Allahﷻ sent us Islam to make us successful in this life and the Hereafter. In this and subsequent lectures, I want to share with you some key lessons for us to follow to become successful. It is only at the finish line that you know who won the race. Not before. This life is a race and every one of us is running in it. This Khutba and a number of them going forward are about how you can win that race. Remember that all that I can do is to share with you the lessons I learnt in my life. To use them or not is your choice.

To win any race you must know the rules. What makes a winner and what will disqualify you? You can be the fastest person on the planet, but you can win only if you run in the right direction. That may sound like stating the obvious, but it is the most common reason most people lose the race, because they are running away from the finish line. What is the right direction? It is the direction that will take you to the goal. Only those who reach the goal are winners. Even those who don’t reach the goal, but try their best to do so, can hope for a ‘consolation prize’. But what about those who don’t even try or worse do the opposite of what it takes to reach the goal?  

We have two lives. One that we live here on Planet Earth. And the other that we will live in the Hereafter – the Aakhira. We cannot write our destiny in this life because we have been given limited choice. But in the Aakhira – the life in the Hereafter – we have total freedom to choose what we want. Those decisions are based on the choices we make in this life. What is the goal? How can we win and what can disqualify us? This is critical to know.

The Qur’an in its lucid and concise way defines the goal.

كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ وَإِنَّمَا تُوَفَّوْنَ أُجُورَكُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ فَمَن زُحْزِحَ عَنِ ٱلنَّارِ وَأُدْخِلَ ٱلْجَنَّةَ فَقَدْ فَازَ وَمَا ٱلْحَيَوٰةُ ٱلدُّنْيَآ إِلَّا مَتَـٰعُ ٱلْغُرُورِ

A’al Imraan 3: 185  Everyone shall taste death. And only on the Day of Resurrection shall you be paid your wages in full. And whoever is moved away from the Fire and admitted to Jannah, he indeed is successful. The life of this world is only the enjoyment of deception (a deceiving thing).

There are four matters which are stated in this Ayah.

*

Let’s take each of these and look at ourselves in the light of the Ayah.

* Everyone, without exception, will die

If there is one thing on which the whole world is agreed upon, it is that we will all die one day. There are all kinds of theories and philosophies about what will or will not happen after death, ranging from, ‘we will become plant food and push up the grass’ to reincarnation as another human or animal. Only the Qur’an tells us with certainty what will happen because its author is the One Who Never Dies – Allahﷻ. Only the one who never dies can tell us what happens after we die, because He is there to see it. He told us that we will be resurrected and brought back to Him and be held accountable for what we chose to do or not do in this life. This is a heads-up to all intelligent people saying, ‘Watch it, because you are being watched. You can’t hide. And you will have to give account for it.’ This life is a time to choose. Death is not the cessation of life but cessation of choice. Death opens the door to another life and shuts the door on choice. So, let’s choose wisely. This life operates on the principle of cause and effect. If we want to change an effect, we must address the cause. The interesting thing about it is that each cause has two effects. An interim, temporary one in this life and a permanent one in the Hereafter. If I smile,