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All praise is due to Allah the great, the might. We praise him for the blessings and we also praise him whilst in trial and tribulations. And I bear witness that no one has the right to be worshipped except Allah. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, the leader of the pious and the master of those who came before us and those who come towards the end. May the peace and blessings be upon the prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. And may the peace and blessing be also on the companions and those who followed them until the day of resurrection.
Indeed, to proceed, the advice that I would like to give to everybody including myself is to fear Allah Subhanau wa ta’ala. As Allah says, fear Allah and indeed He will teach you, and He is aware of all affairs. Indeed, we live in a time in which our civilisation has attained and developed in different spheres of life. These types of developments are unprecedented, which we haven’t seen in previous nations and previous civilisations. We find that we have a higher degree of worship whether it be related to life or technology. We see this advancement.
So we live in this contemporary life which really surprises and astonishes us. Despite all of these advancements, we see in society, we find that these advancements in our society, they do not guarantee happiness in the way we have seen people attain happiness in the past. And this is all due to the absence of a matter which is extremely important. And without this particular thing, there is no meaning to life. And we ask ourselves, what is this important thing , without which you can not attain happiness in life. It is indeed, Oh Servants of Allah, it is attaining baraqa – benefit – blessings in our life. There is no person who has a steadfast life and he does not receive blessings. And what is the benefit of time if it has no blessing in it? What is the benefit of knowledge if it has no blessing in it? And what is the benefit of having food that has no blessings in it?
So blessings is not just about attaining great amounts of wealth, rather it is a value which Allah Subhanau wa ta’ala has given to particular deeds. Rather it is a blessing which leads to tranquility in the soul and also to be content ed. These are the signs of baraqa. And likewise for a person to continue and remain good health, these are the effects of Allah’s baraqa in a person’s life. And so if you were to assume life to be like a tree, then the water that goes to the tree, this is the baraqa. The baraqa is the water which gives life to the tree and this baraqa is that which gives life to the soul itself. and by this baraqa, a person is able to live in a small hut, to him, it will be like a palace.
If a person does not understand baraqa and does not receive baraqa, if he was to live in a palace, then to him it would be like living in a prison. And this is the result of even attaining this blessing in life or being prevented from attaining it. So baraqa essentially is that which gives an increase in good, so for example a person wants to have blessings in his life then that would tell a person has long blood. this blessing could also occur in a persons wealth, that would mean that a person attains a sufficient amount of wealth until he dies and Allah makes his wealth go a long way. A person could be blessed in his food as well and the blessing in this food is that it fills a persons stomach even though it might be a small amount and likewise, a blessing in knowledge, the blessing in knowledge is that it leads to beneficial deeds. These are the effects of baraqa.
However, we live in a time where we suffer from lack of baraqa, and we live in a time where people really suffer in all aspects of life from the lack of baraqa from Allah Subhanau wa ta’ala. So people think that in reality, blessings is all about attaining great amounts o wealth and many children but you will find that there are many people with great amounts of wealth yet you find they have no blessings in their wealth. You find they earn hundreds of thousands of pounds yet you find that it does not benefit them and they lose their money quickly. People have many children yet you find there is no baraqa in their children.
We find, for example, in the developed world, they give loans to these developing and poorer countries. And they impose these loans on them, which incur interest. And in fact you find that these loans that these people take on, they do not benefit them. Rather it creates more hardship on the people. and so these countries and these poor nations that take these debts upon themselves, they sell their own products to the creditor. And they end up losing out on the benefit. It is as if the creditor is strangling the debtor. So what baraqa – blessing is this? This is a result of involving yourself in these transactions. It is just like a person who keeps drinking salty water, ever time he gets thirsty, he tries to drink it more but in reality, he becomes more thirsty.
However, if you were to compare the era that we live in today to the era of the Prophet salAllahu alahi wa sallam and his companions, you will find a stark difference in baraqa. So for example, you will find that the Prophet sallAllahu alaihi wa sallam, he would find a great deal of blessings in just a small peice of bread that would suffice for him and all of his companions.
For example we see the companion, Uthman ibn A’afaan, Allah blessed his wealth and by his wealth, he was able to provide and sustain a whole army. And likewise we have the axample of zubair ibn Awaam, when he was on his death bed, he advised his son to pay back his debt. His debt reached one million and two thousand dinar, so he was in a great amount of debt. So in paying back the debt, he said that if you are unable to pay back the debt then seek help in my freed slave and he will help you. There was a peice of land he had which grew date palm trees and so his son was able to use this land and cultivate it and therefore the value of this land reached great amounts. In fact it reached millions of dinars and he was able to pay back his debt and he also left behind four wives and he was also able to give each wife a million dinar. So look at how baraqa occurs.
And likewise, it was reported in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, that the time of bani kudaiba, in the time of Imam Ahmad, that they found a piece of wheat and it was so large that it was written on it that this was grown in the time of blessings – baraqa. So when we have this baraqa, it has an effect on our food and the way that it grows. And we find other examples of earlier generations where they would find for example camel loads of grapes and this was something very rare to find in Arabia . So these are examples of the previous generations and how much they attained great amounts of baraqa.
And this is SubhanaAllah, despite the advanced technologically in other areas of life. The Prophet Muhammad salAllahu alaihi wa sallam mentioned in Sahih Muslim that the Day of Judgement will not return until the land of the Arabian Peninsular will become green and lush again as it was before. And it is reported that a time will come when just a small fruit will be enough for a few people and a small piece of flesh of a camel will be enough to feed groups of people and this is a sign that we will have this baraqa. Though we have to ask ourselves two important questions: How do you attain this baraqa? and you need to think; Are we doing these things that will entail the securing of these blessings. And at the same time we have to ask ourselves; What are the things that prevent the baraqa from befalling upon us. And as Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala says, indicating this, that if the people of the town had truly believed, then we would have sent rain in multitude gushing forth upon them.