The beginning of the new school year

My message to our youth

Dear youth!

Know that God is One, and that there is no other God besides Him. You will stand before Him and lay down what there is to lay down from your life. “Whoever does a bit of good will see it, and whoever does a bit of evil will see it.” God gave each person only one life and no one was in this world without having two lives, and if he could, after that he died and his body decayed, to recover and live again and correct his mistakes. This day today will never happen again, nor will it happen tomorrow, nor will it ever happen again. As each day has its uniqueness, make the most of every day.

Allah the Exalted will ask us how we used every moment of our short life, so don’t waste a single moment on idleness doing useless things. The Prophet said: “If a man engages in what does not interest him and does not belong to him, it is the surest sign that Allah has withdrawn His mercy from him and does not help him anymore.” The one who spends even one hour of his life where it is not needed and where it is not intended, is worthy of every misfortune. Whoever lives forty years, and his good deeds do not outweigh his bad deeds, let him be ready for hell!”

This knowledge that you have now is still unstable and fragile. It will become stronger over time, if you refresh and put its application into your daily lives. Your current knowledge is as precious as it is carved into the stone of your youth.

You are not the only one responsible for what you know. In each of your recitations of subhanaka or fatiha, your parents, grandparents, as well as those neighbors who provided you with the conditions for precious religious education, have a share.

My dear youth, stay away from alcohol, there is great evil in this terrible vice. The one who uses alcohol will have company but will not have life, nor have a day of joy, and will spend his whole time mourning over what they have lost. What is forbidden in large quantities is
also forbidden in small quantities.

And don’t think about drugs regardless of their name or quantity. Someone who takes drugs to be happy or satisfied, or to overcome a failure in life, work, or relationship, is similar to someone who goes to sleep hungry hoping to wake up full. And when he wakes up, his stomach is even hungrier, and since he has spent time sleeping instead of eating.

Stay away from gambling, because in it there is great trouble for the individual, the family and the community. The one who gambles or plays the lotto, hoping to win, is like the one who heard that one in a hundred thousand survived after falling out of a plane, so he also tries to jump from a great height, hoping to stay alive. What small-mindedness.

Dear God did not create man to get wealth, success, and happiness in an easy way, but through painstaking and hard work.

Do not be lazy and spend time in vain. The day begins with the morning, and in the morning there is harvest and rizq. The Prophet says: “Sleeping in the morning prevents rizq.” If you want to have a good and useful rizq, get up early. It is said that the wise Lukman advised his son: “Don’t let the rooster be smarter than you! He always gets up before dawn and sings while you sleep.”

Devote yourself to the science of faith in which there is great reward, and don’t miss a single day without learning something new. Everything you achieve is for your benefit, for the benefit of your parents and your friends. Don’t let old age ask you where your youth
was, or as the poet said: “For fiery and living youth, whoever does not adorn his mind with knowledge, will weep at the grave of the past when his hair stops falling.”

Our oral tradition recorded the case of a teacher who gave three of his students an assignment for the final exam, without anyone seeing them. On his return, one of them did not complete the task, with the remark that wherever he went, the Dear God sees him. Such an answer was proof to the teacher that the student mastered not only formal Islamic knowledge but learned and applied its essence. Therefore, it is recorded in the hadith that the faith of Islam consists of three stages, iman as belief, Islam as practice, and ihsan as a deep awareness of God. In our religious education classes, we are perfectly focused on the
practice aspect of Islam, because we are aware that faith is from God, and ihsan only comes after firm conviction, accompanied by frequent practice. After you have attained an enviable knowledge of Islamic ritual, the early history of Islam, and ahlak, strive for your ihsan, that is, to worship Allah as if you see Him, because even though you do not see Him, He sees you.

You will forget many things in life, but from this honorable place I leave you a bequest:

Wherever you are in a mosque or at a coffee shop, at home or on the street, alone or in company, in a car, on the Internet, on an excursion or at a party – don’t forget that the Dear God sees you and will ask you about your actions on the Day of Judgment.