Ahsan Hanif – Quran Tafseer – Page 116 – Divine Guidance And Judgement
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Juz, Surat Al Maida.
In the previous
episode, we mentioned those verses which Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala spoke about the importance of judging
and ruling by that which Allah has revealed
by the sharia of Allah
And that was something that applied to each
and every single nation at that time That
Allah revealed
to them of revelation of laws of commandments
through their prophets and messengers, they should rule
according to that. And those who reject or
deny the revelations of Allah azza wa jal
then that is a form of kufr and
disbelief and those people are in a very
dangerous situation.
As for those people who accept them, the
rules of Allah but then because of some
type
of laziness or desires or whatever it may
be some weakness of Iman, They don't follow
the rules of Allah Those people have committed
a major sin, but they are still Muslims.
And we still consider them to be our
brothers in faith.
In today's episode, we continue with that same
theme or that same subject that Allah is
still speaking about. How Allah is comparing
the way of the people of the book
when Allah revealed
revelations to them, gave them commands,
they distorted and changed and manipulated some of
those rules of Allah
deciding to rule by other than that which
Allah
had legislated upon them. And so Allah
is still speaking about this issue as also
a lesson for us as the Muslims as
well. Allah
says in verse 46 from where we begin
today.
We sent Risa, the son of Mariam, in
their footsteps to confirm the Torah that had
been sent before him. We gave him the
gospel,
the
with guidance, light, and confirmation of the Torah
already revealed.
A guide and lesson for those who take
heed of Allah
Allah says that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent
the prophets in succession and some of those
prophets came with
generally speaking, the message or the command of
the prophet that came before. And what they
did then is that they changed
some of the laws. Allah allowed them to
change some of the laws or reveal to
them certain laws and amendments
concerning that which was revealed to those who
came before. So an example of this is
the 2 prophets and messengers, Musa and
Musa Alaihi Salam, Allah
sent to Bani Israel
and he revealed to him the Torah.
And that is what the bani Bani Israel
wrote according to. When Allah then
sent
to Islam, he gave to him the Injeel.
The Injeel we call the gospel.
And the gospel or the Injeel that was
given
in it had some changes to the laws
of the Torah where Allah made certain things
easier for the people who followed Isa alaihi
salatu or salam. And that is why the
Christians
accept both the Old Testament and the New
Testament, and together they call them the bible.
And so they accept both of them. And
they know that the New Testament came with
certain changes from the Old Testament. Whereas the
Jews don't accept the New Testament. They don't
accept the Injeel because they don't believe that
Risa alaihi salatu wasalam was a prophet or
messenger of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The point
here is that Allah says that we sent
out in their footsteps, meaning the prophets who
came before him, Risa alaihi salatu salam, the
son of Mariam alaihi salam.
To confirm the Torah
that had been sent before him. Meaning, there
is confirming
what Allah already sent in the Torah in
his general sense. In terms of belief, the
belief that Allah
should be worshiped alone. The of Allah and
the issues of faith and that we know
what a part of our religion, the rule
of the prophets and messengers came with as
a single message because all of the prophets
and messengers of Allah
agreed
on the central theme and issue of
the and his worship alone. And then Allah
subhanahu ta'ala also sent within the Injeel, Teresa
amendments and changes to some of the laws
laws that were already there in the Torah.
And that is what Allah says,
And we sent to him the gospel
in which there is guidance and light. And
every single revelation of Allah in its original
form, in the manner that it was sent
to the prophets and messengers, all of them
contain guidance and light for those people at
that time. That is the general
characteristic and attribute of Allah's revelation.
That it is all guidance, that it is
all light, that it is all a mercy
for the people that it was sent to.
And so all of Allah's revelation is good
and all of Allah's revelation are his words
and his speech subhanahu wa ta'ala. However, as
we know, most of those revelations were changed
and distorted over time and that is why
from the miraculous nature of the Quran is
that Allah preserved it and from its preservation
is as we see today that millions of
Muslims across the world have memorized the Quran
and have continued to memorize it from generation
to generation. And that is one of the
means by which it is preserved. So that
a person today in the UK can't come
up with something new from the Quran. They
can't just add or move or remove verses
from the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
because there would be so many Muslims around
that would say to them, no. That's wrong.
That's incorrect. You missed out a verse or
you added a verse or we don't recognize
that verse. And not only in the UK,
but in France and in Germany and the
United States and Canada, let alone the the
rest of the Muslim world and the world
at large. The Muslims together
have preserved the book of Allah
in the manner that Allah
has allowed them to do so. And from
the uniqueness of the book of Allah the
Quran, is that it was made easy to
memorize. Other books can be memorized but it's
difficult and very few people can memorize them
and have them memorized accurately and with precision.
But the book of Allah Azzawajal, the Quran,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
we have made this Quran easy to remember,
easy to read, easy to recite, easy to
memorize to the extent that you will find
6, 7, 8, 9 year old children don't
even speak a word of Arabic, don't understand
a word of that language, but they have
memorized the Quran from cover to cover. And
you find people in old age who have
memorized the book of Allah and people in
more or less every single land upon the
face of this earth that have memorized the
book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that
is from the miraculous nature of the book
of Allah Azza wa Jal, the Quran. So
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says that the injeed
in its original form also contained guidance and
light
and it was a confirmation of the Torah
that was already revealed
and it was a guidance,
the guiding people to the straight path and
it was a reminder
to the people and a lesson for those
who have taqwa. Reminding them of Allah
their duties to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and
so on.
In verse 47 Allah then says
Allah
So let the followers of the gospel
judge according to what Allah has sent down
to it in it in it. Those who
do not judge according to that which Allah
has revealed are law breakers or are sinners
and evildoers.
Allah
like he did in the previous episode in
the couple of verses that we mentioned, those
who don't judge by the rules of Allah
Azza wa Jalal Allah described them as disbelievers.
He described them as oppressors.
And in this
verse he describes them as fasikin,
as people of fisk, of sin and of
evil.
And that is because they don't judge according
to the laws of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
In the Muslim of Rima Muhammad Rahim
on the narration of Abdullah Abu Abbas radiAllahu
anhu says that one of the reasons that
these verses were revealed
is because amongst the Jewish community, they decided
there were people who are from the nobility
of the Jews and people from lesser than
the nobility. Like in every single nation and
society. You have people that are of lineage
and of nobility
and then there are people who are just
the general lay average person. They also had
the same. They had nobility and they had
the average general people amongst them. And so
they decided that when one killed the other,
this was a problem because the people who
were in nobility and lineage were like, we
shouldn't have to pay so much to someone
if we commit murder in terms of the
blood money. We shouldn't have to go and
give them that much money because they're worthless
than us.
And the people who were weaker found that
they were in a position of being in
a lower status. They don't have the clout,
their ability to go and judge and speak
and whatever. They don't have as much authority.
So they decided amongst themselves so as there
wouldn't be civil strife and war and so
on, that if someone
from the poorer or from the lower,
runs of society killed someone from the elite
and nobility,
he would give to them double the amount
that if it were double the amount that
would be given if it was done the
other way around. Meaning that if the noble
man killed the one of the lower status,
he would give half the blood money. And
if the lower man killed the one from
the noble status, he would give him the
full amount or double that amount. And that's
what lasted until the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
came to Medina. And when he arrived in
Medina,
then the lower rungs of their society or
the lower statuses of their society said to
those in those positions of nobility and authority,
they said we don't accept this anymore. The
only reason we
stopped or or we agreed to it in
the first place is so that there wouldn't
be fighting and problems between us. But now
we have someone who can judge in this
affair, meaning the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And And so they came to the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and that is why
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam then judged
when they asked him to according to the
laws and the sharia of Allah subhanahu ta'ala
because they themselves refused to do so. And
so the sharia of Allah doesn't base
people's
rights in terms of these types of issues
based on their nobility or their lineage. If
a noble man killed someone who's not from
a noble family, that still murder in the
in the sharia of Allah
And the rights of that person
who's the murdered innocent person, the oppressed in
this case, are as equal as if it
was done the other way around. And so
that is something which we find that is
mentioned in some of the narrations concerning these
verses that Allah revealed.
And that is because they used to come
to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam with disputes
like this. And Allah ajwajal used to say
to the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam, if
you wish to judge upon them, then judge
according to the laws of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala because they themselves turned away from the
laws of Allah. They have the laws of
Allah in their books, in their scriptures. They
know what Allah commanded in this regard, but
sometimes Shaitan overcomes you.
And it is difficult to exact those rulings
fairly and with justice in every single issue
and affair. And that is why the person
who's in the position of authority or is
a judge or or has been asked to
reconcile or is in a position of arbitration,
those people have a great responsibility upon their
shoulders because they have to make sure that
their emotions are in check, that they don't
favor favor one side over the other because
of some type of of of whatever it
may be. 1 person's closer to me. 1
person's a friend of mine. 1 person I
like better, one person looks like they're wealthier.
All sorts of issues that can come in
and that is why the position of the
judge is such a sensitive position. Not only
because
it can easily lead to oppression and injustice,
but also because that person has to be
someone who keeps themselves in check and that
is why the scholars of Islam wrote whole
books on this topic of qada and judging
between people and being an arbiter arbiter between
people. They wrote whole books on this issue
because they wanted to ensure that people understood
the issue of fairness as it is seen
in Islam and that is why the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam said to Ali radhiallahu an
when he sent him to Yemen, he said
that you would have to judge between the
people. But when you judge, make sure that
you never judge for 1 party until you've
heard from the second.
And that's from the basic laws of justice.
But people don't often do this. How often
when people come to us, even if it's
not in the,
in the guise or the form that they
want us to be judge judges or arbiters,
but they come to us because they've got
some problem in their family, problem with their
husband or wife, problem with whatever it may
be, or they got some problem in business
dealings or money, they come to us and
they tell us,
this is what happened and this is what
and we just take their word for it
and we take their side and then we'll
tell people the other person oppressed them and
we never heard from the other side. We
never sat with them. We never questioned them.
We never verified just simply because this person
happens to be my relative, my friend, my
neighbor, my my cousin, whatever it may be.
And so people do this all the time,
whether it's in the position of being a
judge or whether it's in just the position
of being an ear to lean or to
to a shoulder to lean on and an
ear to hear people's woes and their worries.
And so this is something that we should
be extremely mindful of. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
in the next verse, verse number 48, he
says,
We sent you, oh, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi was
send them the scripture with the truth,
confirming the scriptures that came before it and
with final authority over them. So judge between
them according to what Allah has sent down.
Do not follow their whims which deviate from
the truth that has come to you. We
have assigned a law and a path to
each of you. If Allah had so willed,
he would have made you one community or
one nation. But he wanted to test you
through that which he has given to you.
So race to do good. You will all
return to Allah and he will make clear
to you the matters that you differed about.
Here Allah have to mention these verses concerning
these laws and these commands of Allah
and the way that the people of the
scripture behaved with regards to them. Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala now gives this clear command to
our prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And he
says
we have sent you, oh, we have sent
to you, oh, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, the
scripture meaning the Quran
with truth. The scripture meaning the Quran with
truth. And from the names of the Quran,
therefore, is Al Kitab.
That it is the Kitab as Allah mentions
at the very beginning of Surah Al Baqarah
Ddalikal Kitabu
Laaribafi.
And so this is the scripture, the book
that Allah has sent down with the truth.
Confirming the scriptures that came before it. Meaning
that Allah Azza wa Jal will be placed
within this book.
He has given to us that which was
confirmed by all of the prophets and messengers
of Allah in terms of tawhid and calling
to Allah
alone and worship him alone subhanahu wa ta'ala
and in terms of the major aspects of
this religion that all worship should be for
Allah The people should stay away from oppression
and all types of haram. The things that
are that are that are wrong should be
avoided. The things that Allah is obligated should
be done. Fulfill the commands of Allah. Stay
away from the prohibitions of Allah. The general
themes
of all of the scriptures are the same.
Yes, they may differ in terms of the
minutiae.
They may differ in terms of what you
can eat or what you can't eat. But
the general ruling is that you eat the
halal, that which is pure. Now what is
pure may differ from or or or then
when we go into the details of that
Allah may make certain things from that which
is pure. Haram on certain nations as he
did, for example, with the Jews when it
came to, for example, certain things like the
fat of certain animals and so on. There
was a specific rule for them and then
Allah changes
it for another nation. But the general concept
that they sacrifice to Allah, that they eat
what is halal and what is pure, That
is something that you find in every single
religion and that is because Allah
laws in terms of the overarching
themes
of justice and mercy
and kindness and goodness and all calling to
that which is pleasing to Allah and then
staying staying away from oppression and evil and
all things that that that take away from
a person's honor and their wealth and their
and their lives and so on and their
blood. Those are things that you find in
all of the sharias of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. But Allah
then gives to the Quran and to the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam an added level
of virtue, an added level of authority. And
that is
And this Quran has authority over them. Meaning
it confirms what came over, what came from
in in terms of the scriptures that came
before, but at the same time, it also
has authority.
It is the one that you must now
follow. So no one can say, yes, I
accept the Quran, but I also accept the
Torah and I accept the injeen, but I
prefer to use the injeen. That's the one
that I'm going to refer to. All of
them are Allah's words. I will choose this
one. Allah
said that won't be accepted because if you
accept that they are all the words of
Allah
then you must what Allah tells you in
the Quran. And Allah tells us clearly here
that just as the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
was the final messenger and his law and
his sharia and his religion will be the
one that all must follow until
then likewise the Quran has been sent down
to be a Muhammed. It has sent down
to be an authority over that which came
before it. It abrogates everything that came before
it. And so therefore, the laws now are
the laws of the Quran. And the commands
are the commands of the Quran. And what
Allah wants you to do or wants you
to stay away from is that which is
mentioned in detail in the book of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that is something important
to remember
because we accept all of the scriptures of
Allah
but we believe that they have been distorted
over time with the exception of the of
the Quran. And so the book of Allah,
the Quran, is the one that must be
followed and must be accepted.
And so therefore, this is something which Allah
mentions very clearly here in verse number 48
of Suratul Maeda.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then says to the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
So judge between them according to that which
Allah has sent down. Meaning that if they
come to you and seek your judgement,
then use that which Allah has given to
you from the Quran and from his laws
to judge between them.
And do not follow their whims which deviate
from the truth that has come to you.
And that is because they used to judge
and rule according to these other standards, as
we said. They used to judge according to
someone's lineage, according to someone's wealth, according to
someone's nobility, according to their relationship with certain
people and so on and so forth. That
is the way that they would judge. They
would look at these types of things and
that is what they would judge upon. Whereas
Allah
tells us in the Quran, no. We have
these rules of justice that apply to everyone
fairly and that is why the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam said in the hadith
that indeed that which destroyed those who came
before you is that if the poor from
amongst them stole, they would fulfill
the the full law upon them. They would
they would place the full law upon them.
But if the nobility and the wealthy amongst
them stole, then they would forgive them and
pardon them and let them off or they
would give them a lesser punishment.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
and we gave to each one of them
a law and a path.
So Allah is saying to every nation at
that time, they were given their law that
they should follow.
And if they don't follow that law, then
that is something which Allah ajazhu will hold
them to account for.
What is the law of now though? Every
nation had their law to follow at that
time. What is the law of now?
It is the law of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam the law of the Quran
that Allah revealed
to him.
If Allah had build, you could have made
you one community, meaning following 1 shari'ah,
one law, one commandment, or one command in
terms of authority. But Allah
says so that he may test you in
terms of that which was sent to. And
And so this is from the test of
Allah
to see if people are sincere in their
faith. If people are going to follow because
the one who is sincere and wants to
follow what is pleasing to Allah
will follow the revelation of Allah and will
follow the messenger and the prophet of Allah
whoever he is and wherever he was sent
and whichever nation he came from and whatever
his lineage or background or race was. And
those people who follow their desires
will refuse to accept someone because he happens
to be an Arab or he's from Quraysh
or he's not from my people or whatever.
And that is why from the beauty of
Islam today is that we don't say that
we don't follow the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam because he was an Arab or he
was from Quraysh and I'm from Southeast Asia
or someone else is Caucasian from Europe or
from North America, someone else is from China,
someone else is from we don't say that.
We say this is the truth that Allah
sent, and it is something which brings us
closer to Allah gives us the path that
will lead to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, so
we will accept it. And the Quran, just
because it's Arabic, I won't read it, I
won't accept it, I want something in English
or in German or in Chinese or in
French. No. It is the book of Allah
in which there is guidance. And so those
people who are sincere will follow the path
of Allah
and those people who are insincere,
who follow their whims, their desires, who don't
want to follow the guidance of Allah will
always find an excuse not to do so.
So Allah
then gives us the command for
so race to do good in everything.
Race to do good in terms of prayer,
praying at its earliest time, in terms of
giving zakah as soon as it's due, in
terms of fulfilling the rights that Allah has
placed upon you, in terms of doing the
optional deeds and voluntary deeds because that is
the way that you come closer to Allah
and so from the greatest attributes and characteristics
of the believer of the Muslim is that
they are people who race towards goodness and
we will see examples of this throughout the
Quran. Allah when he speaks about the prophets
of Allah, one of the main attributes that
Allah will focus on is that they were
people who competed and race to do good
to peace Allah
You will all return to Allah and he
will judge between you concerning that which you
differed about. And so when people say that
we don't need to accept
Islam or the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam or
the Quran and they differ over these issues.
Allah says that if they don't reach that
judgment in this life, Allah will judge between
them.
And the next verse was 49 Allah
then says
So judge between them according to what Allah
has sent down. Do not follow their whims
and take good care that they do not
tempt you away from any of what Allah
has sent down to you. If they turn
away, remember that Allah intends to punish them
for some of the sins that they have
committed and a great many people are law
breakers. Allah
then gives to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
the command that if you judge between them.
And so the prophet was given the choice
that if those people came to him and
they're non Muslims, they come to him seeking
his judgment in their affairs, The prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam could choose to do so. But
if he was to do so,
then he should do so according to that
which Allah revealed the commands of Allah
I don't look towards their desires. And again,
this is something which is repeated now a
number of times because of how easy it
is for the judge to be someone who
is swayed
by people's temptations, by people's,
people's standards, by people's wealth and their position
and nobility and so on.
And beware Allah
says that they do not tempt you away
from any of that which Allah has sent
down to you. Whatever reason it may be.
It may be that they try to give
you some wealth and bribery or they try
to pull at your heartstrings, or try to
use some type of emotional blackmail. Whatever it
may be, beware
of falling into that, and therefore diverting or
turning away from that which Allah
revealed and from the commands of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And
if they refuse to come to you to
follow the truth, to follow your judgments, to
follow your shaliyah, then no. That Allah
will judge them and he will punish them
for some of that which they earned, For
some of the sins that they did. Why
some of the sins that they did? Because
Allah is referring to the punishment of this
dunya. Some of that evil, they will be
punished for hair. And the remainder of it,
they will be punished on yomul qiyama. And
so Allah
judges people even in this life. He punishes
people in this life. People that do evil
and commit oppression, they will see
some aspects of punishment in this life. It
may be in their health. It may be
in their wealth, it may be in their
family, it may be in many different forms.
But Allah
judges people and he and he gives to
them some of that punishment in this life.
And then some of that punishment may be
in the grave and some of that punishment
may be
in the fire of *.
And indeed a great many people are those
people who break the laws of Allah and
they do evil. In the final verse that
we'll take today, Allah then says in verse
number 50.
Do they want judgement according to the times
of pagan ignorance? Is there any better judge
than Allah for those of firm faith? Allah
says
then therefore if they don't want the the
judgment of Allah, they turn away from it,
they turn away from Allah sharia, they turn
away from his laws, then what do they
seek other than the rulings of ignorance?
Because all of guidance and goodness and light
is found and mercy is found in the
laws of Allah. So to turn away from
them means that you're therefore seeking darkness and
oppression and ignorance. That is what you are
preferring
in terms of what it is that you
want to judge according to. And so Allah
says that if they turn away from you,
then what they seek is the judgment of
ignorance of the times of jahiliyyah
and of ignorance and
oppression and darkness.
And is there a better judge than Allah
for those people who have yaqeen, for those
people who have certainty and firm faith? And
that is why the believer trusts in Allah
and knows that which Allah has decreed and
legislated is always good for them even if
that sometimes goes against their own desires and
their needs and their wants. But they know
that Allah azza wa jal is just and
fair and merciful. And at the very least,
even if there is some temporary difficulty upon
you by enacting
that judgment of Allah
Allah will open up to you his treasures
and Allah
will make your affairs easy for you. And
with that, we come to the end of
today's episode.