Ali Ataie – The Commands of God Are Rational & Beneficial

At the end of the last session, I

said that it is the revelation itself, the

Quran itself,

alwahi,

that constantly bids us to exercise reason.

The Quran declares, indeed, the worst of creatures

in God's sight are those who are deaf

and dumb.

Now this is obviously not literal because

it's simply not true. The verse is not

referring to those who cannot hear or speak.

The verse actually clarifies itself.

Those who do not reason.

At times, the Quran,

reveals the rational basis for its commands,

such as the command to prayer. Somebody might

say, well, why do I need to pray?

God doesn't need my prayers.

And that's true. God doesn't need anything.

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is totally sufficient unto

himself. He is Al Ghani, al hayyul qayyum,

but the premise of the statement in this

particular context is wrong.

We don't pray because God needs our prayers.

That's incorrect theology. That entire premise is false.

We pray because he commands us

to pray. Prayer is for our own benefit.

We need prayer,

not him, subhanahu wa ta'ala.

In the Farsi Farsi speaking community, we often

hear the excuse,

you know, when we say come and come

to the prayer, oh, they say qalbam podcast.

Like, my my heart is pure.

My heart is pure. You see

the prayer is the greatest form of vikr

and vikr is the polish of the heart.

How can your heart be pak, be pahir,

be clean,

and be purified when you disobey

Allah by disregarding

its polishing.

Allah is

indeed the mushrikeen,

the idolaters,

they are spiritually filthy.

Why? Because they disobey Allah

So imagine a mirror

covered in a layer of dirt.

You look into the mirror and try to

convince me

that the mirror is totally clean even though

your reflection is not even visible.

If the mirror was clean and polished,

you would see an accurate reflection of your

face.

In a similar way, if your heart was

pock, was clean

as a theomorphic

creature,

we would see an accurate reflection

of Allah's commandments

in your actions.

So again, to answer the question, why do

we pray? Allah commands us to pray. We

say, Sami'ana wa Ta'ana.

Okay?

And prayer actually benefits us in both abodes.

Concerning this world, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,

Inna salatatanhaalil

fashaiwan munkar.

While in a state of wudu,

committing fashah and munkar

become very difficult. What is fashah? Fashah usually

refers to something that is specifically

sexual

in nature, a sexual sin, some sort of

sexual immorality.

Munkar is a general act of disobedience.

Committing these two things when you have to

pray 5 times a day at different times

in a state of wudu

becomes very difficult.

So the prayer literally functions to restrict your

ability to sin.

The

prophet he said, a dunya sijnul mumin.

The dunya is a prison for the believer.

So we are not meant to be too

comfortable in this world.

The Buddha who could have been a prophet,

he said that the first noble truth of

existence was that the world was in a

state of suffering,

right? And the Pali word is dukkha, which

means to be dislocated

or disjointed. I mean, think about a dislocated

shoulder,

Right? A Muslim should feel awkwardly and painfully

out of place in this world,

but also remember that Allah

does not give us

more than we can handle.

Even a Wali of God, a saint of

Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala,

especially a saint whose desires have completely aligned

with the Quran and sunnah is not comfortable

in this world.

Right? The prophet said

none of you truly believe until his his

desires,

his caprice,

his wants and desires are in perfect accordance

with what I have brought.

The Quran and Sunnah, imagine a saint of

God whose joy is to pray and fast,

whose joy is to restrict his appetite, his

joy is to read and study the Quran

and give charity.

Why is such a person uncomfortable in the

dunya? Because he longs to be with his

Lord in the akhir.

He longs to be with the prophets of

allahu alaihi sallam in Jannah.

That's called shok,

longing for one's beloved due to firaq, due

to separation.

Think about, Sayyid Nabila who was on his

deathbed and his wife was screaming,

oh

disaster. And he said,

There's no disaster. Tomorrow, I'm going to meet

the beloved ones, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam

and his fellowship.

The rationale behind the prohibition of adultery

is similarly given in the Quran. The Quran

says,

and notice here, the Quran did not say.

The Quran did not simply say don't commit

adultery. It said do not even

draw near

to adultery.

Don't even put yourself in a position

where that could even be possible.

Wasa

asabilah. It is indecency and an evil path.

Once you go down that path, things only

get worse and worse. So we can make

a cogent,

rational

argument

with supporting evidence

that people who engage in illicit sexual relations

destroy their lives.

They destroy the lives of their children. It

leads to divorce,

broken homes, mental illness,

disease, even violence.

Now check this out. When I read this,

it staggered me. I couldn't believe it.

1 in 5 Americans have an STD,

a sexually transmitted disease. 1 in 5.

According to the CDC, that's 68,000,000

people.

In an Islamic context, it is impossible

for a married couple

to contract an STD as long as they

did not fornicate

before their marriage nor commit adultery during their

marriage.

It is impossible.

According to the American Psychological

Association,

up to 40% of marriages end up in

divorce

due to infidelity,

due to Zina.

I mean, think about the mental toll. Think

about the children. Think about the child who

says to himself

that his father's needs,

personal needs were more important than his own

family.

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala told us about this

evil

and he reasons with us. Wasa as Sabila.

What a horrible way of living your life.

We can collect data and prove that.

And this is whether it's the actual act

of zina or the zina of the eyes.

Right? There's a reason why. Again, there's a

reason why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us

in the Quran,

you know, tell the believing men and women

to lower their glances.

Isa,

according to the gospel of Matthew, he said,

of course, this is according to a Christian

source,

if your eye sins, pluck it out, he

says.

It is better for for part of you

to enter * than the whole of you.

Of course, most Christians,

they take this to be majaz. This is

figurative,

Right? So it's supposed to communicate the gravity

of the sin,

but that's how it starts. The wandering eye.

He says, according to Matthew, you have heard

it said don't commit adultery, but I say

unto you,

a man who looks at a woman with

lust has already committed adultery

in his heart.

Right?

Sayna Ali, he reported a hadith. It's related

by Imam Ahmad. So Sayna Ali narrates it

where he said the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa

sallam said to him,

Right? Don't follow a glance with another glance.

For the first glance is for you.

Right?

But the second glance is against you. So

this is this is more difficult for men

than it is for women. Men are very

visually oriented.

This is why, you know, women pray behind

the men in prayer.

You know, sometimes this is difficult for women

to understand,

which is understandable because they are not men.

You know, they they don't know what it

feels like to be men and vice versa.

Men and women are different.

You ever heard of men are from Mars,

women are from Venus? Well, that's true,

but they are complementary

opposites.

They are the yin, like the yin and

the yang.

Okay? They are not rivals

or antagonists

like what we see today in our postmodern

neoliberal

and neo Marxist

culture. Everything's about

power dynamics and and, identity groups struggling for

power.

But a woman genuflecting in front of a

man will distract a man. I guarantee you.

Confucius said in book 9, chapter 18 of

the Lun Yu, that's the Analects, his his

magnum opus. He said this again in book

15, chapter 13, which means that he would

say this quite often. He said, I have

yet I have yet to meet a man

who is as fond of virtue

as he is of the beauty in women.

Okay?

Even in the Buddha, there's a story the

Buddha is sitting under the bo tree, the

buddha tree, the tree of enlightenment.

And Kama, who is, you know, the devil

in Buddhist tradition,

he comes and he parades these beautiful women

in front of him.

Okay. Now Buddhist scholars don't believe that this

is literal, but they say that this was

a modality of his own mind, that he's

mastering his khawatir nafsani, his lustful extraneous thoughts.

The inability of a man to control his

eyes could lead to the destruction

of the lives of multiple people.

Allah

warned us

about this in the Quran, and we want

to reason with people about these things.

Now the rationale behind fasting is also given

in the Quran.

La'alakuntataqun,

in order for you to attain taqwa, And

taqwa is often translated as piety or fear

of God

or God consciousness, and these certainly have something

to do with taqwa.

Linguistically,

the word taqwa is related to wikaya,

meaning protection

or prevention.

We will continue in our reflections in the

next session. Inshallah. Until then, assalamu alaykum. Warahmatullahi

wabarak.