Why don't we invest time, the precious treasure bestowed upon us by the Exalted Allah, nor do we avail ourselves of its blessings and consequences?!
It is indispensible for man to search thoroughly for the secret of this blessings in time.
Let everyone of us ask himself about what he has achieved in this year.
If he is unable to reckon what he has produced and achieved in the elapsed year, let him begin from today, the first day in the coming year.
Many a time was that man's life extended but with little achievement; and many a time was that man's life was short but with much achievement. The Prophet (PBUH) spent thirteen years in Makka, during which he reared a generation that mastered the world, but what do we do in thirteen years?
The Beloved, Al Mustafa (PBUH) spent ten years in Madina during which he indicated all legislation, expanded the circle of calling to Allah, and knocked the doors of Khosrau, Caesar, An Najashi, and Muqawqas, but what have we achieved in ten years?
Here is Omar Bin Abdul Aziz, the Caliph, who changed the aspect of history in less than two years. He changed injustice and darkness into justice and light. So, what is the secret of this change in time, while the years succeed year after year?!
A year has elapsed, and a year is coming while we stand watching like spectators…!!
Why don't we invest time, the precious treasure the Exalted Allah gives us?
Why don't the blessings of time, its gifts, and its consequences appear among us?
It is indispensible for man to look for the secret of this blessing in 'time'.
I have chosen for you from the Holy Qur'an a short text that is full of meanings. In this text, the Exalted Allah presents to us an address concerning time and its secrets. In Surat Al Hashr, there are two statements, in which the Exalted Allah said: "O you who believe! Fear Allah, and let every soul look to what {provision} he has sent forth for the morrow. Yea, fear Allah; for Allah is well acquainted with {all} that you do. And be you not like those who forgot Allah; and He made them forget their own souls! Such are the rebellious transgressors" (Al Hashr, 18-19).
Although they are two short statements, you can find in them a lot of fruits to pick if you think thoroughly about them.
The speech is directed to us as we are the people of belief. It is a speech concerned with the Islamic Ummah, the people who believe in Muhammad and certify what he (PBUH) revealed, because the Exalted Allah begins his speech by saying: "Oh you ho believe".
The levels of the speech are multiple. When the following statement is produced: "Oh people", all people benefit from it, but when "Oh you ho believe" is produced, only those who respond with their inside and outside and seek Allah and announce their affiliation to Islam, are addressed.
Since the Islamic Ummah is negligent, such a speech should be very valuable to us. In it, there are care and sponsorship, and in it, the Exalted Allah gives us the key of success. The rational is the one who opens the ears of his heart, and waits for what may come out of this speech, namely, the divine instructions connected with time. The Exalted Allah said:
"O ye who believe! Fear Allah, and let every soul look to what {provision} he has sent forth for the morrow". The Exalted Allah makes us understand that the statement "Fear Allah" is related to time, because He talks about today and tomorrow, and the relationship between the two.
You may have noticed that the Exalted Allah has repeated the statement "Fear Allah" to present two connotations:
He said: "O you who believe! Fear Allah, and let every soul look to what {provision} he has sent forth for the morrow", then he said: "Yea, fear Allah; for Allah is well acquainted with {all} that you do". In the first statement, talking about 'fearing Allah' is related to the circumstance. i.e., time; while in the second one, it is related to what this circumstance contains, i.e., man's activity, behavior and action. Therefore the Exalted Allah said: Allah is well acquainted with {all} that you do", after saying for the second time 'and fear Allah'.
"O you who believe! Fear Allah" means 'fear Allah' in your time, for time is a precious treasure bestowed to you by the Exalted Allah. When the soul finds a precious treasure, and invests it well, it will reap good production and welfare. But when one neglects time, and disregards its value and worth, one will have lost what he has to pay the account for.
Today, in the media channels, there is revision of what has happened in the passing year. They said: such and such happened…, but would that everyone of us asked himself: what has the world produced?
If you are unable to estimate what you have produced and the benefit you have gained in the passing year, at least, begin from today, the first day in the new year, to do whatever is good and beneficial.


As you keep a notebook on your desk to jot down what you need, keep another notebook and jot down every day your gain and your loss depending to the fiducial logic. In other words, ask yourself whether your gain has been obedience to the Exalted Allah in worship aiming at closeness to your Lord; whether you have invested your wealth for the cause of Allah; whether you have taught a disciple; whether you have learnt something beneficial from a man of knowledge; whether you have produced cultural gift to your Ummah; whether you have conveyed guidance to a heart that has missed it before!
What have you done on this day?
If your day has been spent in idle talk, and engrossing in worldly affairs, according to the worldly logic, you will be a winner, but according to the logic of belief, you will be a loser. Don't you feel ashamed of that?
Shall we care about the documentation of our worldly behavior, and consider the documentation of the abstract profit as marginal issue with which we have no relationship?
Moreover, the Exalted Allah's statement: "and let every soul look to what {provision} he has sent forth for the morrow" is one of the fundamentals of our Shari'a (legislation). Instead of being like the ostrich that looks not further than the range of its feet, or it looks at the pit it has dug to bury its head in, let us be changed into an Ummah that has its plans and strategies. Why do the Zionists plan for their movement known as the Zionist Movement; why do they hold successive conferences and carry out what they have planned?

What is the plan of the assemblies of the people of belief? Where are their planning and designing? When the people of knowledge refer to disregarding designing, they, in fact, mean disregarding contesting with the Divine arrangement in the heart, but the arrangement that means planning for what we have to do is one of the fundamentals of our religion.
Consequently, set down in your notebook the plan of what you have to do in the coming year, and afterwards, try to watch the level and the distinction between the passing year and the present one.
Ask yourself the following question: Have I produced what I have arranged and planned for, or am I designing and planning without any production?
This notebook will be the criterion by which you test yourself. It will give you an opportunity by which you can know whether you are truthful with yourself or not. In the sound Hadith, transmitted by At Tirmidhi, from Abi Huraira (ABPWH), from our Master, Muhammad (PBUH) who said: "Initiate good deeds before seven events confront you: Are you waiting for destitution that would make you forgetful; obsessing richness, corrupting sickness, senility of old age, unexpected death (death that befalls man suddenly), or Ad Dajjal (Antichrist) who is an expected evil, or the Hour, which is far more calamitous and more bitter?"
Thus, the Beloved, Al Mustafa (PBUH) presents to us a race scene, in which you are a participant. You may be either a forerunner or lagging in the rear. If you are a forerunner in time, you will get much gain, but if the others precede you, you will have missed a lot.
'Initiate good deeds' means 'try to outdo one another in good deeds before seven calamities befall you'.
1-Poverty that makes one forget everything: If you have some wealth, and you invest it for your worldly and religious gain, do not forget the poor people whose poverty makes them forget everything but searching for the morsel of food.



The type of poverty against which the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) sought refuge (as he did against unbelief) is the poverty that makes one forget everything so that one becomes unable to be interested in any collective or individual work except seeking food and drink.
Many rulers followed this method so that their nations think only of seeking food. They stole the people's wealth and did abominable acts while their nations suffered from the poverty that made them forgetful. It is a state in which man becomes like a sheep that seeks grass to graze. Consequently, this sheep looks for something that would satiate its hunger.
The poverty that makes one forgetful, referred to by the Prophet (PBUH), is a real fact we witness today in many regions of the world. Look at the world map and see how this type of poverty prevails the world.
Shall we wait till the poverty that makes one forgetful be our lot? If this happens, competition will be of no use to us for we will have been defeated. Today, we have something to invest, so invest what you have today before the poverty that makes one forgetful confronts you.

2-Obsessing riches: You may be endowed with abundant riches so that you become unable to choose where to waste your wealth, which is a present state too.
Nowadays, we are living in a strange paradox. The Exalted Allah said: "Wells are lying idle and well built palaces (are abandoned)" (Al Haj, 45).
Today, there are well-off people who do not only fill their pockets, but they also fill trucks with wealth. Moreover, they seek what is called "money laundering", at the same time, there are some poor people who do not have enough money to pay for the fuel to light their stoves. How paradoxical this state is!
There are some who talk about billions, and about figures they are puzzled how to use …, and others sit to eat, if they find food enough to satiate their hunger, but find no heat. Consequently, there is time for you before the richness that make you forgetful. Therefore, avail yourself of the opportunity of this time in the race before you fall in its pit, for you are likely to fall in it, while successive calamities are befalling the world.
Our brothers in Iraq are the best example. In the near past, they used to live in luxury – I invoke the Exalted Allah for their safety and liberation, and that He, Exalted He is, may rid them of the cunning of the occupiers.
When I visited that country, I found that the price of fuel of the vehicle was less than the price of water.
The obsessing riches takes hold of man when he follows the way of materialism where there are no good companions. Consequently, he reaches a stage when he becomes surrounded with wealth.

There are fake companies that began to flow into our country. They constitute hierarchical formation (called Quest net). According to these companies, wealth comes to people without work. I have been informed that vigilant countries such as the UAE (one of the countries closest to us) has legally prevented such companies to work in their country. The advisory opinion Department issued a legal decision in our governorate to prohibit them. From time to time, I often hear that some unemployed people expect to receive income because they market a production that has no place in our priorities.

3 – Corrupting disease: Today you have healthy mind, tongue, hand, and feet ..., but every day we hear about a lot of people who are afflicted by Apoplexy or heart failure, in addition to countless other plights...



You have sound body and sound mind. Consequently, you are being tested. So you have to be thankful to Allah that you are not of those who have poverty that makes them forgetful, nor of those who have obsessing riches, nor of those who have corrupting disease that corrupts the framework of your human being.

4-Senile old age: it is when one becomes so old that he reaches the worst of age, so he becomes inflicted by senile dementia and his children make fun of him.
If you are unwilling to be in such state, the solution is so easy: "Preserve Allah, and He will preserve you". I once heard a friend of mind say that he saw an old man who was venerable in his youth, but when he became old, he was changed into a miserable state. He was even unable to clean himself from the excrements that come out of his body. So my friend said: "How generous is the dust that would screen the flaws of such a man".
Senility of old age is a state when man becomes delirious and senile; when he is unaware of what he says, so people mock him.
5-Unexpected death: every day, we hear about an incident where one in the prime of youth dies.
6- Ad Dajjal (the Antichrist): thirty Dajjals will precede the real Dajjal, and we do not know which Dajjal, who precedes the appearance of the real Dajjal, we witness today. Is it the Dajjal number twenty, or twenty five…, or twenty nine…?
7- The Hour: The Exalted Allah has concealed the time of the Hour, so that nobody knows when it will take place. The statement "and the Hour is more calamitous and more bitter" means that it will be the hardest, the most difficult and the most bitter of calamities.
Consequently, this is the race that makes man be careful about his day; his year and his breaths...

"O you who believe! Fear Allah, and let every soul look to what {provision} he has sent forth for the morrow. Yea, fear Allah", i.e., be careful about the choice of your actions and their priorities in time, and in choosing the activity and behavior within this circumstance.
After reading the following Qur'anic statement: "O you who believe… for Allah is well acquainted with {all} that you do", the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: "A man gave alms from his Dinar, from his Dirham, from his clothes, from a sa' (measurement) of his goodness, from a sa' of his dates, even if it were half of a date".
Whoever reads this Prophetic speech after the Prophet (PBUH) had read the above mentioned Qur'anic statement, can understand that the Prophet (PBUH) wants to say: "Do anything you can before it is too late".
Therefore, do not belittle any good act you do however trivial it is, and avail yourself of time because it passes quickly and will never be repeated. Have a present heart during the race not a heedless one, "for Allah is well acquainted with {all} that you do". When the slave knows well that his Lord is well acquainted with what he is doing, this knowledge of his will be an incentive to make him do the best deeds. He will disregard the appreciation of people from his consideration, and make it absent in his regard of the Truth (Allah). He will be aware that his Lord is watchful of his deeds, so he behaves in the best way.
Do not be careful about the mortal, and care about the immortal. This is a piece of advice presented to us by the Holy Qur'an concerning time. But afterwards, the Exalted Allah reminds us of those who heard the advice and neglected it. He said:

"And be you not like those who forgot Allah; and He made them forget their own souls! Such are the rebellious transgressors". If you neither understand this advice, nor you care for it, nor you apply it in action, your state will be like the foregone nations who neglected it, and you will belong to this type of people who forgot Allah, so their heart became preoccupied with the creatures. If this happens, man becomes oblivion of the Divine Presence of Allah.
How can man remember Allah if his heart is replete with the interest in the creatures?
If you disregard this advice and do not consider it seriously, you should know that your state will be "like those who forgot Allah", i.e., they became interested in the creatures and, thus, they forgot about their Creator.
"And He made them forget their own souls", i.e., He made them forget about the interests of their own souls. It is said that if the present life is ephemeral gold, and the Hereafter is everlasting clay, then the Hereafter is far better than this life. How can this be said while the matter is reversed to them? This life is not worth a wing of an insect to the Exalted Allah. Consequently, is it more beneficial for the soul to store a good status at the Exalted Allah in the Hereafter, or enjoy little ephemeral pleasure in this life?
This is the self-interest according to the balance of truth. Consequently, they are made forgetful of their own souls, and they become interested in the passing comfort. Moreover, when they pass away from this world, they will be surprised to find themselves bankrupt in the Hereafter. But who are this type of people? They "are the rebellious transgressors". They are the people who transgress legal prohibitions. Therefore, beware of stepping into the region of the legal prohibition; beware of extending your hand to the legal prohibition; beware of making one illegal morsel enter your belly.

The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) recommends us to do many good deeds, and we are free to choose whatever deed we like from the supererogatory and commendable acts, but the soul has no choice in the prohibited, "Avoid what I have prohibited you to do".
Consequently, the Holy Qur'an summarizes the issue in few words: "Such are the rebellious transgressors", because sin puts a black speck on the hearts. The Exalted Allah said: "By no means! But on their hearts is the stain of the {ill} which they do" (Al Mutaffiffin, 14); and: "Do they not then earnestly seek to understand the Quran, or are their hearts locked up by them" (Muhammad, 24).
Do break the locks of the hearts.
We have all to repent to Allah with sincere repentance ...
We have to start a blank page after that we purify our souls from the pollutions of heedlessness, of slips and of errors …

This is the Qur'anic advice concerning time, as we are still in the beginning of the time of the solar year. The Islamic Ummah believe in both, the lunar and the solar calendar. The Exalted Allah said: "So they stayed in their cave three hundred years, and {some} add nine {more}" (Al Kahf, 25). According to the solar calculation, they stayed in the cave for three hundred years, and according to the lunar calculation, they stayed nine days morez
After this speech, the believer should be mindful of the fact that the hour that passes without his investing it, is a great loss, and that the secret of his losing it is his being dissipated and forgetful of Allah. So when he forgets His Lord, his Lord makes him forget his own soul and its interests.


Allahum…, guide us to You favorably, and make us from those who listen to wisdom and follow the best of it.
I say my words and ask Allah's forgiveness.