I understand that setting goals is essential to have a solid plan and clarity in one’s life. Nevertheless, why do people fail in spite of having clear goals and are just not able to achieve the set goals of their lives?

Planning one’s lives in all matters is more essential and crucial to reap the result in an efficient and effective manner, goals being the first step, where one determines what is going to be spent on one's life, resources and efforts. The second point in terms of our planning requires us to determine what the prerequisites are to succeed at this goal - the goal of the life to come. The basic prerequisites were given by God to Adam, the very first human being. God created Adam Himself and his wife, Eve, and they were given Islam. Islam is the basic prerequisite to be successful in this life as well as the life to come. That is why all of the prophets of God - the true prophets of God -had only one religion, as there is only one God, one world and He has created one set of human beings. The concept of races, tribes and nations etc., are non-critical distinctions, characteristics of which are not primary; they are secondary things. We are one race - the human race. That is the reality and as such, God gave human beings one religion. No need to give a bunch of different religions, which contradict themselves. Therefore, there was only one message – Islam. All the prophets of God were Muslims. So knowing that Islam is the prerequisite, then, we have to look at the various requirements of Islam.

Islam has five pillars in terms of practices, and it has six pillars in terms of faith. We have to determine looking at the practices, which one should be first, which one is primary, and of course, the most primary one being salaah-prayer. It is the five times daily prayer. That is most primary. That is most critical, that is the link between the human being and God. Therefore, that is the one which we have to focus on the most and make sure it is in place because everything else after that depends on it. If it is intact, in place and correct, then everything else will be fine. If it’s not, and messed up, part time, half time, Friday Muslims, Ramadan Muslims, then all the other stuff doesn’t work. Everything else is all shaky. So it has to start from there and we have to know, that this organization of the day, dividing up the day into five parts, organizing the day around our spiritual need to be in contact with God, it’s not for God’s need. God does not have the need for our prayer, rather it is our need. We do need to organize our day around the worship of God. Everything else fits in the slots left from after the worship. So we are always going back to worship God. That is the primary state.

Knowing that, then that is what we have to work on. I know some people will say (non-Muslims), “We pray to God when our hearts feel good. Therefore, we turn and we pray to him and we are really into that prayer because we are thinking about God. That thing is there, the link is there, but you Muslims, you pray like robots five times in a day. You get up in the morning, pray! Mid-day, pray! Sunset, pray! Before you go to bed, pray! But, where is the heart?” We say, “Yes, it sounds reasonable. It is good to pray to God whenever one feels that good feeling;it is a good thing too. However, if that is the only time we pray to God and we don’t get that feeling today, then we don’t pray today? If we don’t get that feeling this week then we don’t pray this week?” Then this month, then a year and then years go by and we do not pray until what happens? Calamity strikes! That is when everybody runs back. Sincerest prayer is when calamity has struck.  But that kind of prayer does not mean anything before God. Everybody would do that.

That is the goal; to keep that remembrance, that consciousness of God throughout one’s day. Then we can go through the rest of the pillars of Islam. We need to approach the principles of Islam with this kind of approach. Prioritizing, putting what is primary and what is secondary in their proper place because, if we do what is secondary when we should be doing what is primary, we are wasting time. People, for example, on a technical point, if you have something that is obligatory, and something that is recommended, then you do the obligatory thingfirst. That is priority. For example, in the early Morning Prayer, Fajr, you come into the mosque and the iqamah has been given for the fard obligatory prayer, then for you to go and do Sunnah voluntary prayers, is not correct. Some people do it, feeling that it is very important but it is not as important as the fard. That’s why the Prophet had said:

“Whenever the iqamah is given for the obligatory prayer no other prayer is acceptable but that obligatory prayer.”[1]

That is prioritizing; the obligatory given priority over the recommended. Therefore, we have to approach the religion and all aspects of the religion in the same way.

In terms of parents, for example, priority in terms of their children is it to raise them highly- educated, intelligent, super-sophisticated individuals or is the real goal to raise them as righteous Muslims? This is the point. For many parents, there is confusion over this. They are not clear as to what is the real goal, so they will sacrifice this principle of raising righteous children for the dunya, for being a top doctor, lawyer, and engineer etc., sacrificing the spiritual life of that child for the material world. Of course, if we are able to bring two things together then it is a good thing, but if we ever have to make a choice between the two? I hear people talk about Islamic schools and public schools, “Well, in the Islamic schools, the standard of education is not given much importance, but the public school or the non-Muslim private school, this is top of the line, they have the top of the line teachers and I am concerned about my child’s future.” Which future? The future of this world! “So I am going to take my child out of the Islamic school or won’t even put them in the Islamic school, and I’ll put them in the other school.” This is actually spiritual suicide that we are doing to our children. Where are our priorities? They are upside down.

If the kid goes to Islamic school and graduates and their academics happen to be weak, we can always get tutors to help them fix it, but if they go through the public schools or other private schools, Catholic school and their Islam becomes weak, messed up, you bring Maulana, Shaykh, whoever to come and try to fix it.You cannot fix it now, this kid is a graduate from high school, and they have their own way of thinking, their own mind now you try to tell them, Allah, Prophet , Qur'an, you are told “Please! I heard it, I hear you, talk to the hand.” You have lost them. You cannot fix it. Therefore, you have to be clear about priorities. Similarly, when we come to marriage this is another big issue in the community, marriage. We all know the well-known hadith of the Prophet (ﷺ) in which he said:

“A woman and a man is married for four reasons: beauty, wealth, family status and piety”. He said what? “Choose the pious one and you will be successful.”[2]

That is the criteria, piety. That comes before all and that is why the Prophet (ﷺ) also had said that,“If a young man comes to you as a father, seeking the hand of your daughter and you are satisfied with his religiosity” that he is a religious guy, a pious guy and his character is good, because of course, he might appear to be a pious guy but he has a bad character. That means it’s just appearances, it’s not the person, he needs these two, because good character is a product of real piety. Bad character is a product of a lack of piety. So this is the criteria but if we said, that the goal to raise righteous children, are you going to raise those righteous children with an unrighteous wife? Obviously these two come together. The priority for parents is to raise righteous children, they themselves have to be pious, they themselves have to be righteous, and you have to be what you want your children to become. If you are not what you want your children to become, they are going to be like you. That is how children are.Therefore, this is an issue again, of prioritizing.

If we look at the school situation, when we go into schools, many of us here are studying at university etc. We have to put this university education in the proper context. From a Western perspective, we as Muslim students are not the same as non-Muslim students. The Muslim student is a Muslim who happens to be a student and not a student who happens to be a Muslim. These are two different individuals altogether they are using the same two words, Muslim student, but in one case he is a Muslim who happens to be a student, he could have been something else, he could have been a teacher, he could have been a cab driver, he could have been anything else, but he is a Muslim first. Whereas a student who happens to be a Muslim, he is indistinguishable from Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, atheist, he is just a student, his Islam is of no consequence.His Islam has no impact on his life. So he will do the things that students normally do, what do they do? Cheat. Students are known for cheating, universities have to set up all these different means and things to stop these students from cheating because as a student your goal is to get top marks by any means. That is the nature. If you can get away with it, then you do it. So you will cheat, you will take other peoples’ work, whereas the Muslim student, he will not do that. They will approach their education from a different perspective. It is to do as the best you can, because, it is true, the Prophet (ﷺ) said

“God loves from each and every one of you; if you do anything you do it to the best of your ability”[3]

Therefore, Muslims should really be outstanding students. It’s not enough to say, “Well you know, I am a good Muslim, I pray five times a day but the studying is too much for me, I can’t handle it, the teacher’s a disbeliever.” No, this is not an excuse. These students will come to me a day before the exam, they will call me up and say, “Shaykh, is there a du'a, a du'a that will get us through the exam?” I hear it all the time right around exam time, I say, “No, no, there is no du'a. No special prayer that will get you through this exam. If you didn’t prepare yourself, then be ready for the consequence. So we as students, as Muslim students, when we enter into university we are not entering as the Westerners like to say - the university experience.

As they say after having gone through junior high, high school, “now you get the university experience”. No, we’re not going there for the experience. We are going there for a particular purpose; we should be clear what we are going there to, to study. What we are going to study should be something beneficial to the community because the Prophet had said:

“The best of people are those most beneficial to people.”[4]

 So we are seeking beneficial, useful knowledge. We should be clear. As a Muslim student there are boundaries to what you can take and what you can focus and study, and what you can’t. As a Muslim, for example, going into medicine - popular field- it is not appropriate for a male Muslim, to study as his specialization, gynecology. This is not acceptable. Any of you brothers who are studying gynecology, get out of there now. Islamically this is not acceptable. No matter which field of medicine you study, you will learn something of that, so have that knowledge, so when emergencies arrive you can help to deal with situations. Yes for a Muslim female, yes, go focus on gynecology. That is the area you should focus on, but she does not go and focus on your male urinary dysfunctions. No!That is not her field. That is not a field for her to focus on. Of course, in the course of study, you study everything, a little bit of everything but when you are going to specialize, for you to specialize in that, it is not appropriate.

So you see for a student who happens to be a Muslim, he does not think of these things. He thinks of where is the most money. Cosmetic surgery - this is the one! “Ah…that’s where I want to be.” No! As a Muslim student,that is not how you think. It is not just about the dunya here. It is about utilizing your profession, when you graduate in a way that is pleasing to Allah, so that your utilization of that profession becomes Ibadah. It becomes worship.

References:

[1] Narrated by Muslim (710)

[2] Narrated by Al Bukhari (4802). Muslim (1466)

[3] Albani classified as Hassan in Saheeha (1113)

[4] Shaykh Albani classified as saheeh in Saheeha (426)