AbdelRahman Murphy – Heartwork Reflecting On Reality – Lessons From Surah Qaf #01
AI: Summary ©
The importance of shaping a surah in the Bible is emphasized, as it is a stressful time for individuals and is a way to achieve success in life. The Prophet's peace be upon them and the need for strong faith in Islam is emphasized, along with the importance of finding one's faith in Islam and building a foundation to restore its original form. The success of shaping a surah is emphasized, along with the importance of finding one's faith in Islam and building a foundation to restore its original form. The importance of honoring the Prophet's words during gatherings and small decisions is emphasized, as it is a weightless act. Finally, the speakers encourage listeners to join a Q&A session.
AI: Summary ©
Allah will deliver that fruit to us so
that when we're in Ramadan, we're not disappointed,
right?
We want to have the least amount of
regret as possible insha'Allah.
So in that spirit of Ramadan, you know,
you can see that Shaykh Mikail on Wednesdays
is doing Surat al-Hadeed.
Shaykh Abdel Nasser, Tuesday nights after Isha, he
has Tafsir, Alhamdulillah.
Tafsir meaning the explanation of the Quran.
And I wanted to take this chance, this
opportunity, since we finished our reading of Imam
Muhasibi's book, to switch into a topic that
I really love, which is a specific surah
in the Quran.
I love all the surahs, of course, but
there are some surahs, and we'll talk about
this one in particular because it's very interesting,
the background behind it.
There are some surahs that have a unique,
subhanAllah, place in the Quran itself, and Surah
Qaf is one of them.
Surah Qaf is one of those surahs.
I remember this surah because my first memory
of this chapter is when I was driving,
I wasn't driving, my mom was driving, and
we were in the car together, and we
were listening to the recitation of Shaykh Muhammad
Jibril, and he was reciting Surah Qaf, and
you'll see as we go through it, it
is a very powerful surah.
And the imagery that Allah Ta'ala paints
beautifully in this surah, it's very emotional.
And so my recollection of this surah as
a child is seeing my mom cry when
listening to this surah.
And my mom, for those of you who
are part of the weekly Monday sessions, she's
not a weak person.
She's a very strong person.
You know, we are Egyptian women, you know,
like the, you know, Shatabi Urmaas Obama, you
know that one?
So she's a very tough Egyptian woman, right?
And subhanAllah, she would be moved to tears
by this surah.
And I, at the time, was like eight
years old, and I didn't know any, you
know, as far as like classical Arabic, being
able to understand, I didn't know any of
that.
But I would look at my mom, and
I would just start crying, because I was
crying, because she was crying.
You know, it's like, well, if you cry,
then I gotta cry.
And if I cry, they'll all cry.
And I remember just being so emotionally connected
to this surah.
So I've always felt, and it's always been
in my heart, this surah as being like
one of my favorite chapters in the Quran.
And so when I texted Shaykh Abdul Nasser,
I was actually in, I was in Mecca,
and I was like, Shaykh, do you think
that surah Qaf would be something good?
And he just sent the beautiful and spiritually
commanding thumbs up emoji, inshallah.
So that's a good sign.
That's a good sign that we're on track,
inshallah.
So I was surprised and really happy and
pleasantly surprised when Shaykh this morning was like,
hey, can I join you tonight?
And I was like, of course, you don't
gotta ask, right?
And really, really happy to have Shaykh Abdul
Nasser here with us, alhamdulillah, to begin to
explain and to explore this chapter of the
Quran, inshallah.
I'm gonna go ahead and open up the
Slido.
Shaykh, I first wanted to start with just
a little bit of background on this surah.
And before we get to specifically this surah,
what does it mean when we say, for
example, that a surah is a Meccan surah
when it comes to like the theme?
Because surah Qaf is Meccan.
And Meccan here refers to the two different
places, or periods of time rather, in which
the Quran was revealed.
It was either revealed in the time in
which the Prophet was a resident in Mecca,
or it was revealed in the time in
which he was a resident in Medina.
And so whenever the chapter of the Quran
was revealed in a certain place, it might
just kind of feel like a coincidence, but
actually there was a very specific thematic attachment
now.
When you look at a Quranic surah that
is Meccan versus Medinan, you can kind of
already start to understand what that surah is
going to be like, just based off of
where it was revealed.
You can start to figure that out.
So Shaykh, if you could give us a
little bit of that background, how does that
work?
When a Meccan surah is revealed, what should
we expect versus a Medinan surah in the
Quran?
Bismillah walhamdulillah.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, everybody.
Alhamdulillah.
I actually wanted to attend heartwork, and since
usually it's really kind of a place to
sit, I figured I'd get a good seat
here.
But a Meccan surah, obviously, means that it
was revealed in Mecca.
Rather than so much revealed in Mecca, it
means that it was revealed during the first
13 years of the mission of the Prophet
ﷺ, during the time when he was preaching
and teaching the message of Islam in Mecca.
And that's what that first of all means.
And what that tells us is that it
was revealed during the time of really profound
struggle.
It was revealed at a time when the
Prophet ﷺ, it was a very difficult experience.
I want to use this word, but the
Prophet ﷺ never felt alone because he always
had Allah with him.
And Allah gave him amazing people like his
wife Khadija radiyallahu ta'ala anha, our mother,
by his side.
And he had his good friend and companion
Abu Bakr radiyallahu ta'ala anhu by his
side.
But at the same time, it was a
very stressful time when it seemed like everyone
had turned on him, and everyone had turned
against him.
And while he had some family members with
him, like Khadija, his wife, many of his
family members, like his uncle Abu Lahab, had
turned against him.
Anyone who was willing to listen to him,
was willing to believe in him, was willing
to follow him, was being persecuted, was being
tortured.
People were being murdered in the streets of
Mecca, being made examples out of.
So it was a really stressful and difficult
time.
And the interesting thing is after 13 years
of preaching, there were no more than about
two to three hundred Muslims.
And so that's the time period it was
revealed where he was surrounded by an entire
society that did not accept his message and
that was very skeptical of his message and
was not interested in what he had to
offer and say.
Also, when we talk about Qur'an or
surahs that were revealed in Mecca, they mainly
revolve around three themes.
And you'll see these three themes right off
the bat right here in the beginning of
the surah.
Number one, it focuses on the belief in
the oneness of God.
Because the majority of the people around him
at that time, they worshiped idols.
And they believed in many different gods and
goddesses and godlings and all different kinds of
mythology.
Number two, it focuses on the fact that
there are prophets and messengers that are sent
by God with the message from Allah, which
is the Qur'an.
And the third theme is that it talks
about the life of the hereafter.
That every single choice that you make in
this life has an impact and an effect
in the afterlife.
And so these are the three themes that
are revolved around.
The Meccan surahs tend to be very short
verses that are very powerful in their language.
And another very cool thing about the surahs
and the verses revealed in Mecca is there's
a lot of times a rhyming scheme.
And you see it in the surah.
Allah says, Majeed, Ajeeb, Ba'eed, Hafid, Marij.
Every single verse that ends, you'll see this
rhyming scheme with it.
And so this is kind of the theme
and the style and the flow that you
see in the surahs revealed in Mecca.
And there's an interesting lesson here, I think,
that's even built in.
And you mentioned it, Shaykh.
You said that there's three themes, right?
There's the idea of belief in Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la.
There's the idea of belief in the messengership
of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
So establishing him as a messenger.
And then there's usually a reference or a
strong reminder about the fact that everything you
do is going to come to you in
the form of an afterlife.
Meaning that you don't just do things here,
say things here, and then all of a
sudden it's gone.
And Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, if
you look at, for example, like everyone in
this room, when you think about your own
experience as a Muslim, and you think about
how many things, how many conversations, or how
many lectures you've heard, or things you were
told, that are actually outside of those three
areas of focus.
You know, I always jokingly talk about my
really interesting relationship with Islamic school, okay, because
I grew up going to Islamic school.
I got expelled from that Islamic school.
I graduated as a teacher and became a
teacher at that Islamic school, same one.
And I also, Sheikh was there when they
had me speak as the distinguished alumni, alum,
at their 50, 40 year, 30 year something.
You were there, right?
So Sheikh was there.
They invited me back.
The funny thing was there had been such
turnover in the board that the board that
invited me to be their distinguished alum, the
founder of Roots, employee at Qalam, staff at
Qalam, they didn't know that I got expelled.
I wasn't an alum.
In order to be an alum, you have
to graduate.
So when I got up on stage and
I'm like, it's like their big gala, I'm
like, I regret to inform everybody that I
was expelled in the ninth grade.
And people started laughing and I was like,
it's not funny, you know.
But I ended up making it good.
It was nice.
It was a nice gathering.
But the point being is that I have
a very contentious relationship with Islamic school.
Now my kids go to Islamic school.
My wife is a vice principal of an
Islamic school.
And I, when my kids come home and
they're like telling me things about the Prophet,
peace be upon him, or they're reciting Quran
or, you know, if we're making, we're about
to eat food and they make dua, I'm
literally like, you know, the TikTok where you
just take your credit card, you start slamming
on the, I'm like, take all my money.
Because those things for me, I'm like, subhanAllah,
man.
Like, you know, as a father, as a,
my wife, as a mother, there's nothing more
beautiful than when your kids come and they're
learning Islam and they're able to like articulate
it.
Right.
And I know a lot of us here
don't have kids, but you'll understand more what
I'm talking about, inshallah, when Allah puts you
in the position at that point in your
life.
So I really appreciate it.
But there are some times where my kids
come home and they start sharing.
Yeah.
They start sharing or asking questions.
Actually, one time it happened in front of
Shaykh.
I've told you guys, I don't lie.
I don't make up stories.
Anyone who meets my children, the first thing
they say is like, wow, you're not lying.
All those things in hard work that you
say, I'm a hundred percent being honest.
My kids will come home from Islamic school
and mashallah, most of it's good, but they
will have that random day, you know, like
those, you watch sports and like the, your
favorite athlete has like a random, horrible game
where my son will just come home.
And he's like, Baba, who are you?
Is the Dajjal real?
Right.
Is it true that the Illuminati are controlling
the world?
Like he'll just, and I'm like, where are
you hearing this from?
And then he's like, is it really the
Yehud?
Like he'll just come home and just drop
these.
It is.
He'll, he'll just come home.
We really interesting, like left field questions about
Islam.
And the thing is, it's tricky because I'm
not making mockery of the items.
Of course not.
They're part of our religion, but it's like
out of order.
You get it?
Like Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
himself did not begin the Dajjal is real.
That's not how the Quran started, right?
That's not how it started.
It started by establishing belief in Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, understanding his mercy,
understanding him.
So it's really, really interesting.
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, whenever you
read Quran, and especially as Shaykh talked about
Meccan Quran, meaning what early in the life
of the Prophet Isa Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la, in the first stage of residency
of his prophethood in Mecca, that the focus
is not about law and legality.
You don't see anything being mentioned in this
Surah about what is permissible or what is
impermissible.
You don't see anything being mentioned in this
Surah about what is a great sin, what
is a small sin.
You don't see anything about Allah Subh'anaHu
Wa Ta-A'la talking about obligations versus
recommendations, what is makruh, what is none of
that.
That comes in its time, due time, due
place.
But in order to first cultivate the heart
of a person, the topic has to be
appropriate.
And there's no better method or strategy to
follow than that of Allah.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la laid
out the roadmap for us.
So many people, especially those of us here
who are new Muslims, you know, converts to
Islam, or maybe not new Muslims, but you
did convert to Islam at some point.
My dad, you know, he's Muslim now for,
you know, 50 plus years.
And I'll never forget the first thing that
someone told him when he converted was, you
got to change your name and no more
McDonald's.
One of those is true, right?
BDS.
One of those is true.
But the name thing, his name is James.
It's not like Shaytan or like Kafir.
His name is James.
Like it's not a problem, right?
So the idea that people skip these steps
and jump into like what we call in
Islamic law, the fururi things, like the branches
versus establishing strong foundations, roots, right?
No pun intended.
That's actually where it comes from.
And it reminds me of a hadith, Shaykh,
and I want to bring this up because
I know that seerah is like your jam,
and I know that this hadith is going
to definitely give you something to work with,
where it's a hadith of Aisha radiAllahu anha,
where she says that she asked the Prophet
peace be upon him, or the Prophet peace
be upon him said to her, that that
he's talking to his wife Aisha, and he's
explaining to her this phenomenon that happened.
And he's saying, did you not know or
did you know that your people, like the
tribe of this of this town or this
city, when they rebuilt the Kaaba, when they
reconstructed the Kaaba, renovated it, because over time
there were things like floods and different things
that happened, that when they did the reconstruction,
they actually iqtasaro, like they shortened or they
didn't make it to the exact what?
The exact foundations of Prophet Ibrahim.
Now Prophet Ibrahim, as we know, constructed the
Kaaba, what we know as the original foundations
of the Kaaba of they were done by
him.
So what's the Prophet peace be upon him
saying here?
He's saying that when they renovated it, they
didn't do it completely, right?
They did it short, and this is why
even till now an example of this, is
when you go to the Kaaba, what shape
is it?
It's a cube, right?
It's a cube, but actually the original foundation
of the Kaaba was not a cube, it
was a what?
Wow, that's really, we have a geometer over
here, right?
A geometrist, right?
A rectangular prism.
It was kind of like a, you know,
if you look at like a rectangle with
a silo on top, and that's what we
call the Hatim or Hijr Ismail, right?
With that area, where technically if you go
inside of that area and you pray, you've
actually technically prayed inside the foundations of the
Kaaba, okay?
Now, but you can, right?
Yeah, you won't be able, oh yeah, one,
like 13 people out of 7 billion now
are doing it, right?
So you won't be able to.
So interestingly, the Hadith continues.
So you can imagine like Aisha radiyallahu anha,
what's her reaction?
Like, oh no.
Can you imagine?
Like my people did this, oh no.
So she says to the Prophet peace be
upon him, She says, Why don't you return
it back to the foundation of Ibrahim?
Why don't you do that, you know?
And in her mind, in her heart, because
who are we talking about here?
We're talking about who?
Aisha, the wife of the Prophet peace be
upon him, the daughter of Abu Bakr as
-Siddiq.
Does anyone have any question about the strength
of her faith?
No, absolutely not.
So she's thinking right, like she's thinking just
let's do it.
And what does the Prophet peace be upon
him say?
Sheikh, he says what?
He says, had it not been that your
people had just come out of their stage
of disbelief.
Meaning what?
That they're not yet strong enough to handle
seeing something like that.
This Kaaba is like revered, it's sacred.
And if they saw me after just now
accepting Islam and us making Tawaf and us
revering it and being in a state of
reverence toward the Kaaba and now all of
a sudden they wake up tomorrow.
You guys know when you come to the
Masjid here now and we're under renovation, right?
Imagine that you see the Kaaba being renovated.
Imagine that you start seeing bricks being pulled
off of it.
What kind of chaos would people descend into?
And imagine if people are like, no, no,
it's okay, we're just rebuilding it.
You're like what a bidah, right?
Like we start to have this meltdown.
So he says, had it not been that
your people had come out of Kufr, he
says, I would have done it.
I would have done it.
Sheikh, what does this Hadith give us as
far as understanding the idea of stages of
development?
And how does that play into the idea
of Meccan versus Madini?
Allah Ta'ala is focusing on certain things.
The Prophet peace be upon him says what?
He says not everyone's ready for everything.
So how then do we, living in 2025,
wow that's weird, I almost messed up there,
living in 2025, how do we apply this
to ourselves as Muslims where we know that
Islam has a long list of things that
we should do?
But how then do we make sure that
we are not, number one, skipping from the
more important to the maybe relatively not as
important, all right, number one.
And number two, how do we make sure
that we're not also settling and saying, you
know what, I'm going to constantly just kind
of live in this foundational area and not
grow.
What's also really funny about the sense of
humor of the Prophet peace be upon him,
that narration is not once but twice he
says to Aisha, your people, even though it's
the Meccans, it's Quraysh, they're his people as
well.
But he's like, no, no, those are your
people.
When they make trouble, they're your people.
When they'll be good, they'll be my people.
So, but the interesting thing like you mentioned
is that the Prophet peace be upon him
is like, okay, here's a project to restore
the construction of the Kaaba back to its
original form.
But though that's not a part of the
foundation of a person's faith, a person's faith
doesn't depend on the current, you know, construction
or renovation or stage of construction of the
Kaaba.
That's not what a person's faith is based
on.
When we're put on our when we're when
we are laid in our graves, the questions
that will be asked in our graves is
who is your Lord?
You know, what was your religion?
And what do you have to say about
this man, the Prophet peace be upon him?
The questions that were asked on the Day
of Judgment by Allah is what did you
believe?
Who did you put your faith in?
How did you live your life?
Who did you prioritize?
What did you prioritize in life?
That's what our faith in Iman is based
on.
You know, some of the most this will
be kind of interesting.
Some will understand what I'm talking about.
Otherwise, you can ask your parents about it.
But one of the famous philosophers and poets
of the Muslim Ummah of the previous century
was Muhammad Iqbal, Allama Iqbal.
And some of the most beautiful poetry that
you will read, describing Medina, and what Medina
means to the Muslims, and even the Kaaba
and Mecca and what it means to Muslims
was written by Allama Iqbal.
He never went to Mecca or Medina.
He never got to go.
He never did Hajj.
He never did Umrah.
So what I'm trying to say is that
somebody might not ever actually visit the Kaaba
or see the Kaaba.
May Allah invite us all there.
But somebody might not ever go there, but
their faith could still be absolutely complete.
They could be successful.
And so what Islam prioritized, and that's what
the Meccan Quran is telling us is, build
your foundation.
Build your foundation.
And your foundation is what is your relationship
with Allah?
What is your relationship with the Word of
Allah, the Quran?
And then what is your understanding of who
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is?
And what is your connection to the life
and the values and the ethics and the
morals and the principles of the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam?
How do you actually live your life?
That's the foundation.
And that's what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
was talking about here, that if we get
time, we'll get to it later.
And guess what?
He was not able to get to it
in his lifetime.
He was not able to restore the foundation.
There's a similar narration where the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam, where actually Aisha Radiallahu ta'ala
Anha says, she shares this as a reflection.
She says that if the very first verse
revealed to us would have been the prohibition
of alcohol, meaning to the people of that
time, the very first verse that was revealed
was the prohibition of wine, of alcohol, of
intoxication.
She said, most of the people would have
turned down Islam.
They wouldn't have believed in it.
But the very first verses that were revealed
were revealed about building a relationship with Allah,
reflecting on the fact that we just don't
live in this world, in this life, but
then we will be resurrected and then we
will exist for an eternity in the afterlife,
where we will reap the rewards, or may
Allah protect us, we will face the punishment
of our choices in this life.
And once that was revealed, and we were
able to internalize that, and we were able
to build a foundation through that, then down
the road, interestingly, I would say about 16
or 17 years after Islam was first, you
know, revealed, the Quran was first revealed.
17 years later, when the verse came down
saying, oh, by the way, alcohol is prohibited,
she said, wine flowed in the gutters of
Medina, in the sewers of Medina, people just
tossed it out.
Okay, fine.
There was a tribe that came a year
before the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam passed away,
this tribe came, and they said, we want
to know about Islam.
And so they gave them information about Islam.
These are the tenets of Islam.
And they said, okay, we have an issue.
We don't want to be forced to have
to fight.
Because by that time, there had been wars,
there had been battles, we don't want to
be forced to have to fight.
And they said, and also, we don't want
to have to, we don't want to be
forced to send our charity.
So we don't want to be forced to
do these things.
And many of the companions were a little
bit bothered by that.
They were kind of like, what do you
mean, you're putting conditions on being Muslim?
I mean, imagine someone taking Shahada.
Yeah.
And like, in the mic, or like, I
repeat after me, they're like, I don't want
to give Sadaqah though.
And I'm not going to fast Ramadan.
I'm not going to pray.
Like, imagine the kid like how everyone would
feel.
We'd all be like, we're missing three out
of the big five dog, right?
Like, you know, I don't really know, like,
how are we going to do this?
You know?
So that's kind of the culture.
Like, that's how the Sahaba were feeling.
Right?
So they're kind of like, what is what
are these guys talking about?
And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, okay.
And so they said, can we kind of
go and then discuss this amongst ourselves?
And he said, Yeah, go ahead and discuss
it.
And as they stepped away to discuss it,
the companions were kind of looking at the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam like, are you gonna
do something about this?
This is I mean, they're giving they're putting
conditions.
And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said something
really interesting.
He said, sayatasaddaquna wa yujahiduna idha aslamu.
Let them first enter into the faith.
Let them taste the sweetness of the faith.
Let them say la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah.
Let them get to know Allah.
Let them read a few words of the
Quran.
Let them cry when they hear those verses.
Let them experience this.
Let them put their face on the ground
in front of Allah and feel that faith
and that Iman.
And then they'll line up and they'll be
the first ones to give the charity and
they'll be line up and they'll be the
first ones to fight for Islam.
And that's exactly what ended up happening.
So this is what that Meccan Quran talks
about, that focus on the foundations, focus on
what's important, focus on what we actually believe,
Allah, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the Quran,
the life of the hereafter, and really internalize
that.
Feel that.
Reflect on that in your life.
And feel the impact of that in your
life and the other things will start to
automatically fall into place.
And what's really interesting about Surah Qaf, this
beautiful, remarkable chapter of the Quran, is that
15 years later, after it was revealed, the
narrations about Surah Qaf say that the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, even in Medina, as Ustad
was saying, that now all these rules and
regulations are being revealed.
Entire mathematical equations are being revealed in the
Quran.
This is how your inheritance is distributed.
The dad gets this and the children get
that and the wife gets this and here's
all the rules and regulations of marriage and
divorce and financial business transactions.
And this is how you write a financial
contract.
All these technicalities are coming down.
And when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gets
up to give Khutbah on Jumu'ah, when
he gets up to give Khutbah on the
day of Eid, in every major gathering where
the whole community comes together and he addresses
the whole community, you know what he does?
He goes back to Surah Qaf.
The Quran is important y'all.
I am a Prophet of God sent to
you to show you the best way to
live your life.
Allah provides for you.
Allah takes care of you.
All your deeds are being recorded and you'll
have to answer for them on the Day
of Judgment.
So think about the next time you're making
a choice.
Is it the right one or the wrong
one?
Still, 15 years later, when there are so
many other things that we can talk about,
he still keeps coming back and talking about
these foundations.
You know, it's interesting Sheikh, I was just
going to go to that Mashallah, which shows
how close we are.
There's an individual that actually said that the
Prophet used to recite Surah Qaf so frequently
during Jumu'ah and not even during the
prayer, but actually during the so he would
use it as like a way to guide
his lesson, his message, you know, he would
quote it.
And then also during Salatul Eid, which is
also kind of interesting because Eid for us
is like, it's a time to celebrate.
It's a time where we get dressed, we
do this, we eat, we hang out.
And the Prophet, he's not a Debbie Downer,
like he's not trying to like be like,
all right guys, before we go do Eid
stuff, just think about hellfire.
That's not how the Prophet functioned.
You know, he was incredibly wise in how
he reminded in what way he read the
room perfectly.
So I said, every time, but it's interesting
that beyond all of that, the lesson that
the scholars say, why would he recite it
so frequently in these two gatherings is because
those were the two largest opportunities that he
had to reach out to everybody.
You know, when you look at, for example,
Salatul Eid, there are people who come to
Salatul Eid that maybe don't have the time
or the ability or don't live close enough.
Now, when I used to live in Knoxville,
Tennessee, even I'm sure in Dallas for Eid
prayer, people drive for like hours.
I mean, people even come from Denton, believe
it or not, you know, a God forsaken
place.
May Allah protect us all.
Right?
There's only one beacon of light in Denton,
that is Bucky's.
Okay.
Beyond that, there's nothing.
Get away quickly.
It's just kombucha.
There's rivers of kombucha everywhere, and hipsters, smelly
ones.
So people come for Eid from everywhere, from
everywhere, right?
And SubhanAllah, they will make their way, they'll
come there, they'll cancel their plans and do
all that.
So the idea that whatever is being said
on Eid is super critical, very important, because
this is like maybe your one chance.
You get two shots every year to give
something to this person that otherwise is too
far, too distant, too busy, whatever, to come
to the masjid.
And the Prophet ﷺ chooses this surah.
This is what he says.
Now, there was a companion, actually a woman.
Her name was Um Hisham bint Harithah, radiyallahu
anha.
And her father, this is kind of its
own sidebar, which is really interesting.
Her father's name was Harithah bin Nu'man, radiyallahu
anha.
And Harithah bin Nu'man used to be the
neighbor of the Prophet ﷺ.
So they used to share, like they used
to live in kind of close quarters.
And Harithah had a good relationship with the
Prophet ﷺ as his neighbor.
And he used to, even like some of
the narrations say, like when the Prophet ﷺ,
when he got married, Harithah, one of the
gifts he gave him was he gave him
like basically land, right?
Land, because he owned land close to the
house of the Prophet ﷺ.
So he had a good connection, good relationship.
And his daughter, Um Hisham, she actually said
that, I memorized surah Qaf solely by listening
to the Prophet ﷺ recite it during these
lectures.
He used to recite it so frequently, that
that's how I memorized it.
And in order to establish, like and show
you how close they were as family friends,
she said that two years passed and there
was one oven between our two families.
Meaning like we shared resources.
Now here's the sidebar that I wanted to
go on.
Can you imagine that your dad was somebody
that would give gifts to the Prophet ﷺ?
Like they were that close.
Can you imagine that when you went in
to go bake your bread, you would see
the Prophet ﷺ and his family like leaving
the area where the oven was and give
salam to each other.
Can you imagine that that's how close you
were?
Where did this all come from?
Now some people were closer to the Prophet
ﷺ than others.
But I want to share with you something
that I think is really important.
How does this affect you?
I want you guys to realize something.
The decisions that you make in your life
affect your ability to grow towards Allah.
They put a ceiling on it or they
unlock that ceiling.
There are certain decisions that we all have
to make, who we're friends with, where we
spend our time, where we decide to work,
who we marry, right?
Everyone's going to wake up now.
I just saw a bunch of heads pop
up.
Who we marry, all of these things are
not small decisions.
And I'm telling you this because Shaykh and
I were talking about this literally maybe eight
hours ago.
The idea that somebody can make decisions without
thinking about their future and then later on
somehow, some way navigate to a place of
closeness to Allah, it is a delusion.
Look at Harith ibn Nu'man ﷺ.
Look at what he's thinking.
He's thinking what?
I'm living near the Prophet ﷺ.
Do you think anybody could have bought his
house?
Do you think any amount of money would
have been enough to purchase the house of
Harith ibn Nu'man?
No, no, without a doubt.
And look at the payoff.
Look at the reward.
His daughter was able to live her life
under the shade of the guidance of the
Messenger ﷺ and his family.
You cannot, you cannot put a price on
that.
There are some decisions that you and I
will make that I'm not trying to be
dramatic here, but I'm 36, going to be
37 next month, but I still hoop, alhamdulillah.
There are some decisions that you will make
right now that quite literally will shape what
kind of Muslim you will be 10 years
from now.
The friendships that you have, the people that
you invest your time with, it will shape
what kind of Muslim you can be.
I know people that chose to marry for
certain reasons, and in marrying for certain reasons,
they got what they wanted.
They got it.
Could have been money, could have been family,
lineage, status, could have been whatever.
It could have been looks, and they got
it.
Wallah al-'azim, they got it.
But now they're coming back, and they're saying,
you know what, I made that decision with
that in mind, and now that I made
that decision with that in mind, I'm having
some other aspirations spiritually, and I want my
family, my spouse, my companion to be there
with me.
And by the way, this is not specific
to men or women, it's both sides.
And they're saying, I'm simply not finding that
this person is there to ride with me
on that journey.
And in fact, this person is like, maybe
even mocking me, maybe even making me feel
bad, holding me back, saying it's a waste
of time.
Can you imagine?
I knew a sister, subhanAllah, she married a
guy, Sheikh knows this person too, long time
ago.
She married a guy, top of his class,
doctors, doctors, doctors, like generation family, you know
like the Harry Potter, the serious black family
tree.
Just doctors, all the way to the time
of the Prophet ﷺ, just doctors, okay?
Got what they wanted, right?
Every single specialty you can think of, they
have a hospital in their family, everything.
Get married, got married a few months before
Ramadan.
She said, we got married, and everything up
until then, it was a good show, we
had a good time, you know, so we
had seven wedding events, there were elephants involved,
it was crazy.
Fireworks indoors, too many people to count, you
know.
And then she said, I noticed like a
week after the wedding, he wasn't praying.
And I thought, you know, because he's like,
she said, one of my goals was like,
yeah, doctor, doctor, doctor.
But I kind of want someone who at
least prays.
Maybe not five, but at least give me
like one a day, you know.
No, I'm not laughing, like she seriously was
like, I just need, I need to know
that you think prayer is a thing, right?
We're not perfect, but I need to know
that you think prayer is what?
It's a thing.
And she said, he wasn't.
So then I would pray, and he would
literally make fun of me.
And then she said, SubhanAllah, this was the
thing that kind of like really broke her.
And Alhamdulillah, since then, she's been doing well.
It's a long time ago.
She said that I would fast Ramadan, and
in the middle of my fast, he would
eat in front of me and laugh.
Okay.
And sisters, I don't want you looking this
way, because I got other stories of brothers
that did the same mistake that are being
ridiculed in the same way.
What I'm trying to say is this, this
narration of Umm Hisham and her casually, casually
memorizing Quran from the lips of the Prophet
Isa was not a accident.
It was not a mistake.
It was a choice.
It was a conscious decision.
Think about your life right now.
Just do an inventory and ask yourself, what
decisions have I made that have put me
in the places I'm in right now?
Good and bad.
Because we're not all bad.
We're not all good.
There are some choices that we made that
Alhamdulillah paid off spiritually, put us in a
good spot.
And there are some choices that we made,
some relationships that we had, some moves that
we decided to take that hurt us spiritually.
And until we can figure out which is
which and eliminate the bad and increase the
good, we're going to be living this life
that's like a seesaw.
And we're going to feel like religion and
spirituality is so confusing, is so just nonsensical.
There's no formula, just luck.
That's not the way it is.
You know my, SubhanAllah, I talk about my
mom a lot.
My mom, we used to live in a
part of Chicago, in the suburbs of Chicago,
where when I was growing up, the closest
Islamic school, the one that I got expelled
from, did I tell you guys that?
Was 45 minutes away.
Not 45 minutes both, but 45 minutes one
way.
So 45, 45.
So commuting took her an hour and a
half.
And then you don't just drop your kids
off and say, I don't ever see you
again.
You have to pick them up at 3
p.m., which is something they don't tell
you when you have kids, right?
So she's driving three hours round trip just
so her son can get expelled.
No, no, that's not why.
It is what happened though.
But I went to that school for three
years and memorized Quran with my teacher there,
Ms. Mahari, who's a Syrian Hafidha, mashallah.
And my mother, SubhanAllah, would literally be on
the road for three hours a day.
Like by the time she got home from
dropping us off in the morning, she would
have time to like brush her teeth, use
the bathroom, eat lunch, and then get in
the car and pick us up again.
Like no life.
And a lot of people would ask, you
know, we'd go to like family parties and
things like that, and they would say, why
do you do this to yourself?
Why?
Moving wasn't an option for us at the
time.
Why do you do this to yourself?
And she would say, SubhanAllah, I remember hearing
her.
You know, I'm like some nine-year-old
kid, and I'm just sitting there eating like
food at the party.
And I'm like, and she's like, because the
drive that I make now is worth it
so that my kids, their Islam is strong.
And I can't regret enough, SubhanAllah, if I
cut this out and I put my kids
in a school that I don't know that
they're going to have Muslim friends.
I don't know that they're going to have
people that think like them, that believe like
them.
I don't know how much I would get,
I would be able to get over the
regret of doing that because I didn't want
to drive a commute, right?
And SubhanAllah, SubhanAllah, till this day, my mom,
she calls me and she always says, are
your kids, every August, are your kids still
in Islamic school?
I say, yeah, yeah, mama, don't worry.
My wife's the vice principal.
It's kind of a bad look if they
don't go.
And she goes, good.
She goes, don't ever compromise on something like
a commute for your kids' Islam.
Now, I'm not here advertising for Islamic schools,
although that's exactly what I just did.
But what I'm trying to say is this,
the decisions that we make are going to
deeply affect how close we get to Allah.
We cannot keep thinking that our spirituality is
an accident or that our spirituality is mysteriously
foggy and unknown.
No.
If you want to know your closeness to
Allah, just ask yourself about the decisions that
you make.
So Um Hisham bint Haritha, she says that
I memorized this solely because I was in
the proximity, in the vicinity of the Prophet,
peace be upon him, so much of my
life that I was using the same oven
that he used.
I was attending every Jum'ah that he
attended.
I was going to the Eid Salah.
I heard him saying it so much that
I used to hear him say it.
So let's begin InshaAllah with a few minutes
of the actual Surah itself.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in this Surah,
He begins with a very powerful opening.
We covered this before when we did some
of the other Surahs, right?
So it's Maryam and others.
Allah Ta'ala begins with a single letter
of the Arabic language, okay?
It's the namesake of the Surah itself, Surah
Qaaf.
So He begins with this letter.
What is this letter, Shaykh?
What does it mean when Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala starts a Surah with Yasin, Alif,
Lam, Meem, Qaaf?
Like what is the meaning that we as
the reader take from that in the Quran,
in the text?
So this is something that's been discussed, you
know, academically, intellectually by scholars of the Ummah
for 1400 years.
We never were given a translation, a meaning
of these letters.
The way we understand it is, it's part
of the eloquence of the Quran, it grabs
the attention of the listener, and it has
that effect till today, right?
Like if somebody's, if you're praying behind the
imam, and the imam's reciting, you know, إِهْدِنَا
الصَّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمِ صَرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ غَيْرِ
الْمَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا الضَّالِّينَ آمِينًۭ You just, okay,
that's business as usual.
And then the imam says Qaaf, right?
Everyone's kind of perks up a little bit.
Like, oh, that's different.
That's unique.
And that's what it did to the Arabs.
It's a part of the language.
They had never heard the language be used
in this kind of a stylistic, artistic way.
So it was very eloquent.
It was very powerful.
And the Prophet used to recite it by
elongating it.
He didn't just say Qaaf.
Qaaf.
And this is what would happen, the pin
drop silence.
Everyone would just stop and be like, huh,
that's cool.
And then the very next word says, وَالْقُرْآنِ
الْمَجِيدِ.
Gotcha, right?
So they were always making noise when he
would recite the Qur'an.
And then he would say something like, يَا
سِين.
They would stop like, huh, I never heard
that before.
وَالْقُرْآنِ الْحَكِيمِ.
Like, every time, right?
So that's how he would get them.
And so it's the eloquence.
But one very beautiful reflection is, we don't
know what it means.
And the very next word, Allah says is
the Qur'an.
And the scholars explained that what it's training
us to do is to understand that no
matter how much we think we know, there's
always something we don't know.
And it's a reminder 29 places in the
Qur'an.
Oh, you know a lot, right?
You've been studying the Arabic language and the
meaning of the Qur'an for 20-30
years.
You know, I was just sharing with Ustad,
I was reading through the tafsir of Imam
al-Razi, who studied the meaning of the
Qur'an for 50-60-70 years of
his life.
He wrote one of the most extensive until
today, the most in depth and powerful works
on the meaning of the Qur'an.
It's like got 20 volumes.
And you know what he says?
Allah knows best what it means.
So it's just, it's a reminder.
It's very humbling that no matter how much
you think you know, there's always something you
don't know.
And then Allah Ta'ala does something in
the Qur'an, which is known as taking
an oath.
And this is done, many of us have
heard this heard of Surah al-Asr, right?
You guys heard that one before?
So it's the same effect, the wow of
Qasam, the wow of taking an oath by
something.
And this is done differently in Arabic than
it is in English.
When we take an oath in English, we
say, I swear, I swear.
The effect of that is actually to try
to convince the person that this is something
that is very heavy.
And I want you to believe me as
a result of this.
So he said, I swear to God, or
some people might say, I swear on my
mama, right?
Like I swear on my mama, that was
a foul.
You know, you heard that a lot in
the courts growing up.
So what the person's trying, it has nothing
actually to do with the object.
It has to do with what?
It has to do with the, I'm calling
you to believe in me.
Okay.
But the oaths in the Qur'an are
a little bit different because Allah Subh'anaHu
Wa Ta-A'la is not trying to,
of course not, beg or appeal to anybody
to believe in him.
What Allah Ta'ala is doing is he's
trying to actually direct your attention to the
weight and the substance of what he's taking
an oath by.
So for example, he swears by what?
Time.
Time.
You know, SubhanAllah.
Time, especially as you get older in life,
time is like this irreplaceable currency.
Asr refers to the time right before the
sun sets when you feel like you're losing
day.
Yes.
The part that's being squeezed out of the
day.
Like, you know how they say, like juice,
like it's being squeezed out of the day.
Like you're, when you're basically rushing to get
home to pray your Asr, right?
To do all of that before time runs
out.
You know, get your skincare routine on, you
know, do your meditations or whatever.
Get your thing before, go to the gym.
All of that, that time of the day,
you know, between like 8 a.m and
3 p.m, it feels like you have
all day.
Then between 3 p.m and 5 p
.m, you feel like it's 10 minutes.
That's awesome.
So Allah swears by that.
Again, not to sort of like demonstrate any
sort of need for people to believe.
No.
But this is so you and I understand
what?
That time is something of value, of weight,
of substance.
So Allah here is swearing by the Qur
'an.
But He's not swearing by it without describing
it.
He gives a beautiful description.
And this description ties into the whole beginning
of the Surah.
And we'll end here.
He says, وَالْقُرْآنِ الْمَجِيدِ He swears by the
Qur'an and He describes the Qur'an
with the word Majeed, which has a few
different meanings.
And we'll share those meanings in reference to
the Prophet ﷺ.
When you look at the Prophet ﷺ in
Mecca, what was the goal of the Quraysh,
of the people who were surrounding him at
that time?
Their goal was to what?
Number one, disenfranchise him, discredit him, to demean
him, to take away whatever.
Now, he was born into a lineage of
honor and respect.
But their job, their goal was to try
to discount him socially.
And so they would come at him ﷺ
and they would tell people, for example, that
he was, oh, he's just really well spoken.
He's a poet.
He'll convince you very quickly because he's really
good with his words.
Or they would say he's a soothsayer.
He can tell the future.
His prophecies, it's not actually divine.
He's just able to kind of predict what's
going to happen.
Or they would say straight up, he's just
a magician.
He's able to do some magic on people
and that's why they believe in him.
So all of the, now, a lot of
us, you know, we think about, oh, these
are kind of like petty.
If someone walked up to you and they're
like, you're a magician, you'd be like, you're
actually crazy.
Get away from me.
You wouldn't feel offended by that.
But I want you to imagine the weight
that the Prophet ﷺ is feeling in a
moment where his only job, his only responsibility
is to communicate a message that doesn't even
benefit him, by the way.
He's not getting commissioned per Muslim.
It's not like he gets a Muslim and
he makes 10 percent.
This job, you know, in English we have
a word for it.
It's a thankless job, meaning that there's no
way you can repay somebody for doing this.
This is why we say Allahumma salli ala
Sayyidina Muhammad.
There's no way you can ever repay the
Prophet ﷺ for the guidance that he received
and put forth and preserved so that we
might call ourselves Muslim, right?
So he does this and now realize that
these people are attacking him, not in the
same way that you and I would feel
it, but in a way where it really,
subhanAllah, gets under his skin.
They're taking a shot, not at him as
a person, but at the message he's delivering
and they're trying to discredit the message by
discrediting him ﷺ.
They're trying to dishonor him.
So it's interesting that Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, when he chooses the description of the
Quran, which is the message that the Prophet
has, peace be upon him, that Allah describes
it as the honored message, the noble one.
You will never be anything but noble.
You will never be anything but honored so
long as you hold on to the book
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And this is a message that lives with
us today.
You know, subhanAllah, if you talk about all
the micro, the macro, and in between aggressions
that Muslims experience, all the ways that Muslims
are made to feel other, all the ways,
and we could all go around the room.
I'm not trying to make this group therapy,
but we could all go around the room.
How many of you had a name growing
up that was just weird?
Anybody?
No one can outdo me, Abdurrahman.
Like Abdulrahman.
I love ramen, right?
Jinia.
Like, I used to get just destroyed, right?
And subhanAllah, this was the norm.
It was the norm.
If you were a Muslim kid, I was
just talking to my wife last night about
our kids and the school and we were
talking about, man, there's a really good public
school down the road from us, you know,
and it's not 30 minutes away.
And I just saw my mom's face.
She's like, you know, this is coming at
me.
SubhanAllah, this conversation and the number one thing
that I kept thinking of was, man, I
wonder what type of big identity issue is
going to be weighing heavily upon my son
or daughter if I put them in an
environment that weighs down on them, that makes
them feel like their other, right?
And subhanAllah, this is why we as Muslims,
when something comes out, we get excited.
I just got like a bunch of group
messages.
There was a screenshot from CNN.
Did you guys see this yesterday about alcohol?
Did you guys see?
I see some people nodding their heads because
Muslims were like low-key takbiring last night,
right?
That's not a pun because of beer, but
we were takbiring.
Why?
Because CNN put out an article literally saying,
literally, any amount of alcohol is poison.
And everyone's like, oh, my God.
And all the Muslims are like having our
Yemeni tea in Dallas.
We're like, oh, really, right?
Oh, really?
Tell me more that I didn't already know.
Tell me about the thing that I've been
saying as a Muslim when you were doing
thirsty Thursdays and bar crawls in college and
I told you I couldn't go and you
were like, why not, it's fun.
At least be our designated driver, right?
And I'm like, I'm not trying to drive
a bunch of shayateen in my car.
I'm trying to get home and go to
sleep.
And subhanAllah, those types of moments where you
were made to feel lower, where you were
made to feel like you weren't honorable, you
were not noble, you were weird, you were
strange, this and that, Allah says if you
hold on to the Quran, you will always
be a person who has majd.
You will be a person who has nobility,
who has honor.
You know, there are some things, subhanAllah, that
are fad, they're trendy.
You know, if you have them, you're in.
And as soon as they end, you're having
them, no longer makes you in.
You have to switch it up.
You have to switch it up, right?
The Quran is universally classic.
A person who has a relationship with Allah
will never ever lose on their nobility, on
their dignity, on their honor.
But the moment somebody tries to trade that
in for something, they've lost it.
Ibn Ata'illah, he says something, and I
want to finish here with a line that
he says that I think is so powerful.
He says, إذا أردت أن يكون لك عز
لا يفنع He says, if you want glory
that never vanishes, then he says, فلا تستعزنا
بعز يفنع Do not ever seek glory in
something that its glory disappears.
What he's saying here is what?
The only one whose glory never disappears is
Allah.
As long as you place your commitment to
Allah, then you will always be glorious.
You'll always be impressive.
You'll always be virtuous.
People will always wonder.
They'll always be curious.
You know, my neighbor, subhanAllah, he texted me,
and he goes, hey, Jason, I told you
guys.
He goes, hey, we're having, you know, some
people over.
We have like a DJ in my house.
And he goes, we might get a little
bit loud.
And he goes, I'm sorry.
I know that you guys are good people.
I'm sorry.
I know you guys are good people.
What's he saying?
Then because we don't drink, we don't party.
We do party, but not like that.
We don't drink.
We don't participate in those types of things.
He automatically is associating that with goodness.
He goes, I just want to apologize, Abdul,
because I'm having some people over, and I
know that y'all are good people.
We don't want to disturb you.
So if it gets too loud, he said,
just come over and knock on the door.
And I said, don't worry about it, man.
Be safe, right?
And I was trying not to basically endorse
the shenanigans, but, you know, I was doing
it in the best way possible.
But I thought to myself, how interesting that
how different we are, and he still says,
you guys are good people.
This is not because of me.
It's because of the mercy of Allah Ta
'ala.
So we ask Allah Ta'ala to give
us, inshallah, the izzah and the honor and
the glory of this deen that it's on
us.
As long as we stay connected to his
book, we ask Allah Ta'ala to make
us those people that our connection to this
book is that which is foundational and that
which gives us the ability to stay connected
to him.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to make us
those that are able to learn from the
Prophet peace be upon him, just like Umm
Hisham, and that we're able to learn whatever
the Prophet peace be upon him says.
We memorize it just like she did.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to make us
those that the Quran is not just the
thing that we read, but the thing that
we live, and the thing that gives us
that honor, that nobility, that dignity that Allah
Ta'ala swears by.
Jazakumullah khayran, Sheikh, for joining us.
Sorry that I rambled towards the end.
I didn't realize that it's just in one
minute, so I was going to try to
end and conclude, but we ask inshallah that
you join us more often inshallah here at
HeartWork.
BarakAllahu feekum, everybody.
Inshallah, Isha prayer is starting in just in
a minute, so if you want to head
over now, then we can do the chairs
after inshallah.
Jazakumullah khayran, wasalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
And there's no Q&A tonight because Isha
is starting inshallah, so we'll do Q&A
next time as well.
Salamu alaykum.