Aqeel Mahmood – Tafseer of Surah asShams Part 3
AI: Summary ©
The importance of Allah's creation during Surah Tashams is discussed, including the "we" and "we" aspects of his worship. The soul is something which is not physical and is not a combination of the sun and the light, and is the only thing which can be balanced. The importance of balance is emphasized, and individuals are instructed to take account of their actions and not let their minds run out of control. The importance of purifying one's soul through sleep, eating, and cutting down on sleep and eating and speech is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Last week, we were continuing the tafsir of,
Surat Hashams,
and we went through,
a number of ayats
halfway through
the Surah,
and we were discussing
the fact that Allah
in this Surah in Surah Tashams, he's making
lots of oaths at the beginning.
And then we mentioned
that there's a switch between
the oaths which Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala makes
in this Surah.
Because
in the beginning or in the first kind
of half of this Surah, Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala is making these oaths
and he's talking about the sun and the
moon. And he's talking about the heavens and
the earth.
So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the beginning
of this of this Surah, he's talking about
the creation of Allah with regards to things
that we can see.
The sun and the moon and the the
the sky and the earth and also the
day and the night. So all of these
things are things which we can see
with the human eye, the sun rising in
the morning and then the moon that comes
out in the evening
and the day and the night which are
the results
of the sun and the moon and also
the heavens and the earth. And then Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala after making these oaths,
he continues with,
swearing by his creation,
but then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala makes an
oath after these things. He makes an oath
with the soul itself.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he says
he says
and the soul and by the soul and
he who proportioned it. And so we talked
about
the soul last week and we talked about
how
the the soul is either inclined towards good
or it's inclined towards evil, either towards or
towards good or bad, towards righteousness,
or towards wickedness.
And
continuing from,
from last week's lesson,
with regards to this,
I will mention some things which we never
mentioned last week, and then we'll continue with
the of the following ayat of the Surah,
and we won't finish the Surah today. We're
gonna continue next week. The idea was to,
finish the Surah today and to talk about
the people of because Allah says
he talks about the story of the people
of
and the trials that that they were,
that that they had to deal with and
the consequences of their disobedience to Allah. But
because of, some things which I wanted to
discuss today won't be able to mention,
that story. So we'll mention that next week,
and hopefully, we'll,
conclude with the Surah next week. So Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, when he's talking about these
oaths and he's making these oaths,
he says
And the scholars, they mentioned that this aya,
it actually has two meanings.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he says
and the soul and he who proportioned it.
And the word
the scholars, they say it has two meanings.
And the first meaning
is and
the soul
and how amazing is he who proportioned it.
Meaning who?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So it says if
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying is
he who
proportioned
the soul. The one who proportioned the soul.
So this is the first meaning where
Allah is swearing by the soul and then
he's swearing by himself as well in the
same
ayah.
The other's opinion with regards to the meaning
of this ayah, and they don't contradict.
So it's it it just shows the beauty
and the richness and the eloquence of the
of the Quran and of the ayat of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The second meaning
is and the soul and how amazing
is its
or its proportions. How amazing it has been
proportioned. How amazing
it has been made. And so where comes
from the way it comes from the same,
root as the word.
You know, when we say when
a person's,
when we say straightening the straightening of the
rose. So the word so when we say
to proportion something, it's basically to make sure
that it's equal, that one part of it
isn't heavier than the other part, to make
sure that it's equal and it's balanced.
And so when we look at it from
this angle,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is swearing by the
soul, and either he's swearing by himself because
he's the one who proportioned the soul, gave
it that, gave it gave the soul its
balance, or it means how amazing it is
the balance of the soul itself. Now what
is this balance of the soul?
Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the previous
ayaat, he's talking about opposites and how everything
is balanced.
Everything
has its own yani,
position and place. So the sun comes out
during the day. And then once, the sun
has come out and it's it's been out
the whole day, then it's it's turn to
to to to set and is the the
the turn of the moon to rise.
So every single thing has its proportion, every
single thing has its time, everything is balanced
in the sight of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Allah has given everything
its its orbit and given everything
its its place and its time. So the
sun comes out at specific times. The moon
comes out at specific times. These things are
proportioned. You know, these things have this balance
in the sight of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And also, as Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala after
he swears by the sun and the moon,
he swears by the day and the night,
which are the effects of the sun and
the moon. So when the sun is out,
it's daylight. And when the moon is out,
it's basically nighttime and the sun is gone.
The sun has set. And also,
with regards to,
the test we had, the proportions which Allah
has given also, This includes the heavens and
the earth. So this shows us the beauty
and the eloquence of this and the meaning
behind
how,
this is
is is signaling and,
hinting at the the the balancing of the
soul. So what is the soul?
What does the soul have to do with
the sun and the moon? And we discussed
this,
last week as well, but also, some things
which we never mentioned with regards to the
connection between the the sun and the soul
because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he's talking about
the the sun at the beginning.
And we mentioned that even the next ayat
after Allah mentions the sun, the rest of
the ayat, they go back to the sun.
Everything is referring back to the sun. And
so this shows us the importance of the
sun itself. But then Allah mentions the soul
which is something different, something which unlike the
sun and the moon and the heavens and
the earth and the day and the night,
we can't actually see it. In fact, we
don't know that much about the soul itself.
So why does Allah switch
from swearing
with these creations
of of his to the creation of the
soul, which is something none of us can
see and in fact we don't have that
much knowledge about. And the scholars, they talk
about the similarities between the sun
and the soul. And they say that the
sun is something which is physical, is something
which is tangible, is something
which a person can see.
And
the light of the sun because Allah himself
swears by the light. He says,
and means the the the the the glowing,
the radiant light. So Allah
swears by the light. And the light of
the sun is something which isn't really physical.
It's not something which a person can touch.
It's not something which is tangible.
And so, likewise,
when we think of the sun and the
impact that it has on us and the
impact that it has on the earth itself,
the body
similarly is something which is physical.
The body is something which is physical,
similar to the sun. But with regards to
the soul, it's something which isn't physical. It's
something
which is is not tangible.
Like the sun, like the the the light
and the nur which comes from the sun.
The dua,
the the the light which comes from the
sun itself. So you have the similarity between
the soul and the light of the sun.
And also the scholars, they say that
every single one of us was created from
dirt. We were created from mud. We were
created from clay. And all of our desires
go back to this earth.
And it the things that we want, the
the the desires
that the body wants
with regards to when a person feels hungry,
he wants food. And the food comes from
this comes from this Earth. When a person
is sick, he wants medicine.
And the medicine itself comes from this earth,
which Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has provided for
us, and the fruits and the vegetables and
the vegetation
and the plants and, you know, the medicine
as the messenger of Allah
he said that every single,
disease, there is a cure for it on
this earth, from the earth itself.
So everything that the body needs is from
this earth, which Allah,
causes its vegetation and fruits to come out
because of the sun. If it wasn't for
the sun, these things wouldn't come out.
And so when a person
has this craving, this physical craving, the body
craves certain things, whether it's food or drink,
whether it's medicine, even, you know, marriage, even,
you know, the the
the act of intimacy is something which is
from the body itself. And so he he
has a spouse, he gets married. And the
and the partner, the spouse itself is from
the mud, is from the earth itself.
So these are the things which satisfy the
body itself.
But then
when we talk about the soul,
it's not something which is physical and it's
not satisfied by physical things.
So what satisfies the soul?
It's the remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
It's the Quran itself.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is comparing the
sun to the sun because,
the effects of the sun are similar
to the effects or or or the the
other part of the body, which is the
soul. Just like the sun has a physical
part and it has,
a non tangible part, likewise, the body is
physical and, likewise, it has a part of
it which
doesn't fulfill itself with physical things, but rather
it needs something else.
And the soul is the thing which is
the the the second half of the body.
You know? It's the other part of of
what we are created from. The human being
is created from 2 things, from the the
body, the the physical body that we have,
and then the soul. And so the soul
itself is something the nafs, which Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is mentioning here. The
soul itself gets sustenance from above the 7
heavens, from the revelation of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, from the book of Allah, and from
and from acts of worship.
And so this is what Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala is alluding to when he mentions the
nafs and how the the the soul itself
is something which is balanced.
It's something which is balanced, and we'll discuss
this more inshallah in a in a in
a in a little while. So Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala
here, he's talking about how the nafs is
something which is balanced. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
he says,
and he inspired it with its wickedness and
its righteousness. Meaning the nafs, the soul, it's
either inclined towards 1 of the 2. And
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has created everything, good
and bad and the human being and the
soul. And the soul itself is something which
is either inspired towards wickedness or it's inspired
towards righteousness.
And this shows that the itself,
it's balanced and it recognizes good and recognizes
bad, which we mentioned last week. You know,
the soul itself can tell when something is
is good or when something is bad. The
when someone does something wrong, you know, when
you steal something, when you say something evil
to someone, when you do something haram, when
you do something wrong, straightaway something triggers in
your mind, and you know that that that
that that's something which isn't right, it's something
which is wrong, it's something which is evil,
it's something which is haram, it's something you
shouldn't have done. You know, when a person
steals, for example, a person doesn't need to
be told by someone else that stealing is
wrong. He knows it's in his nature. He
knows that stealing is something which is haram.
And so the nafs itself is something
which recognizes
good and bad, And both the body and
the soul should have its sustenance. Just like
the body gets sustenance from the earth with
regards to food and drink and medicine and
other things, likewise,
the soul needs its sustenance.
The soul needs to have, you know, things
which will give it that satisfaction
that it doesn't,
get as much as the body in some
instances in with some people. And the sustenance
of the soul itself is the remembrance of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But at the same
time,
we have to always have this balance.
And this is what means. It's something which
has is equal measure.
You know, it's proportioned.
It's not too much on one side and
not too much on the other side either.
And so when we talk about this balance,
we're talking about not overdoing
with regards to either parts of what we
are created from. So when it comes to
the body itself, we don't, you know, lean
too much on one side.
For example, a person doesn't get too
distracted with the desires of this dunya because
now he's he's he's craving his body is
craving certain things, and he's giving in to
those cravings, and he's leaning his the the
balance the scale isn't balanced anymore. So he's
doing too much in the dunya
and getting distracted,
you know, from the worship of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
And so the nafs or or the nafs
now is lacking because the body is doing
too much. It's getting in itself involved
in the dunya to such an extent that
now the soul is suffering. So a person
becomes distracted by wealth. He becomes distracted by
money. He becomes distracted by,
you know, other things, work or something else,
you know,
and that thing becomes,
so so much of a priority in his
life that his nerves, his soul starts to
lack.
And at the same time,
the opposite can also be true.
Where a person,
he ends up
doing too much for the soul that his
body starts to lack.
And a person goes overboard with regards to
acts of worship.
Okay? And this can happen even though some
of us we may think, you know, how
is that even possible? Nowadays, it's too much
on one side. It's not it's not on
the other side. You know? But sometimes it
can be the case where a person does
too much acts of worship to the extent
that he ends up neglecting
his own health, his own body, and neglecting
the dunya itself. And this is, something which
people in the past have fallen into, and
the people of other groups and other sects
where they end up doing so much acts
of worship that they totally abandon the dunya.
And this is why
there's many a hadith and stories of the
companions where,
it's mentioned that,
they would
do too much acts of worship. And as
a result of this, the messenger of Allah
he would remind them
of and and and and rewarding them of
of having this balance.
You know the story of the of the
the famous story of the companions, you know,
who said that they will worship, you know,
for for for they they will worship a
long time and someone who will never ever
get married and someone and someone who will
fast and never eat. And so the messenger,
he reminded them. And he said that I
am someone who fast and I also eat,
and I marry.
You know? So this shows us the importance
of having this balance because even the messenger
of Allah
was someone who had this balance, and he
was the best of creation.
And so when there's an imbalance with regards
to the body and the soul, then you
don't get that satisfaction,
from either the body or the soul. And
this is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he
mentions
in the Quran
Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala he says,
seek Allah.
Seek what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given
to you with regards to the abode of
the hereafter.
And at the same time, don't forget your
portion of the dunya.
Don't forget your portion of this world. So
sometimes, you know, the human being is a
type of creation which is which is which
has extremes.
So we either go to one extreme or
the other.
You know, a person doesn't read Quran for
a few weeks, for a few months.
And
because he hasn't read for a long time,
he says, that's it. I'm not gonna do
anything else except read Quran for the rest
of the day. And so he ends up
trying to read for, like, 6, 7, 8,
9 hours. You know? He reads, you know,
4, 5 hours every single day for a
a week or 2. And as a result
of this, his body starts to lag.
And and because of this, after 2 1
or 2 weeks, he goes back to his
old routine, and he neglects the the the
soul again, regrets
the worship of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
You know? And he ends up going,
extreme into the, you know, onto the other
side.
And so,
you know, when a person goes to one
extreme or the other,
it's something which is going to cause him
more harm than good. And this is why
the messenger of Allah,
he mentioned in the hadith with regards to
sin and with regards to to to.
And he said
he said righteousness
is good manners.
Righteousness
is good manners.
And sin is what waivers in your heart.
And when you do it, you feel this
kind of discomfort. You don't feel comfortable when
you do those do those things. There's something
something happens in your heart. And he said,
that it's something which wavers in your heart,
and you dislike others finding out about it.
And so
when a person does something and is not
sure whether it's something which is good or
bad, then sometimes one way of of knowing
whether it's something bad is if he does
it in secret and doesn't want anybody else
to know. You know, if he does it
in his own house, he does it in
his own room, when nobody else is watching,
and he's afraid that if people find out
that it's it's it's not going to be
a good thing, then that's going to be,
most of the time, a good indication that
what he's doing is something which is wrong.
It's something which, you know, is haram. It's
something which is evil because he doesn't want
anybody else to find out, and it's something
he's keeping to himself. And this is why
the worst case scenario, the worst situation is
when a person commits sins and is open
about those sins.
That's the worst type of scenario. That's the
worst type of situation that a person can
be in. And this is why the messenger
he talked about the end of times. And
he said the
the one of the best people towards the
end of time will be a person walking,
and he will see 2 people fornicating on
the street.
Because, you know, Itham and and and and
sin and, forjour and wickedness is going to
be rampant. And this person, he will say
to them, why don't you go to the
site? At least do it on the side.
Don't do it on the on the on
the street itself in public. Do it somewhere
on the side. And that's going to be
the one the, you know, the the most
righteous people in that time. And so it
shows us,
the fact that when a person does sins
in private, he has some type of
some type of, you know,
some type of humility, some type of embarrassment
with with those sins that he's committing.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala after this ayah,
he says.
So he's talking about the soul. He's talking
about,
how the soul is something which needs to
be balanced,
and it's something which recognizes
good and bad. It's something which knows wickedness
and righteousness. It's it's able to distinguish between
the 2. And then Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala,
he says,
successful
is the one who purifies it.
Meaning purifies the soul. He is the one
who is successful.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this ayah,
he's now answering
all of the the oaths that he mentioned
at the beginning at the first half of
this of this surah.
The previous, you know, ayat, the last 789
I 78 ayat were all oaths. Allah
is just making oaths after oaths after oaths.
And then in this ayah, Allah
is giving the
He's now answering, you
know, the oaths, what he's making these oaths
for. And he's saying,
Verily, the one who is successful is he
who purifies his soul.
Allah
is talking about the sun and the moon,
And he's saying he's he's he's he's he's
trying to give us an idea of these
opposites, these contrasts,
these things which are almost in con in
conflict with one another. The sun and the
moon, the the heavens and the earth, you
know, the night and the day.
And so Allah
is likening the soul itself with this creation
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because it can
go one way or the other. It can
go,
and
be righteous
and have the noor of Allah Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, the of the Quran, the the
the light of Islam in its heart where
you can have the darkness of your ignorance
and the darkness of sin.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this ayah,
he says
he says, verily the successful one is he
who purifies it, meaning purifies his soul. And
Allah says,
you know, when someone says,
it's the same root. And means the one
who is successful, the one who is victorious.
And
or itself, the word
it means victory
and success in what was desired.
Victory and success in what was desired. If
a person intended something, he wanted to achieve
something. He had a goal. Okay? And when
he accomplishes that goal, when he achieves that
goal, okay, and he's he's successful in achieving
that goal, that's considered to be.
That person now, he's successful. He's someone who's
victorious.
And
the word
comes from the word or the, similar word,
which comes from the same root is. You
know, when we say
purification of the soul.
And and that comes from the same root
as.
And the word
zakaha has 2 different meanings,
and it's similar to the word zakah.
You know, when we give zakah every single
year. Okay? You see, I had the the
that word has the same root.
The word zakah
has two meanings. One of the meanings is
tahir,
which is to purify something,
to purify something. And the other is a
ziyada,
just like the word zakah. Zakatulpitr
for example. And nama was ziyada, purification
and also an increase because when you give
zakah, you're purifying your wealth and also you're
increasing in wealth because
your wealth doesn't decrease by giving wealth. So,
likewise, here, purification of the soul when a
person pure is in intends to purify and
purifies his soul, he's purifying his soul on
one side and also at the same time
he's increasing. What is he increasing in?
He's increasing in the worship of Allah. He's
increasing in iman. He's increasing in good deeds.
So a person, he's getting the he's getting
both of these when he tries to purify
his souls. And that's why the scholars, they
say, is
increase
to increase in good and obedience
and taking care of purifying the soul from
all sins.
And
the individual, the Muslim, how does he purify
himself? What are the means and the ways
in which an individual
performs this
of the nafs? The purification
of the nafs of the soul.
He does this through acts of worship. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, he says in another ayah
in Suratul A'ala, a similar ayah to this.
He's victorious, the one who
purifies.
And he remembers and he mentions the name
of Allah, the the name of his lord,
and he prays.
So this shows when a person remembers Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala with the tongue and when
he prays with his body, this is a
means of him purifying his soul.
So doing deeds of the heart, doing deeds
of the tongue, deeds of the body, acts
of worship, these acts of worship cause,
the soul to be sustained. It gives sustenance
to the soul. You're giving food to the
soul just like your body is also given
food and medicine and things which, it needs
to survive.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he then says,
And
he fails,
for sure he will fail the one who,
the one who corrupts it.
And here, the scholars, they say is when
you run after something and you fail to
get it.
And that's why the the the the scholars
of the past, they would say, when you
run after the dunya, the dunya will the
the dunya will flee from you. You'll never
catch up to the dunya. It'll always be
running away from you, and you'll be running
after the dunya for your whole life.
And so they said it's when you run
after something and you fail to get it.
Also, they said, it means when you run
after something
and
you achieve it, but it's not what you
expected.
And this what happens with the dunya. You
know, you're looking you're going after a certain
job, for example. You get that job, and
then you realize this isn't what I was
expecting.
You know, you get lots of money
all of a sudden.
And then you get all that money, and
then you realize this isn't what I was
expecting.
You know, you you you you achieve something.
You feel like it's something which is big.
You know, maybe a person gets married, and
you realize marriage isn't what it was supposed
to be. You know, a person, for example,
goes and lives somewhere else. He lives in
another city, or he buys something which he
thought was going to be amazing.
You know, a new phone, for example, a
new car.
And he realized when he buys it, it's
something I was duped, you know. This is
I was ripped off. And so he realized
that what he was running after wasn't what
he was expecting.
The word they say is to disregard
or throw something into the dust,
to disregard something, to to throw something away.
And so sometimes a person, when he's focused
too much on the dunya and,
you know, fulfilling the needs of his body,
and he ends up as a result of
this neglecting the soul, it's like as if
he's thrown the soul away. It's like as
if the soul isn't important anymore. It's like
as if nothing is as important as the
the dunya and him feeding the cravings which
his body, you know, needs and is craving
for. And also, does does that means to
cover something,
to cover something because it's like as if
the soul is being covered. You know, it's
like as if the the the the soul
itself is being covered with with sin. You
know? And and the body now is taking
priority over the soul, and it's not equal
now. There's no equal the the the scales
aren't balanced. You know, it's like as if
the the the body itself is taking over
everything, and the soul is just being covered.
And also, the word
refers to something which is buried.
So it's like as if the soul is
being thrown into something and it's being buried.
Dust has been thrown on it. You know,
dirt has been thrown on it and it's
been forgotten.
And he fails the one who corrupts it,
the one who doesn't give it its its
sustenance. It is not giving it the attention
that it deserves, the attention that it needs.
And this is why the messenger of Allah,
he
would always make dua for his nafs.
And he said that whenever he would recite
this
whenever he would recite this, he would make
dua and he
would
say,
Allah
He will always make this dua. He
Allah oh Allah, give
give my soul.
The this this this fear of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And purified
you are the best of those who purifies.
You are its leader and you are its
master. Meaning, you are the one who is
in charge of my soul. If you don't
give me that sustenance
and you don't give me that, then nobody
can give me and provide me with the
sustenance which my soul needs.
So all of these things show us the
importance of feeding the soul just like we
feed the body because the you know, we
are made up of these two components. And
so it's important for a person never to
forget the fact that both of these things
need fulfillment and they both they both need
their sustenance. And so what's the importance of,
You know, Allah
himself in the Quran,
he swears by the nafs 11 times. 11
times in the Quran, he's swearing by the
the nafs and the success of the one
who who purifies his soul. And also
and that's enough for us. You know, when
Allah
swears by something, it shows us the its
importance because Allah only swears by those things
which are important.
Also, on top of this,
he talks about the and he mentioned some
beautiful statements about
the
he was one of those, scholars who was
known as the the doctor of the heart
because he would always talk about things related
to the heart,
diseases of the heart, and the cures of
the heart, and the soul, and things like
this. And
purification of the soul and so on and
so forth.
And he said that
the
the itself is between the heart and
it's between the heart and,
going to your lord.
This the is in between. It's like a
barrier between it's it can either it's like
a barrier, something in between the heart and
going to your lord. Meeting your lord on
the day of judgement. Meaning the happiness and
and attaining the happiness and the rewards of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And he said this
isn't achieved, meaning achieving, you know, the happiness
of Allah going to our our lord
that isn't achieved except after killing the soul
and conquering the soul.
Meaning, you know, killing the soul in the
sense that we
we we end up controlling our desires.
We end up controlling, you know, both components
of ourselves, and we conquer, you know, both
parts of,
of the self.
And so he's saying the nafs is something
which can ease which can either cause our
destruction or it can cause our success, depending
on how we deal with it, depending on
what we do with regards to our soul.
And also,
the nafs is something
which if it's purified, it's a way of
us entering into Jannah.
The nafs and the soul, if it's purified,
it's a way of entering into paradise. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, he says
As for the one
who is afraid of this of of the
the status of his lord.
He he realizes
the greatness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the
greatness of his lord.
And he stops and he prevents,
his soul from from the desires of the
of the world, from the desires of the
dunya.
And so this person,
he prevents and he forbids his soul from
the desires of this world.
Then verily paradise is his destination. That's what
he's going to get.
On the condition
that he realizes the greatness of his lord.
Once he realizes the greatness of Allah, then
he'll he'll be able to control his soul
because he wants what what Allah
has prepared for him. And so then
paradise
will be his destination.
Also, the nafsta soul,
as we mentioned before, it requires nourishment
just like the body, requires nourishment, and just
like the body requires sustenance.
And,
the
the scholars, they also talked about the ways
in which,
a person can,
purify his soul.
Like, what are the things that a person
can do in order to purify his soul?
And one of the interesting things they mentioned
with regards to purification of the soul,
you know, we hear about
all the time. Having good thoughts, having good
thoughts of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, having good
thoughts of our friends, if they say something,
if they do something, if we hear something
about them, we always try to put it
in the best possible light. You know, even
with regards to dreams, the scholars will say
with regards to dreams, if a person has
a dream, he should never think of that
dream unless it's a nightmare which is from
the shaitan. There's something else. But when when
we have certain dreams, okay, and sometimes we
try to link those dreams to bad things.
The scholars, they say with dreams, even if
a person has a dream, he should always
link it to something good
as much as he can. No matter what
kind of dream it was, no matter what
he sees in that dream, always try to
link it to something which is good. And
they say that they they they they compared
dreams to to du'a.
They say when a person, you know, makes
du'a, he should always be optimistic with regards
to those duas that he makes. Likewise, with
dreams. Always be optimistic.
So,
with regards to, having done, we always have
good thoughts of everything. Dreams of of of
our friends, of our family members, of people
that we know, maybe people that we don't
even know. And also with regards to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, we always have good thoughts
of
Allah. But the scholars, they say with regards
to the nafs,
with regards to the nafs, a person shouldn't
have.
In fact, he should have.
He should have bad thoughts of his soul.
Why should an individual
have bad thoughts of his, bad thoughts of
his soul? The scholars, they say,
because
when a person,
has
good thoughts of his soul, when he has
of his soul,
it prevents a person looking into his soul,
looking into himself, and looking at his own
weaknesses and his own flaws.
You know, when a person bigs himself up,
you know, when you big yourself up and
you think you're,
you're praying and you're fasting and you're doing
all of these good deeds and you can't
do nothing wrong and you're
one of the best Muslims on the face
of this earth. And, you know, when you
start thinking like this, it's very hard for
a person to find out what his weaknesses
are.
You know, you got yes men around you.
Everyone's just praising you, and so it gets
to a person's head. And so it's hard
for him to find out where his weaknesses
are, where his faults are. Whereas if a
person is always criticizing himself,
he's always thinking about,
you know, how his soul is trying to,
you know, do things which are evil, doing
things which are wicked.
You know, it's inspired by evil and good.
So a person, when he thinks about the
evil which the soul may do, now he's
he's on top of the soul. You know,
he's he's keeping an eye on, you know,
how how the soul will react and what
the soul will do. And so he's constantly
making sure that he doesn't do anything wrong.
Whereas if he has good thoughts, he's going
to be careless.
He's going to be careless of what the
soul is doing. And this is why
he talks about having
or
with regards to a person's soul and how
he should be careful about,
not having,
good thoughts of the soul. And he said,
for in the,
the, when a person has happiness
and contentment
with the obedience that he shows to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
it's it the the soul itself,
a person starts to, you know,
the soul itself
becomes
he he starts drowning in the the positiveness
of what he's saying and what he's feeling
with regards to his soul. Yeah. And when
a person is always thinking good of himself
and, thinking of, you know, all the good
things that he does and how obedient he
or how obedient he is to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, he's drowning in in the in
these positive things with regards to his soul,
and he doesn't recognize and see the evil
of the soul itself.
And this is why,
he talks about how,
the individual
when he's happy with with the soul,
that it starts to
starts to bring about,
amazement and arrogance.
You know, when a person does something good,
when he's impressed with something he's done, he
said, well, that was pretty good. I'm quite
good at this. You know? I'm quite this
is quite impressive. And so he he doesn't
tend to look at those things which he's
weak on. He doesn't look at those weaknesses
which he has. And as a result of
this, he can end up falling short or
he can suffer, you know, a a big
tragic tragedy later on in his life because
he's not recognizing the weaknesses that he has.
He's not looking deep into his soul. He's
not doing taftish, you know, inspecting and looking
at his own soul and reflecting on his
own soul. And this is why
it said,
the the Arabs, they say,
They said the whimpering of the one who
sins is more beloved to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala
than the
the the fakeness of the one who praises
Allah.
Because the one who whimpers when he commits
a sin, he's recognizing the sins he's done.
Whereas the one who is
totally blinded by the by the good deeds
that he's doing, he's oblivious, and he may
be leading himself towards destruction.
And so this shows us the importance of
a person having with regards to his own
soul,
making sure that he's always keeping his own
soul in check. You know, making sure that
he doesn't let his soul overtake his life
and let him rule everything. And this is
why
was someone who was known for this. You
know, he would keep control of his desires
to the extent that when the Muslims were
suffering from a drought during his leadership,
the people were hungry. And likewise, he wouldn't
eat either because the people weren't eating. And
so his stomach started to rumble.
And so he spoke to his own stomach,
and he said, rumble or don't rumble, you're
not gonna get any food.
You know, which is which shows us the
amount of,
discipline and control he had over his soul.
Another thing which the scholars say a person
should do in order to purify his soul
is, try to empty his acts of worship
from showing off.
And, you know, we know all the,
all the things which we hear about the
the dangers of showing off. The messenger of
Allah
he talked about, a hidden shirk, which is
riya itself. Because when a person starts to,
worship Allah and those acts of worship
aren't done purely for the sake of Allah,
They're called hidden shirk because sometimes a person
himself doesn't realize
that he's doing it for other than the
sake of Allah. You know, he may be
praying and certain people may see him or
certain situations may arise
where even he himself doesn't realize the extent
of how much his acts of worship have
have changed because of external factors.
And so this is why,
it's something which is known as hidden shirk.
It's called,
shirkul hafih. A person doesn't realize. Also because
from the outside, it seems like he's it
seems like he's worshiping Allah, you know, by
other people who are seeing him.
Everyone else who sees him, they see him
as worshiping Allah. No one knows whether that's
that person is worshiping,
sincerely for the sake of Allah or not.
Today, either seeing someone worshiping Allah. But whereas
that individual, he may be doing it for
other than the sake of Allah, and those
actions will won't be worth anything. And so
this shows us the importance of making sure
that we don't,
do acts of worship for the for other
than the sake of Allah
and show off with regards to our acts
of worship. Also,
the scholars, they say a person should should
do always,
you know,
take account of his nafs. Always take account
of his soul. And this is why Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala, he says,
oh you who believe, fear Allah
and look at your own selves and what
you prepared, what you've done for tomorrow,
what you're going to do for tomorrow, what
you put forth for tomorrow, meaning what you
what you've stored and what you what you've
done for the day of judgment.
You know, think about the consequences of your
actions. And the messenger of Allah
he said
that
that,
the the one who's indebted is the one
who has,
forsaken or the one who has
forsaken his own soul, Dan and Afshahu.
And,
also,
the the the scholars themselves, they would talk
about,
you know, controlling and and purifying the soul.
He would say
take account of yourselves before you are taken
account of on the day of judgment.
And so he would remind the people, Al
Hasan Abbasi Rahimahullah,
he said that verily the slave,
will
continue to be,
successful,
as long as he advises
his own soul,
and as long as he takes it into
account
and he takes,
he he gives it importance. He gives his
own soul, and taking,
account of his soul, he gives that its
utmost importance. As long as he does this,
this person will be up upon good and
upon righteousness. And also another scholar he said,
that a person
won't a slave of Allah won't have
he won't be God fearing
until
he until he takes account of his soul
to the to the most extreme.
Until he does as much as he can
to take
account of his soul.
Just like a friend, a close friend does
to a close friend of his.
You know, when 2 close friends
are very close to another, they're best friends.
When someone does something wrong, the other one
advises him.
So the scholar is saying, when a person
is the best friend of his soul, meaning
he's always advising and watching out for his
own soul,
so long as he continues to do this,
he'll be someone who has taqwa, he'll be
someone who has who is God fearing, and
someone who is,
has his fear of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Also they say
that another way of a person purifying his
soul is,
cutting down on sleep and also eating and
speech. These three things, on sleep and food
and speech. Because when a person speaks a
lot and it's not something which is of
any benefit, he's not remembering Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala or worshiping Allah through his tongue, then
it's something which will distance him away from
the worship of Allah.
It's something which will make him further and
further away from Allah. Because the reason and
the purpose of our creation was to worship
Allah.
You know, the we talked about the soul.
We talked about the body. We talked about
how
the the soul needs its sustenance.
And so when a person
knows that his purpose in this life is
to worship Allah, the fitrah
is something which knows that it's here to
worship Allah. When we do things in the
dunya
other than worshiping Allah, then
we're we're neglecting
what
our purpose in life is itself. And so
when we do this, is going to cause
a person to go away from Allah
and his remembrance. And and a person when
he eats a lot,
the person ends up becoming lazy. And one
of the scholars he said,
no. A person said one of the scholars
he said when a person eats a lot,
he ends up sleeping a lot as a
result of that. You know? And so when
a person sleeps a lot, it causes a
person to become lazy. It causes a person
to become,
you know,
lethargic, and he doesn't want to do as
much as he would do if he wasn't
someone who, ate as much. And this is
why one of them,
the the the Arabs would say,
that a person who eats a lot, he'll
drink a lot because he's thirsty now. That's
when a person drinks a lot, he's satisfied
and he's relaxing, and though and then he'll
end up sleeping a lot. And then when
he ends up sleeping a lot,
he ends up losing a lot as a
result of that because he's wasting his time
on doing these things as opposed to worshiping
Allah. And we know the story of, you
know, the messenger of Allah
when he would,
he would put stones on his stomach
because he would feel that hunger.
And the companions, they would refrain from eating
to such an extent that,
not because they,
they chose to, but sometimes in some cases
because they had to. They they want people
who are wealthy. And so it said in
some narrations that they would actually eat leaves
from trees
because of the extent of, the the the
the
the the lack of food that they had.
And, also, it said that Abu Hered
he would faint because of a lack of
food
to that extent. You know? So it shows
us how when a person,
eats less, sometimes
the body becomes stronger in the sense that
he wants to worship Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
more and he depends on Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala more. Also,
a person should,
have patience
and
have 2 of these things. Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala,
he says,
Those who are patient will be given their
reward in full. So when a person has
patience and he has,
this individual,
you know, he'll be given that that test
he had a purification that he's that he's
looking for. And also finally, dua itself,
supplication.
We've talked about supplication and we said the
messenger
he would make dua and he would say
Allah
He will always make dua especially when reciting
these ayats. Sometimes even in salah. The messenger
of when he would recite his ayat, he
would make dua, and then he would carry
on reciting. So a person should, ask Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala to purify his soul and
inshallah that will complete today. And next week,
inshallah
will
finish off the Surah and we'll talk about
the story
of Samut.
The people of Samut and,
the trials that befell them and how, they
dealt with those trials and what happened as
a consequence and lessons we can take from
it and why it's connected to the Surah.
Why does
the mention the people of Tamud? Why didn't
he mention the people of Bani Israel of
Musa Alaihi Salam or the people of,
Nuhali Salam or any other nation? Why specifically
the people of Tamud in this Surah at
this moment in time? And so we'll discuss
that next week inshallah.
If there's any questions, then I'll do my
best to answer them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. So we we mentioned that we said
that a person, he has with regards to
his soul, but not to the extent where
his his his overcompensating.
And as a result of this, he's he's
neglecting
his own body and neglecting what his body
craves and what his body desires and what
his body needs. Because the messenger he said,
you know, you know, your body has a
right over you. Your family has a right
over you. There are things which have a
right over you. So it's it's about having
that balance. So a person has
as bad thoughts of his soul, and he's
always wary of that, but at the same
time, doesn't overcompensate
to such an extent that he ends up
neglecting the body itself.
Okay.