 Salam alaykum dear viewers and peace be upon you all. Welcome to our show on Imam Hussein TV where we will be discussing different aspects of the momentous occasion of Ashura. Today's discussion will be discussing the very important topic of the afterlife versus the world we live in today which is one of the key themes on the Battle of Karabullah. Joining us today with some special guests is Sheikh Abbas Banju, Said Mohsin Shah and also some poetry and recitation Munta Sirajaf. To kick off Sheikh, in Islamic thought we know that we are told we are made for the afterlife but also God made us with desires. So I want to ask the question how can we maintain this yearning for the afterlife but still have desires within us? When we delve into ideology and figure out questions in regards to our existence and factors of success within our life, the mannerism in which we need to live this life and attain success in the year after answers like these the intellect is dependent upon two divine sources that is the Quran and the Hadith of Ahlul Bayt and this is what the Holy Prophet points towards when he says So long as you hold on to the Quran and to the Ahlul Bayt you shall never go astray So when it comes to finding direction in life, understanding existence, understanding our role in this world, understanding what our position is after this world to get to accurate answers the intellect is dependent upon text which is divinely revealed. So to answer your question and this is by way of a Muqaddimah introduction so to answer your question if we were to look into the Quran you would find that Allah SWT outlines for us our relationship with this world and what the relationship should be with the afterlife. You have many theories within Islamic school of thought when and outside of Islamic school of thought whereby you have a school of thought that comes forward and says that you were created for this life and this life only and your existence is for this life only and that's it this world and this world only and hence you have this famous acronym that comes up YOLO you only live once you only live once this is a enjoy as much as you can and at the end of the day when you die your body is going to become a part of this earth and the cycle is going to go on so on so forth you have others within ideological schools of thought that say you need to shun this entire world stay away from all the luxuries on all the niceties of this world in order for you to get to the Akhira in order for you to become successful and gain victory in the afterlife well if that's the case then why were we created here to begin with so you find that depending on which school of thought you uh you delve towards your idea of life and death and relationship with this world varies in accordance hence we are of the opinion that you have to be with the Quran and the Ahlul bait in order to deduce the right conclusion you find Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in surah ibraheem verse number 32 or leading up to verse number 33 it is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala who created the heavens and the earth and he brings down the rain from the sky and as a result of the range the crops flourish as sustenance for who lakum so you find that the the foods that we have the essence of nourishment that we have you can the benefits of this earth are created for who lakum for you to enjoy and it is him who put forward what is understood from this verse is the rules of density such that the boats and the ships are able to float on the waters and for you to be able to conquer this earth everything has been created for you so the idea is that the earth and the benefits that a person is able to extract from this dunya is for mankind to enjoy however you have over here that we enjoy the dunya in order to get to the Akhirah in that enjoy what Allah has created for you from that which is halal however do not make it the focus of your entire existence do not be obsessed with everything that this world has to give you use what Allah has created from that which is halal in order to attain perfection and attain the Akhirah so we understand from the school of thought of Ahlul Bayt that the dunya is created for us to excel in to develop ourselves to reach perfection and using this dunya as a platform to gain eternal success in the Akhirah yes there are times and there are imtihans divine examinations where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will put for us right in front of us the test between choosing this dunya or choosing the Akhirah and it is at this point it is absolutely important for a person to always have what we would say his eye on the board and never forget the bigger picture that this world is a world which is only temporary and there are tons of verses in the Quran that point towards this reality but in essence a person doesn't even need to refer back to the Quran to be able to understand this but it's sufficient for us to go to a graveyard find one person who has lived eternally from regular mankind no person's time in this earth is limited and if this belief is firmly rooted inside your heart rather than just lip service a person understands that he's moving towards a greater realm of existence after this dunya we still have alamel barzakh we still have alamel raja we have the day of qiyamah the day of judgment which is equivalent to 50 000 years single year over there is equivalent to 50 000 years and after all this you have eternity in heaven in paradise or in hell depending on the way in which we spent our time and the way in which we spent the resources created by Allah on this earth thank you say it more than just building on that i mean in theory this is this is an amazing goal for us to have um but practically speaking how would you say and shine light upon the idea or do we do i do i have to give up all my desires to to attain the afterlife or is this balance possible in this busy life we live in nowadays also a great question um i think that this balance is probably one of the greatest tests that Allah swt has blessed us on this earth with i mean if you think about it yeah we do understand that we have you know we are allowed to enjoy and enjoy the pleasure of this world which have been you know uh permissible for us by the you know decree and and law of Allah swt and at the same time we do have our boundaries to stop us from you know i guess going away from Allah swt but i feel it will grow in our pain the west that man really enjoys success yeah and sometimes in that success they want more success and that sometimes takes over the heart and it's like material success whether it's you're spending extra hours trying to gain more material success than extra hours on the prayer mat or you know extra hours doing charitable work um and sometimes i think some people are being materialistic where they want the rewards here and now now we live in in a world of you know on demand uh when you can have whatever you want right on your doorstep or right on your tv screen or right in front of you with a click of a button where is the patience gone where is the work hard now and receive the reward later which Akhira is all based upon you know yeah and in this world um i think it's becoming even more and more challenging um especially with the youth um with you know this balance between you know having material enjoyment and also the enjoyment of Akhira um and i think slowly slowly as well people are actually you know some people not all i hope not my community but a lot of community in general are losing faith in Akhira and i'm thinking maybe you know what um there's you know i i want to enjoy myself here and now YOLO yeah YOLO who knows about the hair after oh we'll we'll cross that bridge when we get there so i that that's how i see it i mean i mean i mean Montezer i mean when we look at the the battle of Karabala i mean one of the big themes is is people after this world fight fight the people who are after the afterlife um are there any figures who you can relate to the most when it comes to this ideology i mean we've got for example Qasem the nephew of Imam Hussein peace be upon him who said that very famous poetic phrase where death is sweet to him and honey um are there any other figures that you you look at that inspire you to look towards the afterlife that more than this life for me one of the one of the people's that's one of the people that stand out is um a companion of Imam Hussein peace be upon him Zuhair ibn al Qayn um Zuhair was one of the known businessmen and wealthy merchants of of the city at the time um and what actually happened was he just he happened to be uh passing through the desert and camping at the same campsite as abiy Abdullah Hussein um when Imam Hussein called him to speak to him and and to me for for Zuhair to leave behind everything that he had um and in fact it was it was uh shaykh karkhmi if i'm wrong but i think it was Zuhair uh who meant who said on the night of ashura that you can burn us and you can resurrect us and then you can burn us again and we'll still fight for abiy Abdullah Hussein for me that's that's very inspiring to leave what you have behind all the wealth all the all the worldly things that you have but but in your heart you know that you're going to something better to have that faith is something that i take huge inspiration absolutely i think it's a wonderful example i think shaykh bringing it back to um what i mentioned earlier about this seems to be um a a battle between people of this world versus the afterlife i mean i've seen myself um certain maybe small um group of people who said that Imam Hussein peace be upon him rose just for the sake of it um some even i've seen and forgive me for saying that he was wrong to rise against the caliph of the time um can you shed light upon maybe proving the fact that Imam Hussein did rise with the afterlife in mind and that Yazid was all about this world how can you prove that Yazid was about this world it was wasn't for Islam whereas Imam Hussein was um you know as a quick comment on uh on what you have said that in regards to um scholars or authors across the passage of time having written verdicts and judging the revolution of Imam al-Hussein you find that unfortunately there have been a lot of scholars across time who have either been funded or have been affected by the school of bani abbas and bani omaya who have come forward and have distorted um the divinity and the position of Imam al-Hussein when it comes to the revolution of Imam al-Hussein and there's plenty of evidence of this even when we return back to the books khasatan particularly the books of the amma however a very simple answer in this regard you have hadith from hadith and quran in which the entire muslim world agrees upon the revelation of the verse tatheerah by ijmaa il muslimeen without any exception the entire muslim world scholars from the muslim world regardless of their sects are undisputed in the fact that Imam al-Hussein was under the kisa when this verse was revealed to Rasulullah you look at the sources from the amma as well as the khasa you could have this puj whether the wives are part of this or not however what is established is that amirul mu'mineen say the fatimah al-zahra alayhi salam imam hasan al-mujtaba alayhi salam and the imam al-Hussein alayhi salam was definitely under the kisa and this verse was definitely revealed upon them without a doubt they're part of the ahlul bait everybody else we could have debates and disagreements and there's proofs for and against this is a discussion for another time but what is established is that imam al-Hussein is part of that ahlul bait and this verse of the quran denotes the infallibility of imam al-Hussein so when we understand that imam al-Hussein is infallible and a part of infallibility dictates that because you are sinless you have your entire existence revolves around Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala entire existence revolves around Allah so to question imam al-Hussein whether he was right or wrong if he was wrong that means Allah ordained infallibility on a person who is not capable or deserving and that means there is a naqs while ayatubillah shortcoming in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so you find that the issue of imam al-Hussein is absolutely sensitive in that you can understand the level of divinity attached to imam al-Hussein in that just from this one verse of the quran you have another verse or you have another hadith from the holy prophet peace be upon him and his progeny and this is a hadith again which is accepted unanimously accepted by all Muslims across all schools of thought where Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said hussainu minni wa ana minna al-Hussein hussain is from me and i am from hussain ahab allahu man ahab hussain when the prophet says hussainu minni hussain is from me maybe we can say yes this is an expression of the biological relationship he is the grandfather but what about when the rasulullah says wa ana minna al-Husain i am from hussain so we understand from here that the relationship is not something which is strictly biological it is a relationship which extends and exceeds a blood relationship and this is a relationship in regards to the message of Allah az-zawajal so when the rasulullah says i am from hussain and i want to understand did hussain fight for the dunya or for the akhira did rasulullah come for dunya or akhira came for akhira and he says hussain is from me so because rasulullah is all about the akhira it's all about virtuousness and righteousness in its entirety hussain is from that imam al-hussain is from that virtuousness is from that righteousness these are hadith which are undisputed in that essence and these are just two very simple examples and if we were to delve into history in karbala step by step why would the imam al-hussain if he was about gaining this dunya go into a forsaken desert with his family members why if he was about this dunya what was there to stop him from pledging allegiance to yazid and then getting a big part of the government he would have pledged allegiance and he would have been given a part of become the governor of this area or that area you know this is a common tactic of the dictators of dictators across the passage of time that when you have an opposition rather than have an open opponent buy him into your fold so that he doesn't oppose you it could have happened yet you find imam al-hussain was insistent that no matter what the level of persecution was he's going to stand up stand up for what principles a person this is a rule of thumb that you and i need to keep in hearts it allows us to identify truth in our daily lives and these are rules of thumbs of life nobody will withstand persecution if they are in pursuit of the dunya this is a rule of thumb pass and cracks if you are going for the dunya there's a level of an empty heart as soon as a certain amount of hardship you hit this level of hardship you're going to abandon it because the human mind always thinks in a cost-benefit analysis frame my benefit is this dunya what is the cost of me achieving this dunya in terms of physical punishment persecution this or that the minute i see the persecution is greater than that benefit i leave it but when i'm thinking about persecution in the dunya as opposed to the achara this is why you have guys like suhey ribnel kain say even if you were to resurrect me 70 times over and burn me and scatter my ashes i would still come back why because this cost is nothing in comparison to the achara in comparison to the values for which they're standing for and these are just but minor simple proofs to show that there is absolutely not an ounce of a doubt in the regards to the divinity for which imam al hussain stood for and more important or as important is the fact that anyone who opposed imam al hussain signifies battle falsehood and tyranny in its entirety i think just building on that it just made me think that if we put aside textual sources sometimes when we look towards history and look at such figures with such certainty in the afterlife that enough is proof for us that there is an afterlife that if someone is willing to die and put everything on the line and see no benefit in this world for higher courts um that in itself can prove it off i mean month isn't saying most and feel free to chip in here how do we get to the stage and i find it quite scary myself um living in this day how do we get to the stage where someone is able to actually we know that Yazid for example offered several positions and properties and and governments to certain people to fight against the imam i mean how do we get to the stage where we prefer that over a divine reward i mean everyone on the other side did claim to be muslim i'm sure they read the Quran and i'm sure you know we know they used to pray five times that i even do the night prayer some of them how do we get to the stage where you can abandon the afterlife for the sake of a temporary pleasure i think it's uh it's it's not easy to be to have that faith um where you can you can turn down a position in this world that's what the word faith means isn't it yeah i think i think it's it's like if you explain to to somebody who doesn't grasp the concept of religion or religiosity yeah that i'm not doing this because i don't think this person is correct i don't think he's on the right path i'm not serving a tyrannical leader and for fear of the punishment of the afterlife to them it's a very foreign concept yeah but it's all about the faith that you hold and i think it's it's easier than than than we make it sound um to to be tempted by this world um we say every week in on the thursday night in dharkumel that this world has deceived me yeah right i've been deceived by this world um and i now i find nowhere to go except to come to you to my lord right and it's very easy to afford into the trap of i want to do this and i want this position and people are going to look at me favorably if i do this and this is good for my reputation this is good for my ego right and i think sometimes it's a lot easier than we make it sound we make it sound like these people were they were very evil they were they were on the wrong side on that day but sometimes it goes back to whether or not we can confidently say that we would have been on the right side say what if some what if someone says then please say what you were going to say about even to act what if someone says to you that was blind faith what happened it was blind faith it's it's it's a hard thing to answer because the certainty is there indeed indeed and i think sometimes we forget um that's you know it's not just about akhara but it's about having a stand on principles and morality and ethical values let's not forget that imam hussein he knew that imam hussein ali salam he knew that if power was to fall into the hands of yin islam would have been forgotten there would be no forget she had there would be no sunni islam there would be no adhan there would be no prayer there would be no Qur'an in order to preserve the message of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi imam hussein had to put a stand towards that so it there was a bigger mission on top of that looking at you know what was necessary was for him to give up you know what we hold so valuable to ourselves materialistic our lives our family and things like that he gave up for the sake of islam and for the sake of akhara um furthermore what i want to add on to what brother you know what they were saying it was that um we were mentioning that you know there were muslims on that side as well who used to pray and used to read Qur'an and stuff of that you know how could they be you know go towards such a dunya i think the main thing that these people were missing was the wilayah of emir al mu'minid which is one of the most important things which really separates a lot of people from akhara and this dunya is the wilayah and a lot of these people had an enmity towards emir al mu'minid and this is why they wanted vengeance of what happened to them and from their forefathers and from their tribes and what emir al mu'minid has done um and that that is what kind of tip the scales you could say um and then that is what really you know force people to do follow their worldly desire and passions and it was that hate you mean you should remind me in terms of those those who love emir al mu'minid please be upon him how horror changed yeah exactly the perfect example i mean yukha who is the perfect example because he has dunya and akhara right in front of him yeah he says it doesn't he yes he heaven and hell in front of him exactly and he was like oh the food is good with the you know the maids but the prayer is sweet with emir al mu'minid um so he had that greatest uh challenge right in front of him and let's not forget you know her uh you know aley salam never had an enmity towards imam hussain or the ahlul bayh in fact he was just doing his job his job i was gonna say he changed when he found out that they were going to kill him he was like what what do you mean you're going to kill him how can you kill what were you talking about and that's when he when he you know when he found out and he was like convinced he's not actually going to kill that's when he started to like value his life and value his akhara and think you know what this is totally wrong i'm not i'm not with this you know and and and changed his um his his stance you could say so that battle is always amongst us but when it you know when when it comes to the reality of things in shah al we can all make the correct choice yeah yeah and shake maybe to to wrap up the discussion um do you have any sayings from either imam hussain or any of the the holy family of the prophet please be upon them all that really sticks with you and maybe we can learn from about embedding this world and looking at this after life looking at the bigger picture as you as you mentioned is there anything that comes to your mind straight away the words of imam hussain when he reached the land of karmana he wrote a letter and the letter is a literally a sentence or a two sentence letter where if you were to translate this he says it is if this world never existed wow and the akhara is still in its eternity in its flair which makes you understand when when you look at the words of imam hussain and you look real quick into the words of nabinua a prophet who lived for the longest time 2500 years in total nabinua when malakul moat was coming to take his soul he said to malakul moat i'm standing under the sun can you let me come under the shade of a tree before you extract my soul malakul moat the permission of Allah gave him permission he moved under the tree so as malakul moat is going to extract the soul of nabinua malakul moat asks him nabinua you've lived 2500 years how did you feel this time in the dunya nabinua says to him it passed as quickly as how it took me from coming under the sun into the shade life passes like this and i must say a number of things over here uh before you wrap up that when we are understanding and when we want to seek inspiration from imam hussain what we need to understand is that this life is temporary and we have a greater realm of existence awaiting for us this is one number two it's asking ourselves what have we been created for what is my purpose what is the purpose of my existence in this temporary world because if i understand this it will help me put into perspective this balance and this constant battle between seeking the dunya and the akhira number three to add on what uh saith mohsin mentioned for and this is inspiration for us to take change in our life or to make change in our life making change in life requires courage correct he was doing his job but he was not any normal warrior he was a celebrated general or commander within one of the greatest battalions that the islamic umma had seen at that time a celebrated military officer with unmatchable credentials when he came to bravery on the battlefield with unmatched credentials when it came to strategy of war and even more he had unmatched credentials when it came to the art of negotiation in warfare the deal for this is where the fact that he was appointed by ibn sa'ad uh the fact that he was appointed by obaidullah ibn ziyad to go and intercept imam al hussain so imam al hussain is leaving makkah to go towards kufa where ibn ziyad has just managed by deceit to quash the revolution of muslim bin akil you're coming to intercept an army which is perceived to be the greatest threat to the so-called caliph of the time so who are you going to select to head their army a person like khura shows you his credentials and his standing and you may see whether it is from articles or television shows or whatever it is the culture of living in a family that has served within the military you have these uh you could say customs and cultures of how you portray yourself honor men of honor exactly how you portray yourself when you come from a family that serves in the royal navy or in the army is a certain way you hold yourself there's a certain way you're perceived khura ibn ziyad had this social status being the chief of or the commander of a battalion and an army to switch sides and this is viewed as mutiny from a social perspective from a career perspective but it took courage to side with truth when you recognize truth recognizing truth is one thing siding with truth is another thing altogether it's a consequence of that recognition and this takes courage we look ourselves in our daily lives see trying to seek inspiration from whore trying to seek inspiration from zuhair ibn al qayn these are words that are easy to say these are sacrifices that one adeem we do is we see what can we take from their life in our daily lives today when i see injustice happening today in the times that i live if i see things that are happening wrong within my community within my husseinia within my imam barga i see oppression that is happening i see injustice that is happening i see distortion of the religion that is happening do i have the courage to stand up and take a stance even if you lose your even if i lose even if i lose my credentials and my social standing do i have that courage or not this is where it begins making changes at the grassroots the areas in which we live the domains or the spheres in which we are able to exert influence from the madrasa to the bar there are so many injustices that happen so much distortion of the religion so on so forth locally that happens nobody nobody stands up because of the fear of the consequences what happens is in life in order to make a stance you need human being needs a catalyst like in a chemical reaction need a catalyst to trigger change human being needs a catalyst that will trigger change and allow him to take stances what is that catalyst karbala teaches you to be fearless when it comes to taking stances in your own domain and as you progress the stances that you take become greater greater greater until we pave the way for the Bukhura of Imam Sahib al-Abring wa-Saman thank you and to wrap up today's discussion we are going to as tradition obviously demands in the morning of Imam Hussein to have some poetry so brother Munterser has prepared some poetry to recite and relate to today's topic so pleased by the Munterser you can serve now so um I've prepared some poetry with regards to the battle of the Akhira and any of that we normally face we see with the eyes but they saw with their heart gave up this world for an even bigger part in the hereafter we're so blinded by this world and all that it has to offer that we fail to think and we hardly ever ponder see what we do here is an investment the returns of which you'll see on the day that all people are identified by their deeds and on that day if your business flourishes then glad tidings to you for heaven is your abode but in this world if by your hands the seeds of evil were sowed then await the hereafter for with god lies your fate try as you will you can never anticipate what will be yours so be like those companions who fought for Hussein their lives were nothing in comparison to their gain for they pleased the heart of our mother Zahra so heaven awaits them and upon them my Salam so heaven awaits them and upon them my Salam thank you dear viewers for joining us in today's discussion it is very clear to see that all of us in our life will have times where we have to choose between picking this world versus the afterlife and there's no one better to learn from than with the story of Imam Hussein there are several companions we've discussed who chose eternity over being mortals and with that we close the discussion thank you to all of our guests for joining us today we hope you benefit from it greatly and we will see you next time Salam alaykum please be upon you all