Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Qur’anic Reflections Living and Dying for Allah
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Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. May Allah subhanho wa
Taala bless our Ramadan's. Let us start with the verse of the Quran
or will there be him in a shape on your Raji maybe SMIL he Rahmani
Raheem? Ghul in solidarity you are no Sookie wanna hear Yahweh Murthy
little he'll be learned I mean, luxury caller who Ibiza he got me
to a one mostly mean.
This is a very very, very well known verse and lots of you must
have seen it quote, quote in many, many times. So this is a verse
from Surah Al Anon verse 160, to 163 of sorbitol, an island, where
Allah subhanho wa Taala says, say, oh Prophet call that verily,
indeed, my prayer, my sacrifice, my living and my dying are all for
Allah. So my prayer, so my devotion, my sacrifices that I
make no Sookie and my living and my dying are all for Allah, the
Lord of the Worlds.
He has no partner. And of this I have been commanded. And I am the
first of the Muslims. I am the first of Muslims. I'm the first of
submitters, very, very totalizing and very, very powerful verse
going to show essentially in brief going to show what this verse is
telling us is that every aspect of our life, everything about us
everything that we say everything that we do, needs to be for the
sake of Allah subhanaw taala meaning it needs to be infused
with the remembrance of Allah subhanaw taala. So to be infused
with the remembrance of Allah basically also means that
everything we do be in accordance to what Allah subhanaw taala wants
and what makes Allah subhanaw taala happy.
Well, if we could, if we could actually attain that before our
death, that would be amazing.
You know, that's always the pursuit and that's the goal. That
may Allah subhanaw taala make everything that we do just like
the way the Prophet sallallahu Sallam used to do it. Can you
imagine the profit and loss of life that when you read his Syrah,
when you read the Hadith, the Sunnah, you see that everything
that he was doing was for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala. And I
know that we have so much distraction, and that becomes
very, very difficult that how do we make sure we focus on
everything to be for the sake of Allah, I think one way we could
start is actually looking at the spirit of the Prophet salAllahu
alayhi wasallam and see how he did it. But you see, there's more to
that. It's the remembrance of Allah and all of these things that
will eventually have our heart attached to Allah subhanaw taala.
And if our heart can become attached to Allah subhanaw taala
then everything that we do in sha Allah will ensue from a position
of sincerity. One of the biggest things that we're challenged by
today is absence of sincerity. We get distracted by why we do
things, especially if we even end up managing to do good things. Why
are we doing them? Do I do this for name and fame? Do I do this to
teach people do I do this so that people can be inspired? Do I do
this so that I can gain something especially again, something
worldly? I mean, I'd like to gain something for the hereafter to
follow in the footsteps of the messenger Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The
Prophet sallallahu sallam said that the best of you is the one
who, who studies the Quran, who learns the Quran and who teaches
it. So may Allah subhanaw taala make this as part of that. But
while we're doing this, it's so easy to say that okay, you know,
you know, your reflections are very good, or I found a benefit in
there and then you start thinking that there's something that you
did, at the end of the day, it's all given by Allah subhana wa
Tada. And that's why we must return everything to Allah subhana
wa Tada. The fact that I'm able to even raise my hand and pray to
Allah subhanaw taala that comes from Allah, the fact that I'm able
to sit now and listen or do this, this comes from Allah subhanaw
taala the fact that we're believers, comes from Allah
subhanaw taala the fact that we're in this world comes from Allah
subhanaw taala. So
what is it, then that we can show off about what that we can
attribute to ourselves about? This is the what you can say the
humbling factor. So I tell people that when you're standing in front
of if you're if you're a good recycler and you're leading the
prayer, for example, or you're giving a darts or something, I
mean, just think about who you're doing this for who you're reading
this for, rather than the crowd because if you're reading good or
you're speaking well, the crowd is going to enjoy it anyway. You
don't have to even intend that. Just make something good for the
sake of Allah, and please Allah and people will be pleased anyway.
But your focus is not the people. But if your focus becomes the
people and you start to do things for them, then Allah subhanaw
taala is not pleased because Allah wants to be the one that you know
that we do everything for. He deserves it.
And he's entitled to it, but he deserves it as well. He, we owe
everything to him. So, let's look at this verse in a bit more
detail. Essentially what Allah subhanaw taala is saying here is
that the worship here in the Salah t when Nozaki this is basically
encompassing all forms of worship, worship essentially and devotion
is to do something to when Allah subhanaw taala pleasure to attain
Allah subhanaw taala is pleasure, but it has to be in line with his
command. There's many people who are very sincere in terms of their
approach that they want to do something for the deen, you know,
they want to do something for their faith, but they go the wrong
way about it shaytaan takes them over at this point, making them do
something wrong, and that's actually harmful and that's
antecedent to the faith.
Basically, you can say in other ways that everything that is done
in line with Allah's command, according to spiritual Sharia but
for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala, to please Him, that would
it confirmed conforms to the Sharia, then that's an act of
worship. That means that if one emulates an authentic sunnah, for
example, right in the hope of winning Allah's reward by that, so
you do something like the prophets of Allah, some did, even though
it's not obligatory, but you do it because you think that's the best
man who lived, he's the most beloved to Allah, and Allah
subhanaw taala had guided him to be a certain way to dress a
certain way to behave in a certain way and to do things in a certain
way. So I want to do it according to his way, right, as long as a
circumstance allows, right, then I should be rewarded for that. I
should be rewarded. And that should also please Allah subhanaw
taala.
Because if that sentiment is not there, then even if you if you
actually do a good deed, but you don't have that sentiment to do it
for the sake of Allah, then it is devoid. It's not worship, it's not
devotion. So if I'm praying literally just to show others that
I'm praying, and I don't want to be praying, I'm only showing my
parents that I'm praying, or I'm showing somebody around me that I
pray or that I fast, but I don't really want to do it, then I get
no reward for that. That's why the Atmel and the deeds are sewer
their forms. What's really important in there is the spirit
and the emotion that that comes in there.
Subhanallah so why was this verse revealed? I mean, one of the
purposes of this verse is that during humanity's decline, and the
ignorance and Joe Hillier, across the world before Islam came, you
know, because the world had been without a prophet for, you know,
over 550 years, because between the prophets, Prophet Sid salaams
time and the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam is about 570
years or so. And there was no prophets in between, it was the
time of the cessation of prophecy. So a lot of policies and bad
Krypton, a lot of superstitions had crept in, right, and lots of
false beliefs in false deities. So what that eventually led to is not
just a belief, but actually to then show devotion to these false
deities, idols, stones, objects, right, this is what happens when
there's no revitalization of the faith, people mess up, and they
degenerate into this way. A lot of people actually what they had is
two compartments in their life that two facets in their life they
had, what they would do is, I mean, for example, the Christian
faith, for example, what they did was, they allowed many, many
things, they, they basically disregarded many issues in the
Bible, for example, dietary requirements, right? That doesn't
apply to them. Right, even though swine is considered to be, you
know, wrong, and swine is considered to be blameworthy and
problematic in the, you know, in the testament, right? However,
they've decided, I think, as the third century or so that we will
not have any dietary requirements. So they've done a lot of chop and
changes like that, and being very selective in what they do. So
essentially, you got two compartments in your life. And
essentially, that's where you get this idea of the holy and the
secular. So you've got a holy aspect, and you've got a secular
aspect, whereas in Islam, it's all holy, you know, it's all related
to Allah subhanaw taala, even the what others would term a secular,
there's a way to make that religion and make that a source
of, you know, a source of devotion to Allah subhanaw taala. And you
get the saying, from there, which says, one should give unto God
what is his unto Caesar? What is his, you know, this takes us back
to the Roman, the Roman era, you know, the Greeks before that, it
was full of mythologies. I mean, the Greek Empire was, was eclipsed
I mean, I've been to I've been to Greece, I've been to Athens, I've
been to Delphi just to get an idea of what is it that drove these
people you know, having this whole you know, soap opera, like idea of
Gods you know, that we're doing these crazy and strange things,
you know, with one another and their fights and arguments and you
know, the challenges to one another, and Subhanallah just
wondering like, how did it impact such a civilization that is
considered to be such a great civilization. Anyway, the Greek
civilization was
eclipsed by the Roman civilization. That's why you see,
even in Greece, you see a number of Roman, a lot of Roman heritage,
following the period of Greek heritage. I mean, and then you see
the Romans pretty much throughout the world. I mean, you go into so
many different countries, North Africa, Carthage, you go to
Morocco, you go to the UK, you go to many other places, you see
Roman, you know, you see a lot of Roman, you know, a lot of Roman
remnants of many of their buildings and empty theaters and,
and, and temples and all of these other things. There was a lot of
mythology there, though, right? And eventually, many of the face
even the true face, that is the kind of direction that they went
into that there was superstition. There was there was superstition,
they were wrong things like this. So
that's why what Allah subhanaw taala is telling us through the
prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam this person and what Allah
commands are so awesome to do is that every aspect of you needs to
be for your faith, everything, even to be honest, even when a
person goes to relieve themselves, if they read the DUA, right? Allah
Khomeini will be coming. Hopefully we'll have a if. Right? And they
go and they relieve themselves in the proper way not facing the
Qibla for example, which is the command right not back towards the
cupola, that's another command that we have.
Making sure we do is the bra. Right sitting down and doing it
making sure there's no splashes doing is the bra is the Brahmins,
you know, ascertaining that we've everything has basically we've
been relieved completely, and we're not going to have any drops
afterwards. Right, you know, minus OCD issues. I mean, that's a
separate topic. And then after washing up and cleansing oneself
coming out and seeking forgiveness from Allah subhanaw taala, for
having had to spend that time without any remembrance, and
thanking Allah subhanaw taala for removing the dirt from our body
and relieving us that whole act there, even though it's such a
mundane act, unnecessary act that we have to do, we're going to be
rewarded if we had intended to do it in the way of the Sunnah and
follow the Sunnah procedure. Now we know this, we know about this,
for when you eat, when you drink milk that the Prophet sallallahu
Sallam has, don't ask for all of this as very specific dua even for
when drinking milk. So even the act of drinking milk milk is such
a wholesome food, it's a fitrah, right? It's the natural food. And
that's why there's even a dua for that, right? A Baraka you do to
our Baraka, Allah bless us in this. When we do this, when we
finish eating, we think about Allah subhanaw taala every aspect
of ours, I mean, you know, the did used to say at that time and the
prophets lie, Selim that, you know, the prophet teaches
everything, including how to relieve oneself. And that's an
absolute truth because Islam is totalizing, it doesn't want any
superstitions to come in. And remember, one thing is that when
you don't do something, according to the deen, when you do something
against it, rather than what you've done is that you just
implemented a bidder. And whenever you implement an innovation, and
innovation just means anything that is contrary to the faith and
disregard. I'm not talking about the proper technical definition.
But I mean, this is probably worse than that. Then what you've done
is you've replaced the Sunnah for the wrong way. And that's the
problem. And that's where a lot of people when they have this
attitude that oh, what difference does it make us a little issue
here and there? Look, we're not all perfect, right? And we we
definitely struggle, we can't all it's very difficult for us to be
the life like the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
that's not easy. I mean, the road is awesome. Life was just so
balanced, so perfect. So in tune, such equilibrium and perfection,
that's going to be difficult, but we try to get as close as possible
to the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam, and we ask Allah subhana wa
Taala for help. And when we make a mistake, we seek forgiveness,
right? There's a lot of things that I would like to do that I
can't do Allah subhanaw taala forgive us for that, that I do in
a different way. The religion saying that you have to do
everything for the sake of Allah, a lot of people get frightened.
And they think that when you have to do everything for the sake of
Allah, it must be very, very tough. And it must be very, very
complicated and it must be very, very challenging. And that's not
true. The Deen in our religion, in our Sharia, we have certain
criteria, we have certain junction we have certain principles, and we
have certain boundaries, and we have certain limits. As long as
you're within that there's a lot of scope. So for example, Allah
subhanaw taala has allowed us to dress right in any way we want, as
long as we follow the specific boundaries, and we don't go
overboard and we don't do it for extravagance, otherwise, there's
so many things that one can wear, right as long as it doesn't
contribute any principles.
Likewise,
Allah subhanaw taala has allowed us to eat pretty much he's already
Lokomotiva that Allah subhanaw taala has made all good things
permissible. There's certain boundaries though, animals have to
be stroked in a particular way. And when we're living in a non
Muslim country, it is difficult sometimes to find halal meat and
it is difficult to find
Sometimes halal foods, but that's just, you know, based on our
circumstance, I mean, we could change the circumstance. I mean,
if that's a possibility, I mean, if it's so difficult, we can
change our circumstance. But yeah, there will be difficulties. But
Inshallah, I mean, as they have in England, if they can strengthen in
many of the other countries of the world, non Muslim countries in the
world,
if you can strengthen the meat industry and the Halal industry,
the way they have in the UK, the way the Jewish people have done in
the US, for example, when main mainstream products, even though
Jews are such a minority, they've managed to certify ultra orthodox,
you know, kosher products, is just requires effort to get to those
levels. And the other thing is that we don't want to become like,
other faiths, where for them the faith is, as I was saying earlier,
the faith is just something that they do once a week, for example
of Christianity, they go to church once a week. And you know, when
you speak to many of our Christian friends, we see that that's pretty
much their faith for them. Right? That's what they do. They don't
really think about it in terms of the way they dress, in terms of
the way they interact with one another necessarily all the time.
I mean, in some cases, there's some there's definitely some
ethics in there, the 10 commandments and so on. They try
to observe that these the observant ones, right, but in
terms of many of the other things, it's pretty much just the devotion
for one day of the week. Whereas for Islam in Islam, it's five
times a day that we're remembering Allah subhanaw taala we're told to
remember Allah subhanaw taala. So our prayer becomes for him, and
we're told to remember Allah subhanho wa Taala several times a
day, right? Let's not just in the prayer, that's just the formal
worship that we do, but we're told to remember Allah subhanho wa
Taala as much as possible throughout the day, so that Allah
subhanaw taala then praises those people and He glorifies those
people meaning he shows them to be the, the archetype that should be
followed this livina years kurunegala piano workers who don't
wanna you know, be Him, those who remember Allah subhanaw taala,
standing, sitting and on their sides, so may Allah subhanaw taala
make it such that we can also declare like the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam did that in the Salah, it will no
Sookie mama, he is a woman, Marathi lillahi, rabbil aalameen
The very my prayer, my sacrifice, my entire living and my dying. So
when I die, I want to die in a state that I'm pleased with Allah
and Allah is pleased with me that I'm observant of him and that I'm
satisfied with him and I gain my peace and tranquility through
Allah. That's how I want to die in May Allah subhanaw taala make our
deaths like that. If we make this die in Ramadan, we ask Allah
subhanaw taala he accept these days of Ramadan? And then we
affirm our faith and say that there is no partner to Allah
subhanaw taala and then we'll be that he got omitted and the reason
I do it is because this is what I've been commanded to do anyway,
and I want to be one of the first submitters in this regard. Just
like Allah here may Allah subhanaw taala bless everyone, please
please remember us all in your doors, and our families in your
doors and the entire domain in your doors. May Allah subhanaw
taala relieve the problems and sufferings of this world. Allah
bless you all, just ask Allah here AsSalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi
Wabarakatuh the point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to
get further an inspiration and encouragement, persuasion. The
next step is to actually start learning seriously to read books
to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of
Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan
courses so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand
whenever you have free time, especially for example, the
Islamic essentials course that we have on there, the Islamic
essentials certificate which you take 20 Short modules and at the
end of the inshallah you will have gotten the basics of most of the
most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more confident.
You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue to live,
you know to listen to lectures, but you need to have this more
sustained study as well. JazakAllah Heron salaam aleikum wa
rahmatullah wa barakato.