Ahsan Hanif – Quran Tafseer – Page 112 – The Consequences Of Defying Allahs Commands
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Tafseer page by page. InshaAllah ta'ala today we
are on page 112 which is in the
6th Jews of the Quran Surah Al Maidah.
In the previous episode, we began the story
of 1 of the events that took place
in the time of Musa Alaihi Salat wa
Salam.
And this is the story as we said
that takes place towards the very end of
the life of the prophet Musa alaihi salatu
wassalam. And that is after
he and Bani Israel
have been saved from pharaoh and his armies.
And they are now going towards the promised
land, the holy land
which is
and when they arrive towards that land and
they're towards its and
they're towards
the outskirts of that land. Musa Alaihi Salam
gathers by Israel and he addresses them. And
he reminds them of Allah's favors and Allah's
blessings. And he reminds them that Allah
appointed amongst them prophets and appointed amongst them
kings. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala favored them
amongst much of his creation subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He then tells them that now they are
there
ready to take the promise of Allah Azza
wa Jal. But in order to do so,
they must enter into the city. The problem
is that in the city at that time,
Baitul Maqdis, are a group of people that
Allah Azza wa Jal says are described as
Qom and Jabbarin,
a people known for their ferociousness,
fearsome,
violent
oppressors.
And so in order for this, for the
people of Bani Israel to go and settle
there, they must
first fight, overcome and expel these people from
the city. And that is when Bani Israel,
the vast majority of them say that we
don't want to go and do that. Even
though Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala had just given
them 1 of his greatest blessings and that
is that he showed them his power and
his protection Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for them by
saving them from pharaoh and his armies which
were greater
and bigger and more, and more, more to
be feared.
But despite that Allah azza wa jal drowned
them without bani Israel having to lift a
finger or draw a sword. And now they're
being told go and fight these people who
are not like pharaoh and his people and
Allah helped you in the first instance, so
I wouldn't help you in the second 1.
And yet despite this, they said no, we
don't want to go and fight. Even though
amongst them there were people who reminded them
and said to them that all you have
to do is take their initial step. Go
into the city and Allah will bless you
with regards to the rest.
So this is where we pick up the
story now and today we begin from verse
number 24 and that is the statement of
Allah
they said oh Musa we will never enter
whilst they are still there. So you and
your Lord go in and fight and we
will stay here.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gives to us this
statement of many Israel.
That after the reminders, after the encouragement, after
they were told that all you have to
do is make a small effort, take the
first steps, and Allah will help you with
the rest in terms of victory. They turned
back and they said, we will never go
in. We will never enter that city so
long as those people are there. If you
expound them, they leave, we'll enter. But whilst
they're there, we will not be the ones
to go and force them out. Faith had
untawar books. So they said addressing Musa Alaihi
Salam
in, in in in this manner,
very audacious manner. They said, you and your
lord go and fight. You and your god
go and fight, we wait for you here.
Meaning, you go and fight and deal with
this issue and we will wait for you
here.
And here we see the contrast between the
people of Musa Alaihi Salam on the 1
hand and on the other hand the companions
of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam because a
similar incident took place with the prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam during his lifetime. And that is
when the Muslims were coming towards the battle
of Badr.
Because the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam before the
battle of Badham, when the Muslims migrated from
Mecca to Medina, the understanding between the Prophet
salallahu alaihi wasallam and the Ansar of Madina
is that they would give asylum to the
Muslims
inside the city of Madina.
If someone comes and attacks the Muslims in
Madina, the Ansar would defend them because they're
in their city, it's their homes. But there
was nothing said explicitly about fighting outside of
Medina,
going outside and waging war. But now the
battle of Badr is outside of the boundaries
of Madina. It's it's miles and miles away.
So at the time of Badr, the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam gathered the companions.
And he wanted them and he asked them
for their advice.
And so the companions from amongst the Mahajirun,
the Meccans who had migrated to Madina, they
began to speak it up for their advice.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam would
hear them, he would thank them, he would
sit them down and then he would ask
again, give me some advice.
Give me your advice, your opinions.
And this happened a number of times until
1 of the companions of the ansar stood
up and he said, oh messenger of Allah,
I think that you want to hear from
us, the ansar. Because all of these are
speaking and you're telling them, thank you, sit
down, give me more advice. I think you
want us to speak, the people of Madinah.
And the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam said yes.
So that man said, go, oh messenger of
Allah, forth and fight for we will be
with you. We will not say as the
people of Musa said to Musa, you and
your Lord go and fight and we will
wait here. Rather we will say to you,
you and your Lord go and fight and
we will fight alongside you. And the prophet
became extremely happy at that statement and that
is obviously then we know what happens in
the rest of that story at the battle
of Badr. So Allah
shows here that the people of Beni Israel
despite the many blessings of Allah upon them
and the many favours that he bestowed upon
them
when he came to the crunch, when he
came to that time and this is the
prophecy that they've been waiting for. This is
the holy land that they're meant to enter.
This is the place that they have been
promised.
However, when it came to that time, they
refused to do what Allah Azzawajal
commanded. So in verse 25, Allah Azzawajal tells
us what Musa Alaihi Salam said then to
Allah Azzawajal. Allah
Azzawajal says
He said, oh my lord, I have authority
over no 1 except myself and my brother.
Judge between the 2 of us and those
disobedient people. So Musa Alaihi Salam turns to
Allah azza wa Jal and he says, oh
Allah, I can't control them. I can't force
them. All that I have the ability to
do is to command myself and my brother
meaning Harun alayhi salaam.
As for these people, if they don't agree,
they don't listen. And that is why all
of the prophets of Allah, when they came
to their people, they couldn't force them. If
you look at the stories of Nuhan, Hud,
and Salihan, Shoaib, and Noot, they don't force
their people. They can't force them to physically
believe and take iman or to physically follow
the commands of Allah azza wa Jal. They
call them. They are sent as reminders,
as messengers, as warnings, as givers of good
news and glad tidings. And so Musa Alaihi
Salam says, oh Allah, they are refusing to
obey
and refusing to listen. So Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala decrees for them a punishment that is
mentioned in verse 26.
Allah said the land is forbidden to them
for 40 years. They will wander the earth
aimlessly. Do not grieve over those who disobey.
So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala punished many Israel
and he decree that they would for 40
years wander the desert. These are known as
the lost years.
They wandered or the wilderness years, they wandered
the desert, not able to find or go
back to
and not able to enter it for 40
years. Allah commanded that they would be in
the state
of just surviving and not really having anything
in terms of being able to achieve any
of their goals. And so this would be
their state. For 40 years they would be
in a state of a lack of contentment,
a lack of stability,
a lack of of being able to settle
in a place wondering for 40 years that
Allah decreed as a result of their disobedience
that they would not be able to enter
into the promised land and it is during
that time those 40 years that the prophet
Musa Alaihi Salam
passed away. So Musa Alaihi Salam passes away
whilst they're in that period of the 40
years.
And this is how Allah
punish them for their disobedience of him subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And that is the end of
the story that Allah mentions to us. And
again, it is about a covenant that Allah
takes with people about a certain command that
they must fulfill. And if they refuse to
do so, then Allah punishes them either in
this life or in the next.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala now goes on to
another story which is also a very important
story and that is the story of the
2 sons of Adam alayhi salaam, Abel and
Cain.
And this is the story of his 2
sons and what takes place between them because
of their personal rivalry and animosity.
Allah is wa jat houses in verse 27.
And tell them the truth about the story
of Adam's 2 sons.
Each 1 of them offered a sacrifice and
it was accepted from 1 and not the
other. 1 said I will kill you but
the other said Allah only accepts the sacrifice
of those who are mindful of him. Allah
azza wa ta'ala here relates to us the
story of the 2 sons of Adam and
this is the story of the first murder
that will take place upon the face of
the earth. Adam alaihis salam is the father
of mankind and he had many children that
Allah has bestowed upon him. From amongst them
are these 2 sons.
They are known in biblical terms as Abel
and Cain. These 2 sons of Adam Alaihi
Salatu Wasallam
had a rivalry
between themselves.
And Allah ajawajal as he often does in
the Quran doesn't give us every single detail
concerning every single story. And that is because
the Quran
wants us to understand the principle,
the goal and objective of the story as
opposed to becoming distracted
by an overwhelming amount of detail. So we're
not told what the dispute was or over
what they disagreed. We're simply told that the
2 of them disagreed,
that they were both told to offer a
sacrifice to slaughter an animal.
And 1 was accepted by Allah and the
other 1 was not accepted by Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
And there are many different narrations you will
find in the books of tafsir as to
why they were having this dispute or what
it is that they were trying to do
in terms of offering the sacrifice, what it
is that they were trying to do. But
either way, they were told to offer a
sacrifice
for a thing that they were meant to
or they both wanted to achieve
And they were told that the sign
of the 1
who would be accepted in this issue is
that the sacrifice would be accepted. In the
olden days,
meaning before the time of the Prophet salallahu
alaihi wasalam, if Allah wanted to accept someone's
sacrifice,
a fire would come down and it would
consume it.
And that would be a sign that it
is accepted by Allah
And if nothing was consumed, it was left
there, it was a sign that Allah did
not accept that. That's not something that we
have obviously in our sharia of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam but it is something
that you will find in the past nations.
And so both of the sons of Adam
alaihi wasallam are told to offer a sacrifice.
Whoever sacrifice is chosen by Allah azza wa
jal, that is the person that Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala has accepted this deed from them
and they will get what it is that
they wanted to achieve.
So they both offer a sacrifice.
It is said in some narrations
that 1 of the sons, the 1 whose
sacrifice was accepted,
he looked for the best of what he
could find in terms of offering a sacrifice
and he gave it for the sake of
Allah azza wa jal and the other 1
found something which wasn't really worthy of being
sacrificed,
but he thought to himself, it's okay. It's
just a sacrifice. It's like something which I
have to do. And so he gave that
in the sight of Allah Azawajal. So Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala accepted the sacrifice of the
first 1, the 1 who gave something good
in the way of Allah Azawajal,
and he didn't accept the 1 of the
other.
When this happened, the son who sacrifice is
not accepted becomes extremely angry.
And this causes enmity between him and his
brother, causes him to have ill feelings towards
him. And that is something which can happen
between close family members. We see it around
us all the time,
between parents and children, between siblings amongst 1
another, between close family members, uncles and aunts
and nephews and niece, happens all the time.
And that is something which the Sharia tells
us to be mindful of because Shaitan likes
to come and he likes to plant the
seeds of discord and enmity and hatred, envy
and jealousy between people and their families. It
is 1 of the traps of Shaitan.
And so here, this is what takes place.
He has this within him. And doesn't Allah
Azza wa Jal tell us in the story
of Yusuf Alaihi Salam how a group of
brothers
that are all from the same parents or
have the same, share the same father, all
of a sudden 1 of them becomes someone
that the rest are envious of. And because
of that, it leads them to extreme
in what they're willing to do. As was
in the case of Yusuf alaihi salatu was
salam as we will see when we come
to that particular surah. But here we see
also a level of extreme.
He says to his brother, laktulanak,
I will kill you for this.
Now is it the brother's fault that Allah
accepted 1 and not the other? Is it
the brothers doing that the other 1 didn't
give a good enough sacrifice or he wasn't
sincere enough in his deeds and in his
intentions?
But this is the way shaitan
has people think
that its not me, no 1 looks at
themselves, they look at others, blame others, shift
the blame to someone else is easier to
deal with. So I will kill you. He
responds and
he
says,
Allah only accepts the deeds of the people
of Taqwa, the people who are conscious of
Allah, mindful of Allah azza wa Jal, the
people who know that Allah azza wa jal
is all aware, all watching, all seeing, all
hearing, all knowing subhanahu wa ta'ala. Those are
the people that Allah azza wa jal accepts
their deeds from them. And this is an
important principle in our religion that in order
for your deed to be accepted by Allah,
you must be a person of taqwa, which
means that you have sincerity of Allah, that
you're performing direction in the best possible of
best of ways that is possible according to
the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So this is what he says to him.
1 says I will kill you, the other
1 says Allah accepts the deeds of those
who are good or those who have piety.
In verse 28 Allah then says
that the son who is now being threatened
with murder. He continues to say,
If you raise your hand to kill me,
I will not raise mine to kill you
for I fear Allah the Lord of the
worlds. He continues the son whose sacrifice was
accepted
is now being threatened by his brother that
he is going to be killed. He says
to him that even if you outstretch your
hand to harm
me, you do something to harm me, I
will not do the same to you. I
won't be the 1 to oppress.
If you oppress me,
I will not be the oppressor.
For indeed I fear Allah
and look at the difference between the 2
brothers.
1 is someone who fears Allah azza wa
jal, is mindful of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
mindful of Allah when he gave the sacrifice
so Allah accepted from him and now mindful
of Allah when he is being threatened
or he is under
the threat of being killed and he is
being oppressed. He's mindful of Allah
and he doesn't want to do anything that
will in any way
make him responsible before Allah for harming another
person. And that's something which we need to
understand in our community
and in many of our relationships that we
have. Don't be the 1
who is the oppressor.
If others oppress you, know that Allah will
reward you for that oppression and Allah will
give you justice either in this life or
the next. But to be the oppressor means
that Allah will exact revenge upon you, that
Allah will take from your good deeds, or
that Allah will place upon you the sins
of others. And that is what something which
any 1 of us can can bear. And
that is why the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
when he was asked about those people that
are in a similar situation to this 1,
he said be the better of the 2
sons of Adam. Be the better of the
2 sons of Adam. Even if it means
that you die as happened in the case
of the story of this particular son of
Adam alayhi salam. But Allah praises
him here even though it meant that he
forfeited his life because he was looking for
a greater reward. And that is the reward
of the akhirah.
If you harm me, I will not harm
you.
For I am constantly aware of Allah and
fear him subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And then he continues in verse 29 and
he says
And I would rather you were burdened with
my sins as well as yours and became
an inhabitant of the fire such as the
evildoers reward. So he says to his brother
that by killing me and the roni are
you going to be oppressing me, you will
take my burden of sins from me as
well. Because that is how Allah writes the
oppression between people. The prophet told us salallahu
alaihi wasalam in the hadith who is the
bankrupt 1 amongst you? They said, oh messenger
of Allah, the bankrupt 1 is the 1
who has neither money.
The bankrupt 1 is the 1 who has
neither dinar nor dirham. Doesn't have any gold
to his name. Doesn't have any silver to
his name. Doesn't own anything. That is the
person that we consider to be bankrupt. In
our understanding of the word bankruptcy,
someone who is destitute is someone doesn't have
any money. That's what we understand. The prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam said rather the 1 who
will be truly destitute,
bankrupt
is the 1 who will come on Yomul
Qiyam at the day of judgement
with salah
and zakah
and fasting and all of these mountains of
good deeds. But at the same time, he
came,
having struck someone else, hit them,
having sworn at someone else and cursed them,
having oppressed others.
So Allah
will take from these good deeds and He
will give to those people that he oppressed.
And if his good deeds finish and those
people are still coming demanding their rights, then
Allah will take from their sins
and he will place it upon this man
and then he will be thrown into the
fire.
That is the 1 who is destitute.
You come with so many good deeds. You're
fasting Ramadan. You're praying 5 times a day.
You're giving your Zakah. You're showing good character
towards your parents. You're hospitable towards others. You're
doing more of this mountain of good, but
at the same time, you're doing so much
evil as well because there's other people that
you're oppressing. There's other people that you're cursing.
You're backbiting. You're spreading rumors. You're doing so
much harm to others. So now you have
good deeds and you have bad deeds. But
the problem is that the good deeds that
you did are between you and Allah azza
wa jal. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala if
you sin against him, Allah is Qafoorul Raheem.
Allah is after forgiving and Most Merciful. You
make tawba Allah forgives.
But if you harm others, then from the
conditions of that tawba is that you have
to seek their forgiveness also. It's not just
about forgiving, forgiveness from Allah
Those people have rights
that you took their rights from them. So
now those people have a right upon you.
And if they don't forgive you in this
life, you don't apologize to them, you don't
right those wrongs here,
no 1 will be in a forgiving mood
because everyone needs good deeds. Everyone needs their
sins to leave them. So who is going
to sacrifice their possibility of entering into Jannah
and therefore going into the fire because of
some type of act of graciousness?
And so that is why it is so
dangerous.
That is why the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam used to say that if you have
an oppression that you've committed against someone, then
deal with it in this life before you
come on a day in which there will
be no bargaining. No 1 will ask for
you, won't want your money. There'll be nothing
that you can give, nothing that you can
barter with on that day except your good
deeds. And it will mean that you have
to give your good deeds away in order
for those oppressions to be righted. And so
here Allah ahsawwala is saying, oh, in the
hadith of the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he
is saying that those people who do evil,
Allah
will give those good deeds away to those
people. They're just getting good deeds. And that
is why al Hasan al Basri
has reported
that someone used to backbite him.
And so he sent him a gift.
Someone's backbite him, spreading rumors, speaking evil about
him. He sends him a gift. He was
he was the man asked him, why did
you send me a gift?
He said I'm not able to do what
you did. I can't give my good deeds
away the way that you're giving your good
deeds away. So I thought at the very
least I should give you some other type
of gift. Your gift is greater. You're giving
me your hasanat, your good deeds, all of
your worship. I am not in a position
to do that with you. So I thought
I would give you a different type of
gift.
And so look at the way that the
salaf, alayim Rahmatullah, used to understand these these
issues and how conscious and mindful they were
of them and their danger.
And so here Allah is saying that the
son of Adam was going to be oppressed
and killed. He's saying to his brother, by
killing me,
you will also take my burden of sins.
And if that's something which you want to
do, then that's something which is good. No
1 wants their sins on your maqiyama. No
1 wants to come on the day of
judgement with that burden
of sins and misdeeds and evil.
So if you're going to do this, you're
going to take it and then you will
be from the people of the fire and
that is what Allah decrees
for those people
who do evil.
In verse number 30, Allah then
tells us the outcome of this story and
what happened.
Allah says
But his soul prompted him to kill his
brother, he killed him and he became from
the losers.
So he kills him. Despite these admonitions, warnings,
reminders,
Shaitan overcomes him, his soul overcomes him, his
jealousy overcomes him, his anger and he goes
and he kills him. And so he becomes
the first person ever to kill someone on
the face of the earth. And that is
why the prophet told us, salallahu alaihi was
salam in the hadith of Abu Abdul Abi
Mus'ud radiAllahu anil al Bukharir al Muslim. He
said that no 1 commits murder except that
a portion of that sin
will go back to that son of Adam.
Because he was the first 1.
He was the first 1 who started his
practice of murder and that's a principle as
we know in our religion that if you
do something good and you start a good
practice and people follow you in it, then
you get the share of that reward. And
if you start an evil practice and people
follow you in it, you get a share
of their sin. And so this son of
Adam, because of what he did, he gets
a share of that sin as the prophet
told us, salallahu alayhi wasallam. And can you
imagine how many people are murdered?
How many people are killed unjustly?
You just need to look at the statistics
around us, in our country, in other countries
in the world and just in 1 year
how much murder and killing is committed. Let
alone in 2 years, 10 years, 50, 100
or 1000 of years from the time of
Adam alaihi salatu wa sallam. And it shows
to you the gravity of sin
and how sometimes we do something without thinking
of the and
its repercussions in our life and we just
think about the immediate or temporary gain. And
so Allah says that he ended up killing
him. Allah
says in verse 31 concluding this story,
Allah sent a raven
to scratch up the ground and show him
how to cover his brother's corpse and he
said, woe to me, Could I not have
been like this raven and covered up my
brother's body? He became remorseful.
So now that he's killed his brother, he
doesn't know what to do with the body.
How do you dispose of this body? Because
remember, this is the very beginning of creation.
This is Adam alaihis salaam and his children.
This is 1 of the first times or
if not the first time that someone has
died. What do we do with the body?
Now that it has passed away, left this
world. The soul has left this world, what
do we do with the body? So Allah
sent for him the sign of a raven
that came and he began to dig up
the ground. It is said that there was
2 ravens. 1 of the birds died and
the other 1 was living and so it
was pecking in the ground in order to
dig in it so that he could place
its fellow raven in there. And so when
the son of Adam alaihis salam saw this,
he realized that this was how they should
bury their dead. And so he dug a
grave and then that is how they were
buried and that becomes the sunnah from that
time all the way until our time in
the Sharia of the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam.
That the Muslim is buried. It's not allowed
to cremate
the Muslim or dispose of the body in
any other way. The body must be buried.
That is the practice of the Muslims and
the sunnah of the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam.
And so then he has remorse, the son
of Adam and he says, woe to me,
I can't even be like this bird. This
raven knows better than I do in terms
of how to dispose of a body and
how to cover up that body.
He became from the remorseful, meaning he became
from those people who became
remorseful. And Allah knows best as to whether
he made Tawba and turned back to Allah
or he didn't. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala knows
best. It was not mentioned in the story.
And so that is something from the affairs
of the Nsine that only
Allah knows. But this story
shows to us the gravity of sin, the
gravity of especially oppression
when it comes to things like murder or
taking people's wealth or attacking their honor. These
are all forms of major oppression. And a
person should be very careful and mindful about
these issues because at the very least, even
if nothing happens in this world, meaning that
they don't go overboard and do something crazy
and drastic, Allah
will remember that oppression and it will be
accounted for
and the counting on the day of judgement
in this way is that you give off
your good sins or you give off your
good deeds and you take upon yourself the
sins of others. And with that we come
to the conclusion of today's episode.