going to make sure this
never happens again.
What is my plan?
How will I make sure that this does
not happen again tomorrow or day after or
whenever?
Make the plan, don't make the excuse.
I always, I also suggest that you bucket
your activities.
High value activities, two buckets.
High value activities which are ones which I
must do myself.
Which is all our salah, which is our
dealing with our parents, for example.
You cannot, this is one of the problems.
We think that, you know, if you throw
enough money at your parents, your job is
over.
So, I send them up somewhere in a
nice house and I give them a car
and a driver and what not and they
want you.
They want you, they want to see your
face.
They want you to sit and talk to
them.
The money is not important.
They want your time.
Oh, I have no time, I am busy.
No.
If your parents said, I have no time,
I am busy, you would not be alive.
You would have died.
They gave their time for you.
They gave their life for you.
Show some gratitude.
Go sit with them.
Right?
Salah in the masjid.
Your daily recitation of the Quran and dhikr
and so on.
These are things which, high value which only
you can do and therefore you must do.
Other things, automate them, postpone them, delegate them,
whatever.
Don't waste Ramadan time to do it.
Including daily charity.
One of the things I recommend is that
we must give charity every single day in
Ramadan.
Whatever it is.
Give five dollars, give one dollar, give five
cents.
But every day give charity.
Teach it to your children, the smallest of
them including, every day give charity.
Give a box, put something in it, every
single day.
You can automate that.
So, it happens automatically.
Similarly, preparing of iftar.
This is one of the biggest time wasters
in Ramadan.
Don't do it.
Do not do it.
There is a friend of mine who outsources
that to a restaurant.
Every day iftar time food comes to his
house.
And his wife and whoever in the house
is responsible for the cooking, they don't need
to cook.
It happens automatically because he is intelligent enough,
sensible enough to to have outsourced it.
Do whatever suits you, but make sure that
you do not waste time in preparing of
iftar.
And finally, most important, communication.
Social media.
As I told you before, use Ramadan to
detox yourself from social media.
Get rid of it.
Just get out of it.
Believe me, you won't even miss it.
Anybody with any intelligence, you will not even
miss it.
This is the biggest drain on human resources
that has happened in recent times.
And believe me, the people who are doing
it are the ones who are getting wealthy
because you are donating your time, your life
free for them to get wealthy.
Ask yourself, does it make sense at all?
Two biggest wasters of time, two biggest thieves
of time that we have is useless arguments
and discussions and social media.
Useless arguments and discussions about things that are
not in our control.
90% of that or more is on
politics.
What should this king do?
What should that king do?
What should this president do?
You have no control over that.
You have no influence on those people.
You don't know them.
They don't care a hoot about what you
think.
Why are you wasting your life making imaginary
conversations about this, what he should do, she
should do, for what?
And social media.
Solution is, ask.
Very simple.
As soon as somebody starts this conversation, if
you are in that group, tell them, excuse
me, let's do this.
So, before the conversation starts, as soon as
the conversation starts, ask this question and say,
what is the outcome that we want from
this discussion?
And then what you do is, second question
you ask is, how much time do we
want to spend on this discussion?
So, two questions.
What is the outcome we want and how
much time do we want to spend on
this discussion?
And then set a timer.
Suppose you say, half an hour, 30 minutes,
set a timer, start talking.
As soon as the timer goes off, stop
talking.
Mid-sentence.
And then say, did we achieve our goal?
We started with the goal of this, did
we achieve this goal?
And then ask yourself, was it worth the
value of time?
We spent so much time, was it worth
that or not?
Right?
It's very important.
Don't throw away your life.
The most important thing to understand here is
procrastination.
The problem of procrastination, set a deadline for
each task and then create a debt for
the line.
Because what is the debt?
The debt is something that is difficult to
do or difficult to pay.
You say, if I don't do this, I
will pay $500 in charity.
Believe me, you will never do that because
you make sure this happens.
Something difficult.
Because a deadline without a debt is only
a line, has no meaning.
And start now.
Because that's the only time we have which
is in our control.
Don't say, I will do this after I
make Umra, I will do this after Ramadhan,
I will do it in Ramadhan.
No.
Now.
Anything that is worth doing, good time, a
good thing to do, what's the best time?
Now.
Start now.
I need to go for a walk, go
now.
Whatever you need to do, which is good,
do it right now.
Don't waste time.
Procrastination is a killer because speed is a
competitive advantage.
Speed is a competitive advantage.
Final point.
Managing your priorities.
Ask yourself, what should I start doing?
What should I stop doing?
What should I continue to do?
What am I doing now, what am I
not doing now, which I should start?
What am I doing now, which needs to
stop?
And what do I need to continue to
do?
I ask Allah SWT to make this Ramadhan
the best Ramadhan of our lives yet, and
to bless us and to forgive us and
to help us in ways that we cannot
imagine, to reach His Rida, wa sallallahu ala
nabiyyil kareem, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain,
bi rahmatika ya rahmal rahimin, wa alhamdulillahi rabbil
alameen.
Wa salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
Eid Mubarak, kullu amantu bi khair, Ramadhan Mubarak,
and may Allah be with you and give
you the greatest of happiness and success in
this life and the hereafter.
Amin Ya Rabbi.