Assalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh

Bismillahir- Rahmanir-Rahim

1. Opening

Friends who are blessed by Allah, have we ever reflected on why people’s standards of happiness and success can be so different? In today’s social media era, we are constantly shown a uniform standard of success: a grand house, luxury cars, and piles of wealth. But did you know that a person will never reach the degree of true wisdom until he is able to shift his main focus and life orientation from the world to the Hereafter?This shift in orientation completely reverses one’s definition of success in the mind.A Lover of the World sees intelligence and life’s victory in the ability to receive and accumulate as much material wealth as possible. They even view zuhd [detachment from the world] as a foolish, losing proposition.A Lover of the Hereafter, on the other hand, sees true success precisely in the ability to give and sacrifice. For them, zuhd is not poverty, but a very smart long-term investment advantage.Psychologically, shifting one’s priority scale from the world to the Hereafter produces extraordinary inner peace. A person oriented toward material things will always be chased by anxiety—afraid of losing what he owns and stressed because he always feels lacking. But when that orientation shifts to the Hereafter, the soul becomes cool, because he realizes the world is only a stopover, while the eternal place of residence is the Hereafter.Allah SWT affirms the difference in orientation and the reward for those who shift their priorities to the Hereafter in the Qur’an:

وَمَنْ أَرَادَ الْآخِرَةَ وَسَعَىٰ لَهَا سَعْيَهَا وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَأُولَٰئِكَ كَانَ سَعْيُهُم مَّشْكُورًا

“But whoever desires the Hereafter and exerts the effort due to it while he is a believer—it is those whose effort is ever appreciated.”[QS. Al-Isrāʾ: 19]

When life’s orientation is correct, the world will actually come kneeling after us. Rasulullah ﷺ reminded us through his invaluable saying:

مَنْ كَانَتِ الآخِرَةُ هَمَّهُ جَعَلَ اللَّهُ غِنَاهُ فِي قَلْبِهِ وَجَمَعَ لَهُ شَمْلَهُ وَأَتَتْهُ الدُّنْيَا وَهِيَ رَاغِمَةٌ

“Whoever makes the Hereafter his concern, Allah will place richness in his heart, bring together his scattered affairs, and the world will come to him unwillingly.” [HR. Tirmidhī]

2. Lessons and Message

Let us look at a true story about a humanitarian volunteer in a conflict zone. He was a specialist doctor, materially established in a big city, yet he chose to leave his luxurious clinic to treat child victims of war without being paid a single cent. One day, a bomb destroyed his medical tent, and he died covered in blood while embracing the small patient he was treating.For a lover of the world, this doctor’s death is judged as “a loss, misfortune, and foolishness” for wasting his golden career. How heartbreaking to see his lifeless body stretched out on barren ground. But for a lover of the Hereafter, that moment is the pinnacle of a moving triumph. He did not lose his life; he was actually sending all his best assets to Paradise ahead of him, then following with a smile. That is the height of the value of sacrifice.

So we can laugh at our own thinking when it still leans toward the world, let us make a slightly funny analogy. Imagine two people, let’s call them Joni the Lover of the World and Doni the Lover of the Hereafter. Both are invited into a free supermarket attraction, but there is a condition: they may only be inside the store for 5 minutes, and after they exit, all items they take must be left at the checkout—meaning they cannot be taken home. Joni, with reckless enthusiasm, immediately grabs a huge cart. He loads in a refrigerator, a 50-inch TV, a sofa, even hefts 50 kg of rice on his shoulders. He is sweating, panting, and stressed, afraid someone will grab his stuff. At the fifth minute, the bell rings: Beep! All of Joni’s items are confiscated at the exit. Joni leaves empty-handed, his body aching, and weeping over his fate.In contrast, the smart Doni. He knows physical items cannot be taken home. So, for those 5 minutes, Doni calmly walks to the food counter, then uses store coupons to treat everyone there to a free meal, and donates some to the charity box at checkout. When the bell rings, Doni leaves with a full stomach, a happy heart, and loved by everyone.

Funny, isn’t it? Joni thought he was smart for “collecting” lots of items in a store that is temporary, when in fact he was the biggest loser in the world. Let us not be like Joni in this world-store: busy hoarding wealth that, when the moment of death comes, must all be left at the checkout of death

!3. Conclusion & Closing

Friends, the high-level moral message from this shift in priorities is very clear: do not let us get mixed up in defining what profit means. Becoming rich in the world is not forbidden, but placing the world in our hearts to the point of forgetting to sacrifice for the Hereafter is a real loss.

Let us reverse our perspective today. Move our main orientation to the Hereafter. See every rupiah we give in charity, every moment we sacrifice for worship, and every bit of patience we exercise in restraining ourselves from sin as a form of long-term investment whose profit is absolutely guaranteed by Allah SWT

. والله أعلم بالصواب

الحمد لله رب العالمين

Wassalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

Abu Sultan Al-Qadrie