Quran Tafseer – Page 69 – Believers Should Place Their Trust In Allah

I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the accursed.

In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.

In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.

Welcome to another episode of our Tefseer page by page.

InshaAllah Ta'ala today we are on page 69.

The fourth Juz Surah to Ali Imran.

In the previous episode we mentioned we are still discussing the passages concerning the Battle of Uhad.

And Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala gave us a number of principles in the last lesson that we took or the last episode rather than we had.

And from amongst those principles was the fact that the Prophet ﷺ would sooner or later die.

He would pass.

And so when that rumor emerged in the Battle of Uhad that the Prophet ﷺ died, Allah Azza wa Jalla is saying to the companions and therefore by extension to the Muslims that in times of difficulty and hardship, how is it that you're going to respond?

There are people who become weak and they're resolved, disheartened.

There are people who surrender, give up, they allow shaytan to overpower them.

And there are people who understand that they are worshipping Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala and that Allah Azza wa Jalla is ever living and that he never dies Subhanahu Ta'ala.

And so there are people who overcome those challenges, those risk springs of shaytan and they become stronger with the patience and resolve that Allah Azza wa Jalla endows them with.

In today's episode we begin with verse number 149 and that is the statement of Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala.

If you obey the disbelievers, they will make you revert to your old ways and you will turn into losers.

Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala in that verse that I just mentioned to you at the beginning of this episode in which Allah Azza wa Jalla mentioned that the Prophet ﷺ would die just as prophets who came before him died.

And that if you were to die or to be killed, would you then turn away from your religion, turn back and revert to your old ways?

Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala here is saying that all you who believe, meaning the believers, that if you were to obey the disbelievers, that is what they would want from you anyway.

They would want you to turn back to your old ways and that is essentially what shaytan wants.

Shaytan wants people to go back to, shirk or to turn to, word shirk as opposed to the tawheed of Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala.

If you look at the battle of Uhud and even before it the battle of Badr and all of the subsequent battles that the Prophet ﷺ would fight against the Quraish,

what was the main reason between those battles?

What was the main reason for the enmity that existed in the hearts of the Quraish towards the Muslims?

It was the fact that the Prophet ﷺ was calling them to the tawheed of Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala.

And that worship of Allah Azza wa Jalla alone meant the changing of society that the Quraish was so accustomed to and the other Arabs as well in Arabia.

It meant that they would have to leave off their idol worship.

It would meant that they would have to submit to Allah Azza wa Jalla alone and therefore the Prophet ﷺ as their leader,

it meant that they had to change the way that they behaved and the way that they treated certain people like their women and their young and their slaves and others.

It meant that they would have to make certain transformations within their societies, within their families and about their culture that would be more in line with Islam and as opposed to what they were doing before Islam.

And that is something which they rejected.

They preferred the ways of their ancestors, the ways of shirk, the ways of kufr and disbelief in Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala.

And that is why when the Prophet ﷺ as we know came to his uncle Abu Talib upon his deathbed in the early Meccan years,

Abu Talib has spent his life defending the Prophet ﷺ, helping him coming to his aid and so on.

And now Abu Talib is upon his deathbed and the Prophet ﷺ comes to him and he says,

O my uncle, say a single statement that if you were to say it, I will use it as evidence on your behalf before Allah Azza wa Jalla.

I will use it to argue on your behalf before Allah Azza wa Jalla and Yomul Qiyamah.

That one statement that he wanted his uncle to make was La ilaha illallah, the statement of Tauheed.

And Abu Talib refused because around him surrounding him was some of his close leaders or some of the other people of Quraish

and some of his family members saying to him, O Abu Talib, how can you forsake the religion of your forefathers?

How can you forsake the religion of Abdul Mutalib, your father, your grandfather?

How can you go away from the ways that they were upon?

And so Abu Talib died upon their ways. He died upon their shirk and upon their kufr.

And so Allah Azza wa Jalla is saying that this is essentially what the disbelievers want from you.

This is essentially what shaitan wants from you or you who believe.

If you were to obey them, they will make you turn away from your religion.

That is essentially why the Prophet ﷺ had to fight and to defend the Muslims within the city of Medina

and outside the city of Medina because that is what they were fighting for, to protect their religion and their belief.

Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in verse 150 he then says,

So Allah Azza wa Jalla is saying that you don't need them.

You see one of the reasons why you may be tempted to go towards the disbelievers is because they are more in number.

They are stronger in terms of what they possess, they are wealthier in terms of what they own.

But Allah Azza wa Jalla is saying that you don't need any of them.

Because if you were to follow and obey them,

And if Allah Azza wa Jalla is with you, by your side, helping you and protecting you,

then what else do you need and who else do you need besides him?

Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la,

He is the best of helpers.

Didn't Allah Azza wa Jalla help the Muslims on the day of the Battle of Badr?

And even on the day of the Battle of Uhud where the Muslims suffered what they suffered in terms of loss,

they deceased those martyrs have the greatest of reward in the sight of Allah Azza wa Jalla.

They have an amazing station.

So essentially that defeat or that loss that they suffered is not really a loss.

It is another way of Allah Azza wa Jalla honoring the believers and helping them.

And there were lessons and benefits and wisdoms that they attracted from,

that they detracted from, or that they deduced from the Battle of Uhud.

And so Allah Azza wa Jalla honored them.

And likewise in the Battle of Khandaq, the trench battle,

and likewise the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, and the conquest of Mecca,

and the Battle of Tabuk, and all of the other expeditions in between,

that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was a part of,

and that the Muslims, the companions,

and all of it is from the help and the protection that Allah Azza wa Jalla gave to the believers.

So those 300 Muslim that fought that first battle alongside the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam

on the day of Badr, within a few short years they would conquer the Arabian Peninsula.

They would be the people who would conquer all of Arabia.

And a few short years after the death of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam

during the Khilaf of Abu Bakr, and Umar, and Usman, radiallahu an-Majma'een,

the Muslim Empire would expand across the world,

Northern Africa, all the way to the tips of Spain, Asia, major parts of Asia,

all of them coming under the rule of the Muslims.

He is indeed the best of helpers.

And from the ways and manners in which Allah Azza wa Jalla helps and assists the believers,

is that which Allah Azza wa Jalla mentions in verse 151.

He says,

We will strike panic into the disbelievers' hearts because they attribute partners to Allah,

although He has sent down our authority for this.

Their shelter will be the fire.

How miserable is the home of the evil doers.

Allah Azza wa Jalla says that from the ways in which He helps the believers,

is that He casts terror and panic and fear into the hearts of the disbelievers.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would cast the fear of the Muslims into the hearts of the disbelievers,

even though the disbelievers were more in number, were better equipped, were wealthier,

were stronger, who had horses and camels at their disposal that the Muslims did not have.

But Allah Azza wa Jalla is the one who controls everything in the heavens and the earth,

and from that which He controls, is He controls the hearts of people.

And if Allah wishes to strike panic and fear,

then Allah Azza wa Jalla can strike that panic and fear into the heart of whosoever He chooses subhanahu wa ta'ala.

So those non-Muslims, those Quraishid armies that had all of that wealth and all of that might and all of those numbers,

when they had fear in their hearts, then those numbers, that might, that weaponry,

that weaponry doesn't prevail, doesn't help them in anything besides Allah Azza wa Jalla.

When it comes to standing in front of, opposing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala

and the people that Allah Azza wa Jalla loves and honours and supports.

And that is what our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said,

that from the things that Allah Azza wa Jalla gave to him, unique to him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

is that He would cast terror into the hearts of His enemies from the distance of a month,

even though the travelling time between the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the army was a month's journey,

they would already start to fear Him.

And that happened a number of times in the lifetime of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

as is well documented in the books of Seerah.

And note that that is something from the greatest of Allah Azza wa Jalla's mercy upon the believers,

that Allah Azza wa Jalla makes their enemies fear them,

puts enmity, puts fear and panic into their hearts even before they meet and then when they meet as well.

And Allah Azza wa Jalla says that that enemy, that panic and that fear that is in the hearts of their enemies,

it is because of one thing and that is the shirk that they make besides Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,

because they have turned away from Allah Azza wa Jalla and turned away from the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,

they have chosen the path of shirk.

Allah Azza wa Jalla says that they will have panic and fear and terror struck in their hearts,

that then also shows that the opposite is also true.

And that is for the believers, if they want tranquility, they want peace, they want ease of the heart

and they want that ability to have that confidence within themselves,

then the greatest or one of the greatest means of achieving that is through the path of the Tawheed of Allah Azza wa Jalla.

Those people who worship Allah Azza wa Jalla alone obey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala

and know that they are doing that which Allah Azza wa Jalla legislated upon them,

worshipping Allah in the way that Allah has ordained and that in the way that He loves subhanahu wa ta'ala,

those people will have ease and tranquility and peace in their hearts.

So the people of shirk have terror and panic and they have that feeling of being perturbed

because of their shirk, then likewise the opposite is true that the people of Tawheed,

because of the Tawheed have that which Allah Azza wa Jalla gives them of tranquility and peace and ease of heart.

And that is what Allah Azza wa Jalla says,

It is because of that which they attributed as partners to Allah Azza wa Jalla

for which He sent down no authority.

And their destination, their shelter will be the fire

and what an evil and miserable place for the evil doers.

In the next verse, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in verse 152, He then continues and He says

Allah has fulfilled His promise to you.

You are routing them, you are routing them with His permission, but then you faltered, disputed the order and disobeyed.

Once He had brought you within sight of your goal, some of you desire the gains of this world

and others desire the world to come and then He prevented you from defeating them as a punishment.

He has now forgiven you.

Indeed, Allah is most gracious to the believers.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this verse 152 of surah Al-Imran,

essentially goes to the crux of the issue of what took place in the battle of Uhud.

And as we said before, the Quran doesn't give to us a play by play

or a full accounting of what took place in any of these historical events,

but rather Allah Azza wa Jalla chooses certain moments of what took place

and He extracts from it lessons and principles for us.

So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said that Allah Azza wa Jalla had fulfilled His promise to you.

The promise of Allah Azza wa Jalla came when the believers followed and obeyed

the commands of the Prophet SAW.

And that shows therefore the principle is in our religion

that so long as you continue to obey Allah and obey His Messenger SAW,

you will always have victory.

You will always have that which Allah Azza wa Jalla promised.

Even in times of hardship and difficulty,

Allah Azza wa Jalla turns that for you as a means of blessing,

as a means of expiation, as a means of reward.

So at the beginning of the battle when the Muslims and the Quraish were fighting head on,

the Muslims were winning.

And the Muslims were winning because the Prophet SAW as we mentioned before in the previous episode

had stationed his soldiers in an extremely intelligent and militaristically intelligent way.

He had placed those companions in places that didn't allow the Muslims to be routed.

Routed means that the Quraish could come and attack the flanks and the rear of the army of the Muslims.

So they were protected from all sides.

They had natural protection by way of the mountains.

And they have these archers that are protecting the flank of the Muslims.

The Muslims are attacking head on.

And as Allah Azza wa Jalla told us just in the verse that we just mentioned,

Allah swt strikes fear and panic in the hearts of the enemies of Islam.

And so they're fighting and the Muslims are winning.

The disbelievers are running away and fleeing from the battlefield.

And as they were running away,

what many of them were doing because they're fleeing for their lives

and they're worried for their lives, they're leaving behind their weapons.

They're leaving behind their armor, their shields.

They're leaving behind other types of wealth that they were carrying

and they're just running for their lives.

Now the rule of the battlefield is that whoever picks up that weaponry,

those shields, that armor, that wealth, it belongs to them.

It belongs to them.

And so the Muslims that are on the battlefield,

as those enemies are leaving and they're fleeing from the battlefield,

they're picking up that wealth, they're picking up that armor.

And as we know, the Muslims generally speaking, generally, were quite poor.

The Muslims were people, especially the Muhajirin who had to leave behind Mecca,

their wealth, their land, their property, everything that they owned,

their people were poor.

And so these Muslims are benefiting now.

You have these feudas and archers upon that mount

that the Prophet SAW was told to them,

stay, don't leave until you hear from Me.

Even if you see us being killed, don't move.

They say to their leader who's with them upon that mountain,

they say the battle's over.

Our brothers are taking from the battlefield their booty of war.

They're taking these possessions and we're not going to get anything.

Nothing will be left for us because we're stuck on this mountain.

Let us go and share.

Their leader said, no, didn't you hear the Prophet SAW?

Don't leave until you hear from Me.

Explicitly, those companions disagreed and they said, yes,

he said that, but he meant during the battle.

The battle's over now.

These people are fled.

They've run.

They've gone.

And so it's all over now.

We can go.

And so they disobeyed their leader.

They disobeyed the command of the Prophet SAW.

And that is what Allah Aziz says that at the beginning,

you were routing them.

You were winning by Allah's permission because you had obeyed Allah

and obeyed his messenger, SAW.

But then you faltered.

You disputed the order.

You disobeyed.

Once he had brought you within the site of your goal,

meaning the site of victory.

And so what do they do?

Many of those companions on the arch, on the mountain,

those archers, they fled.

They all, they didn't flee, but rather they left their posts

and they came and they started to take from the war booty

as the other Muslim soldiers were doing.

So only the leader of the group,

the leader of the group,

the leader of the group,

the Muslim soldiers were doing.

So only the leader of the company of archers

and a few of the companions were left.

As they had done this,

and this is essentially one of the main lessons therefore,

that just that simple disobedience of one simple command

and it was a misunderstanding.

Those companions didn't hate Islam.

They didn't want the Muslims to be defeated.

They genuinely thought that the army no longer needs them

to be in their post.

The battle is over.

It's finished.

It's done.

We are now free to leave.

But it shows that sometimes even within our lives

we leave a sunnah.

We leave something that we consider to be small.

We know that Allah and His Prophet,

Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

commanded something or prohibited us from something

and we ignore it because we consider it to be insignificant.

But the repercussions, the consequences of that

can be great indeed as we see here in the battle of Uhud.

And so they leave.

So Khalid Ibn Walid, as we said in the previous episode,

he sees what's going on.

He realizes that these archers now watch the handful

easily overcome so he gathers his cavalry together

and they go and attack those archers.

They kill them and now they flank the Muslims

and they rout them.

The Muslims are now shocked because all of a sudden now

there's an army behind them and that is as we know

when you're facing forward to be attacked from behind

is something which causes panic within the ranks.

The other Quraish army, the rest of the Quraish army,

they see what's going on.

They also regroup and they attack the Muslims head on.

So now the Muslims are the ones pinned in by mountains

and either side by enemies in front and behind.

Allah Azza wa Jalla is saying,

من كم يريد الدنيا, some of you wanted from the world.

You saw possessions, you saw wealth and that's

what you rush towards.

When من كم يريد الآخرة,

and others from amongst you, you wanted the آخرة.

And those are the ones who remained even on that day

in the heat of the battle, in the ferociousness of the battle

when the Muslims were being pinned in and attacked

from all sides.

They are the ones who remained firm and steadfast

with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.

Companions and there was only a handful of them

who remained with him and they continued to fight

and they continued to stand by him, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.

Allah Azza wa Jalla says,

ثم صرفكم عنهم ليبتليكم,

they prevented you from them as a punishment.

And so Allah Azza wa Jalla, even in this difficult situation,

the Muslims were able to extract themselves from that situation

and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, as we know,

and the companions like Abu Bakr Al-Umar,

رضي الله عنه مجمعين and a number of other companions

were able to extract themselves from that position

and the Quresh army essentially leaves.

They leave even though they killed a number of the companions

and injured the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

but they leave defeated.

How do the Quresh leave defeated?

Because the whole purpose of this battle

was to come and to kill the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

to kill the likes of Abu Bakr Al-Umar, رضي الله عنهما

and to defeat the Muslims once and for all.

To be done with the Muslims once and for all.

But essentially what they find instead

is that they don't have any recourse

except to return back to the city of Mecca.

And so they weren't able to kill the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.

They weren't able to defeat the Muslims and to destroy them.

They weren't able to come and demolish the city of Medina

because that was also one of their objectives.

Come and kill everyone, finish this religion off,

and we don't have to worry about it anymore.

But instead they had to settle for a type of victory

and that is that they weren't defeated,

that they were overcome by the Muslims.

But at the same time, none of their major goals were accomplished.

And so Allah Azaw Jildain says,

And Allah Azaw Jildain pardoned you.

He forgave you for that which you did.

And that is because those companions that subaid

the command of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

they left their post.

There was a genuine mistake from them.

And so Allah Azaw Jildain forgives

what are genuine, sincere mistakes made by people

if they don't do it to subvert the religion of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.

Allah Azaw Jildain is someone who has grace and bounty

that he bestows upon the believers.

He forgives them and he accepts their tawbah

and Allah Azaw Jildain showers his mercy upon them.

So those companions, they left their post

and Allah Azaw Jildain forgave them.

And Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala used this as a lesson

for the people of the companions,

for the companions and for the people on that day

on the battlefield of Uhud.

And there is also a lesson therefore for the Muslims

to come after them as we have mentioned before.

We therefore see that it is possible

that a prophet of Allah, as we can see from the story of the battle of Uhud,

that a prophet of Allah Azaw Jild can be injured.

That there were prophets of Allah who did die,

who were killed and murdered by their people.

It is possible for prophets of Allah to suffer loss within battle.

All of these things are possible

as we see from the battle of Uhud

and from the lessons that we have drawn from that.

And so as we've said before, one of the greatest reasons

and one of the greatest wisdoms behind that

is that Allah Azaw Jild uses these events and these circumstances

to differentiate between the people

and to show those people who are true in their iman,

true in their steadfastness, in their patience,

true in their resolve as Muslims.

One of this stuff becomes apparent in times of difficulty.

And that's not only in times of battle,

but in times of any type of personal strife and difficulty

and any type of hardship.

You will often see in times of bereavement

when people love those who are closest and dearest to them,

in times of financial calamity,

in times of being struck down by illness and disease.

That is when you often see the true character of people.

There are those people who will remain steadfast, patient,

thankful to Allah Azaw Jild,

use that as a means of coming closer to Allah Azaw Jild

and to increase in worship and in righteousness and in servitude.

And there are those people who you will see the true character,

people who become evil in their nature and in their character,

people who become nasty, people who become rude,

people who become obnoxious or arrogant or whatever it may be,

different things and different ways in which people emerge.

And that is why tests and trials are one of the ways

in which you see the reality of a person.

So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam

on the occasion when he passed by a woman

who had lost someone very close to her

and so she was screaming and she was extremely upset

because of what had just taken place.

The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam saw her

and he recommended to her that she be patient,

patient in this most difficult of circumstances.

The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam

really saw that she wasn't responding,

that she was responding in the same way.

The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam left her

and he walked away.

The people around her said,

don't you realize that you just spoke like that to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam?

She came chasing him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam

and she said, oh, Messenger of Allah,

I didn't realize that it was you.

The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam responded

and he said, indeed, patience in the Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.

True patience is when calamity first strikes.

That is when you see a person's level.

That is when you see a person's true ability,

true patience, true steadfastness in Allah SWT

and that is why throughout the Quran

you will see multiple stories of Prophets of Allah

in times of difficulty, in times of tribulation,

in times of trial and hardship.

You see throughout the Quran that Allah SWT mentioned

in countless times, on countless occasions,

the stories of the likes of the Prophets Ibrahim and Musa and Reesa

and the Prophets of Allah SWT that he sent down to us,

their stories because they go through hardship,

they go through difficulty.

Allah SWT praises in the Quran the likes of Yaqub and Yusuf

and a Yub, Ibrahim Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam

because they were Prophets of extreme resolve,

Prophets of patience and steadfastness

who when calamity befell upon them,

they came closer to Allah SWT.

And so likewise here in the Battle of Uhud

these companions suffered a great loss.

Seventy-odd of their number were martyred on that day.

Their Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was injured.

There were rumors being spread that he had been killed

Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam alongside other major companions

like Abu Bakr and Umar, radiallahu anhuma.

But Allah SWT turned that defeat into a victory for the believers

and he stopped the disbelievers from having the victory that they so wanted

and Allah Azza wa Jalla then concludes this verse by saying

wallahu dhu-fadlin ale al-mu'mineen

and indeed Allah is most gracious to the believers.

There is one verse left on this page

but inshallah ta'ala we will take that in context with the next passage

or the next page because it is related with the verses

that will come there and so inshallah with that we conclude

with today's episode.

Barakallahu Fikum.

Wa Sallallahu Alai Nabeena Muhammadin Wa Alaa Alihi Wa Sahbihi Ajma'in

Wa Salaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem