Ahsan Hanif – Quran Tafseer – Page 140 – The Miracles Of Creation
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the verses of the Quran and the ability of Allah to destroy people's lives and create life. They emphasize the importance of knowing the natural cycle and using the sun and moon as tools to measure passage of time. The use of signs and false accusations in Islam is discussed, including the use of lies and false accusations to motivate people to turn away certain benefits and associate them with other gods. The importance of harvesting fruits and vegetables is also emphasized. The speaker concludes by reminding listeners to be firm and safe and to not associate certain signs with other gods.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome to another episode of our tafsir page
by page. InshaAllah Ta'ala. Today we're on page
140, which is in the 7th of the
Quran, Surah Al An An. In the previous
episode, we mentioned those verses which Allah spoke
about those people who denied
the prophets of Allah and the messengers of
Allah and the revelation of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. And Allah said concerning them
They haven't given to Allah his due weight
or his due measure
because they rejected his revelation and they rejected
his signs and they rejected the prophets and
messengers that Allah
sent to them in order to teach them
what Allah
wanted from them. And so Allah
said concerning those people that those people will
be
busy in their vain talk, they will leave
and they will neglect the path of Allah
Allah
spoke about the Quran and how this Quran
is blessed, how this Quran confirms everything that
came before it, and how the Prophet of
Allah should use this Quran
to warn the people of Mecca and all
those that are around the people of Mecca.
But the worst of people
and the most oppressive of people and the
most evil of people are those who reject
the signs of Allah and
they ascribe lies to Allah
and they claim that Allah
revealed nothing or that they have other revelations
from Allah that are not
in essence revelations
from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Allah says that
those people will be punished. They will be
punished at the time of death and in
the life of the grave, the barzakh, the
angels will come and extract their souls from
them and they will tell them that all
that waits for them is the punishment of
Allah
because of the lies that they ascribe to
Allah and
because of their arrogance and their haughtiness.
They will stand before Allah alone
without any part, without any help, without any
intercessor, without any protector, and they will stand
before Allah
and they will see that day that there
will be no hope of salvation for them
and they will have the punishment of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
In today's passage and the verses that we
speak about, Allah then goes back to speak
about his names and his attributes and his
powers and abilities Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. More reasons
for us to understand that Allah alone is
worthy of worship.
And Allah says
in verse number 95,
It is Allah who splits open the seed
and the fruit stone. He brings out the
living from the dead and the dead from
the living. That is Allah so how can
you turn away from the truth?
Allah speaks to us here concerning one of
his abilities
and he says he is the one who
splits open the seed and the fruit stone.
Allah
is the one who allows
the plants and the vegetation and the fruits
to grow. Allah is the one who has
made the seed, the beginning of the life
of this plant. And look at the amazing
nature of the seed. And if you were
to watch some of these documentaries that people
have now made concerning how
plants emerge and how can they live in
the most difficult of places and the most
hostile of environments.
Sometimes in the middle of a desert where
there's hardly any water, you will find plants
and sometimes in the snow capped mountains or
in
the mountains where there's snow, there are times
when you will still see vegetation, still see
greenery emerging,
flowers, plants, different types of shrubbery
and all sorts of types of trees that
Allah has placed across the earth. Allah is
the one who gives the ability
of this to grow.
He causes that seed to open, causes that
date stone, that the fruit stone to open.
And from them, we get more trees and
plants. From them, we get other fruits and
plants and vegetation.
And look at how much of our earth
or how much of our
survival depends upon that of the agriculture,
the farming, the need for those types of
fruits and those types of trees and those
types of plants that Allah has placed within
our world. And that is from the
from the statements or that is from the
signs of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala because we
benefit from it, the animals benefit from it,
nature benefits from it, all of those things
that happen from this
single seed, the small seed that is placed
within the ground. And then when you look
at those trees and those flowers, how they
pollinate themselves. Allah has allowed for those insects
and animals to come and to move their
pollen from one plant to another, from one
flower to another or sometimes it is done
simply by the wind coming and scattering the
seeds.
All of those different ways that you will
find that Allah
allowed for those plants and those animals to
spread their seeds in order to pollinate, to
become,
to pollinate
and therefore to to continue to live and
to recreate themselves by Allah's permission. That is
something which is from the signs of Allah
Allah brings the living from the dead. Some
of the scholars said this means the humans
and the animals that come from sperm
or from the liquid of sperm, that is
the sperm drop that is dead and from
the emergence or life.
And Allah is the one who brings the
dead, the living from the dead, the dead
from the living. And that is these trees
that we've seen, they're living and Allah takes
from it its seed and he takes it
to another place
and
Allah gives to a life and the ability
to reproduce.
That
is the power of Allah
That is your Lord and creator Allah
That is what Allah does and what he
allows
to happen. So
then how can you turn away from the
truth? How can you deny all of this
and turn away? Allah continues in verse number
96 and he says,
he makes the dawn break. He makes the
night for rest, and He made the sun
and the moon to a precise measure.
That is the design of the Almighty,
the All Knowing.
Allah
says
that Allah is the one who cleaves the
dawn break.
Allah
is the one who brings night from day.
Allah is the one who in the depth
from the depths of darkness will allow the
sun to rise and as it does so,
the light emerges upon the horizon
and emerges upon the earth. That time of
dawn is the time when the animals come
out and the birds come out and the
people wake up and we pray Fajal and
so on and so. That is the time
that Allah
brings light upon the earth. Allah is the
one who gives that ability,
who gives it the ability to do so
and the permission
to do so.
And Allah is the one who made the
night a time of rest and a place
of rest. And the vast majority
of people and animals and birds and insects,
they use the time of night for a
rest. And there are exceptions to that rule.
And we know that there are people who
work night shifts in their work, but the
general rule is, and even for those people,
the general rule would be that they would
find the night more of a time for
rest and more akin to rest than the
day. And that's why people who work constant
nights and they sleep constantly during the day,
they don't find the same type of energy
or the same type of strength in that
sleep as the person who sleeps during the
night. And that is because Allah has made
the night a time of rest.
And Allah
has made the sun and the moon a
precise measure,
a time a way for you to know
your times and a way for you to
know the the movement of the days and
the nights and the months and the years.
Allah ajuzajal is made and in Islam we
use both. We use the sun and we
use the moon in order to
know the passage of the day and the
passage of the of the months and also
for us to measure our acts of worship.
The sun is used for the salah for
example. How do you know when it's time
for Fajr or Dhuhr or Asarom Maghrib? You
look at the sun. When it's the time
for dawn, that means that it's not the
time for Fajr. When the sun reaches its
zenith, its highest point, and it starts to
pass by it, it's now the time for
luhr.
When the sun is going down, it's descending,
and your your your, your shadow is equal
to your length, that is now the time
for Asr. When the sun is setting, that
is now the time for Maghrib.
When the redness of the sky is pitch
black, that's what happens, then that is now
the time for Isha.
And so we use the sun on daily
basis. In the olden days before we had
timetables,
before people would look at these timetables and
and and know what time the salah is
and when he comes in, the people used
to look at the sun, and they used
to be well versed in the sun and
its rising and its setting and its different
times or its different passage and phases throughout
the day. They would know how the sun
was and that's what they would look at
in order for them to be able to
determine the time of salah. And that is
why in the classical works of fiqh, you
will know that the person that the scholars
used to say concerning the in the chapter
of Adhan, that it should be someone who
has knowledge of the day, meaning he knows
the times. He can look at the sun
and he can measure it and understand
where it is in the sky and what
time it is so that he can make
the Adhan at the correct time. And the
month, the moon is used in order for
us to be able to measure the months.
We use the moon to know when the
month starts and when the month finishes. And
our ibaidat are based upon the month. Ramadan
is based upon the month. You give your
zakah and luri so you need to know
when the months are.
Hajj begins in the months of Hajj. Allah
says as we mentioned in Surah Al Baqarah.
Allah says that they question you, they ask
you concerning
the new moons. Say to them, it is
so that you know your timings and you
know the Hajj. How else do you know
when it's the time for Hajj unless
it is
the moon that comes and goes? And that
is the same for all of the months
of the year. And so Allah has made
the sun and the moon a means for
us to be able to measure our time.
That is the design of the Almighty, the
All Knowing. Everything has its place and everything
Allah has created in the best of ways
and Allah has placed it in such a
precise manner that we can use it and
understand therefore what we need to understand in
order to be able to live in this
world and to benefit from it.
Allah then says in verse number 97,
It is he who made the stars so
that they can guide you when land and
see are dark. We have made the signs
clear for those who have knowledge.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala then says, and we
have also given to you the stars. And
the stars are used for the people for
their navigation.
They use them to be able to understand
where it is that they need to go,
which direction is north, how they're going to
pass. That's something which the Arabs used to
do and the people of the world used
to do. They would look and they would
study the stars and by studying the stars,
they would know their way that they their
their way throughout the desert and their way
throughout the land.
It is Allah who gave to you the
stars. So
that you may use them as guides.
In the darkness of the land and the
darkness of the sea. And the people used
to use them, as we said, throughout the
times of history, even though today in our
time, it is perhaps less so for the
average person.
We have made clear the signs for those
who have knowledge, and Allah
gives to us all of these signs.
These are amazing signs from the signs of
Allah
Each one of them points to the fact
that he alone is worthy of worship,
And that is why the believer is the
one who goes and he sees the signs
of Allah
and as he's walking around and he looks
at the universe, or she looks at the
universe, and they see the sun and the
moon and the stars, they see the mountains
and the oceans and the trees, They see
what Allah has created and placed for us
in this world and in this universe. It
reminds them of Allah
and they connect it back to Allah
and it is a reminder of the power
of Allah
and his ability and his creation and
therefore, ultimately,
his right to be worshipped alone subhanahu wa
ta'ala. Look at the sun and the moon
again and its eclipse.
The sun can become eclipsed. The moon can
become eclipsed.
Amongst the Arabs at the time of the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, they used to say
that the sun and the moon only become
eclipsed because someone great is either being born
or someone great is going to die or
has died. That was their belief. That was
the superstition that they had and the belief
of the Jahili Arabs. They believed that the
eclipsing of the sun or the moon was
either because of the death of someone great
or the birth of someone great. But the
prophet
made the sun or the moon eclipse at
the time of the death of his own
son Ibrahim
radiAllahu an who died as an infant. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said to the
companions after praying the eclipse prayer in the
Shamsa
The moon and the sun are two signs
from the signs of Allah. They're not eclipsed
because of someone's death or someone's birth, but
rather these are signs that Allah uses in
order to cast fear into you, in order
that you may remember, that you may remind
yourselves, that you may ponder and reflect at
the majesty of Allah
That sun and that moon that Allah
created, Allah
has all power over it. And that is
why the prophet told us
concerning the sun.
That each day that it sets, it comes
before the throne of Allah and it prostrates,
and it seeks permission to continue on its
course, and Allah grants us permission to do
so. Until the day will come and Allah
will determine there will be the day of
judgement and the sun will come and prostrate
and seek permission to continue upon its course
and Allah will refuse. And Allah will say,
rather go back from where you came, and
that is when the sun will rise from
the west. And so this is something which
Allah tells us. The Prophet told us
how that happens, what is the man of
its prostration, how can that possibly be? Allah
knows best. For me and you, it is
our job to submit to the text of
the Quran and the sunnah of the Prophet
but no doubt the one that has the
ability to create all of this and to
place it in its proper determined place and
course and to give it the abilities that
Allah gives to all of it, the powers
that Allah gives to it, the the different
things that Allah gives to these creations of
his. Note that he alone then has the
power, Subhanahu Ta'ala, to do as he pleases
and to change as and when he will
in a manner that he sees.
Allah says in verse number 98,
It is he who first produced you from
a single soul, then gave to you a
place to stay in this life and a
resting place after death. We have made our
revelations clear to those who understand.
Allah says that he created you and me
from a single soul. That is our father,
Adam, Alaihi Salatu Wasallam.
And as we've said before, Allah, Alaihi Salatu,
when he speaks about the creation
of humans in the Quran, he speaks about
it in 2 different ways. 1 is the
original creation of man and that is Adam
alayhi salatu wasalam and that is that Allah
created Adam from dust and clay and then
Allah
took Adam alayhi salam and from him, all
of his progeny came. And the second way
is that Allah is referring
to then the subsequent creation of every human
that came after Adam alaihis salam and that
is through the sperm drop and the different
phases
and stages of the human development,
the embryo in the womb of the mother
until birth and so on and so forth.
Allah says therefore that He created you from
a single
being.
The single being being Adam Alaihi Salaam.
That single being, Adam Alaihi Salaam,
that is a sign from the signs of
Allah Alaihi Salaam because before Adam alayhi salam,
there was no other human. There's no blueprint.
There's nothing similar to Adam alayhi salam. Allah
alayhi salam equated the angels beforehand. Allah alayhi
salam has equated the jinn beforehand. Allah alayhi
salam equated many of his questions
before the question of Adam alayhi salatu wasalam.
But Adam, each one of them is unique,
and Adam alayhi salam is also unique. And
that is why Allah from his names is
that he is Al Khaliq, and Al Bayri,
and Al Fakr. These are names that show
that Allah creates
and originates and that Allah creates from from
no blueprint that existed before. And then Allah
creates
after that original creation Allah
repeats that creation many times as he pleases
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So that is from the signs of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And
Allah has given to you a place to
live and a place to rest, meaning after
life. Allah gave to you the dunya. This
is where we're born. This is where we
live. This is where we spend these years
decades that Allah has granted to us as
he pleases.
This is the place of our abode for
a temporary period of time.
And then Allah will give to a resting
place and that will be the place that
you will rest upon after you leave this
world whether it be the grave for as
long as Allah determines or when
the people will have their final resting place
of either the fire or
of paradise. May Allah azza wa Jal see
was from the fire and went as paradise.
Allah says we make our revelations clear to
those who understand
and so the person who looks not only
at the universe
and sees the signs of Allah, but they
look within themselves.
They look at their body and they look
at the way that the body works and
they look at the many blessings that Allah
has bestowed upon them and placed within their
body. Look at the flow, the flowing of
your blood. Look at the way that you
breathe. Look at the way that your brain
works. Look at the way that all of
your senses work together seamlessly.
You don't have to think. You don't have
to instruct them that you work with that.
Even you're having to even you noticing that
they're working and they're working constantly throughout the
day and the night. You eat and your
digestive system or you walk and the way
that your blood flows and the way that
you breathe, every single action that you perform,
the body works in tandem. It works seamlessly
for the most part in the way that
Allah
determines it to work. And then Allah gives
you those signs in a different way when
Allah gives you illness, when Allah takes away
from you one of those blessings when maybe
now your body doesn't work as it used
to before. These are signs of your weakness,
of your dependency upon Allah
of the fragility of your life, of how
temporary it is. These are signs for a
people of understanding.
In verse number 19, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
then says,
Allah
Allah says that it is He who sends
down water from the sky
with it will produce the shoots of each
plant then bring greenery from it and from
that we bring our grains one riding on
the other in close packed rows from the
day palm come clusters of low hanging dates
and there are gardens of vines, olives and
pomegranates
are like it different.
Watch their fruits as they grow and ripen
in all of
these are signs for those who would believe.
Allah
speaks now about the signs of the heavens
and from the greatest of those signs is
the sending down of the rain and how
much of our life depends upon the rain
in terms of the water that we drink
and that we benefit from but also in
terms of our crops and our agriculture and
the animals and our livestock, how all of
them need the water of the skies and
the rain that Allah causes to descend. Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says
and from that rain and water from the
sky because every single shoot of plant to
come,
every seed grows and every single shoot of
plant comes as a result of that rain
that descends from the sky. If you were
to plant those seeds and no rainbow to
come, there were to be drought and famine,
then we all know what would happen to
those seeds and how little of that vegetation
and that plant and that shrubbery would come
forth.
And
Allah says, and then we bring greenery from
it, meaning that it reaches
the
state of flowering,
where it becomes green and the flowers emerge
upon those plants that they're now ready to
ripen and turn into fruit or they're ready
to turn into crops and whatever else it
may be.
Allah says and then we bring from it
grains,
riding on the other, one riding on the
other in close packed rows. Some of the
scholars said, like, when you see a field
of barley or a field of wheat or
a field of rice or whatever it may
be, you see all of those signs and
they grow upon one another. They're so closely
and densely packed towards one another. That is
what Allah is referring to. And within a
single
plant of
barley or wheat, you find so many seeds
and so many grains that you can benefit
from.
And then likewise from the day palms. In
some day palms you have clusters and those
clusters within them they contain
the dates and as they become heavier and
they become fuller, they start to droop down
and as they come lower, it is easy
for you to go and to take from
them and to take from them and this
is the different ways that Allah
has placed the plant life
and fruits and trees
upon this earth. Some of them grow from
the ground up meaning like the the crops
that we have and some of them grow
high upon the trees as Allah determines
and Allah says and we have given to
you gardens of vines and olives and pomegranates
and these are all from the different things
that Allah
has given to us and it is said
some of the scholars of Tafsir said that
Allah mentions these 3 or 4 in particular,
the dates, the vines, the olives, the pomegranates
because the people used to depend upon them
in terms of their food. The dates and
olives are things that are staple foods for
many people that they depend upon. And then
there are others that are more luxurious, more
beneficial.
People love to eat them because of their
taste and their sweetness and those are things
like the grapes that come from the vines
and things like with the fruits of the
pomegranates and others.
I like it different.
And that is because Allah
gives to us not only these fruits
but within each one there are so many
different types. You have apples, not every apple
I would say how many different types of
apples can you find? How many different types
of oranges can you find? How many different
types of melons can you find? They are
similar to one another in the way that
they look in the names that they have,
even sometimes in their taste or in their
color, but each one of them is slightly
different. Each one of them some more sour,
some more sweet, some more firm, some less
firm. Each one of them has their own
distinct
characteristics
that Allah has placed within it.
They are similar to one another yet not
so similar to one another.
So see these fruits as they grow and
as they ripen, see the signs that Allah
has placed them in, how they start as
a seed and how they grow into a
plant and how they become green and how
they wipe and how you benefit from it
and how that process repeats itself year upon
year.
For indeed in all of these are signs
for those who believe. And so the believer
is the one who looks at this, who
ponders upon this, who reflects upon this, who
looks at the signs of Allah
and he sees that which Allah has pleased
from these signs and therefore they turn back
to Allah
in gratitude,
in worship, in Iman, in belief for him
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
In the final verse that we will take
today, verse number 100,
Allah ajduja then says, and despite all of
these signs and all of these blessings that
Allah ajduja has bestowed upon people, there are
people who will turn away and associate these
blessings to other than Allah. Allah ajduja says,
that they made the jinn partners with Allah
though he created them and without any true
knowledge they attribute sons and daughters to him.
Glory be to him he is far higher
than that which they ascribe to him. Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says that these people they
place besides Allah
other gods
as other things as gods besides him and
partners.
They worship the jinn, they worship the angels,
they worship the prophets, they worship other people
and they are attribute lies to Allah
They ascribe lies to Allah by claiming that
he has sons, by claiming that he has
daughters. Allah says that they make the jinn
his partners and that is because some of
them worship the jinn besides Allah
and others from amongst the scholars said that
when they said that the daughters of Allah
are the angels, they said that the spouses
of Allah are the jinn, may Allah
be free and far removed from that. And
so they
invented lies upon Allah that which He sent
down no authority for, ascribing to him partners
or sons or daughters in whichever way that
they chose. Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Glory
be to Allah. Far removed from that which
they ascribed to him. Allah gave to them
signs and Allah blessed them With everything in
the universe, what did they do? They rejected
those signs of Allah and instead they ascribed
them to other than Allah, Azza wa Jal.
May Allah Azza wa Jal keep us firm
and safe and steadfast upon Iman and keep
us safe from the traps of shaitan, from
shirk and kufr. And with that, we come
to the end of today's episode.