In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Within the embrace of Allah, happiness pours into the hearts.
Seek ever-greater closeness to the Most Merciful.
The Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Musa Mosque.
Proudly presents:
The Musk of Discourse.
By Sheikh Usama Bahr, may Allah preserve him.
Everyone who obeys the Divine dissolves into the sweetest of feelings.
What has passed is gone.
I do not know why some insist on clinging to the past,
And persist in weeping over what has already transpired,
And dwelling in prolonged sorrow over the griefs and pains that occurred therein.
Why, then, this attachment to what has elapsed and vanished?
Is it rational for a person to remain imprisoned in the cell of the past,
Forgetting the freedom of the present and the future?
Islam always calls upon the Muslim to look forward, toward the Hereafter.
For what has passed is finished,
Serving only as a lesson and a warning.
The door to the past must be bolted shut, never to see the light,
Because it has passed and ended.
Neither sorrow can restore it,
Nor can anxiety mend it.
It is impossible to reverse a tear that has fallen from the eye,
Just as it is impossible to return a child to the womb of its mother.
Some wise people say:
"The past is to be folded away, not recounted."
So why do some people abandon work and diligence,
Claiming that the past justifies their stagnation and surrender?
Reading from the ledger of the past is a waste of the present,
And a tearing apart of one's efforts.
Allah the Almighty mentioned in His Noble Book
The accounts of the nations of old,
And He, the Almighty, said:
﴾That was a nation which has passed on. It will have [the consequence of] what it earned, and you will have what you have earned.﴿
﴾And you will not be asked about what they used to do.﴿
From this verse, we understand
That the past has passed and ended,
And there is no benefit in dissecting the corpse of time
Or trying to turn back the wheels of history.
Whoever returns to the past
Is like one who grinds flour that is already ground, as the saying goes.
Rational people do not look backward,
Nor do they turn their gaze to the rear,
Because the wind blows and moves forward,
Water springs forth and flows forward,
And the caravan travels forward.
These are the laws of life.
So for those who oppose them,
And for those who turn backward,
Nothing in life changes;
Rather, it is we who must change.
Allah the Almighty said:
﴾Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people﴿
﴾until they change what is in themselves.﴿
Therefore, fix your eyes upon what is in front of you,
And do not cast your gaze backward,
Lest you stumble on the path and fall.
Let hope be connected to your footsteps,
To guide you along the correct path,
And enable you to set forth with full confidence,
To reach your goal and your objective.
Would that every worker, youth, and striver,
Every patient and persistent soul,
Would direct their gaze toward the distant horizon.
There is no harm in taking lessons from the past,
And there is no harm in taking from history
An opportunity to correct one's mistakes.
The harm lies only
In imprisoning ourselves in the corridors of the past,
Instead of setting out toward reform and construction.
These are concepts that have faded in an age
From which the sun of the future never sets.
Yet some among us wish to block
The light of the sun with their own hands—but how could they ever do that?
For every morning, the sun calls out:
"This is a new day, and tomorrow is a promising future."
So leave behind the tales of bygone times,
And turn toward life,
For what has passed is gone,
And what has passed will not return.