Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Aqidah Tahawiyyah Part 2 Tawhid Center MI 08192016
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So we left off on the point
that there is nothing
There is nothing like him.
And this
brought up a kind of an issue,
methodological issue, which is what
what do you do when 2 texts
seem to conflict with one another
seem to conflict with one another. With regards
to the nature of Allah
there is an ayah in the beginning of
Surah to Ale Imran.
Alright.
Who's a who's a half is here?
Alright. Go ahead. Read it.
So he is the one, Allah ta'ala, is
the one who sent upon you or or
sent down upon you,
the book, the the Quran.
Right? And from it, certain ayat are.
Right? Is a a word I want you
to write down.
The of the Quran
are those
that are clear in their delineation.
It's very clear what they're trying to say.
There's no sort of, like, deeper or esoteric
meaning that's being implied. Rather, the first and
primary meaning that comes to a person's mind
is very clear what it means.
Right?
What do you do?
Right? Cut their hands off. The thief, the
male and female thief, you cut their hands
off. This is not like
a a commentary about some deep philosophical
something or another. I mean, the implications may
be very deep, but the point of the
hadith is what? That the punishment for
theft is amputation.
What constitutes
theft? What are exceptions to a rule? Etcetera,
etcetera. These things we talk about afterward.
The
the what the book of Allah ta'ala are.
And then there are other ayaat that are
allegorical in their indication.
Meaning what? It's not clear at full first
glance what the meaning of this this verse
is.
It's not clear at first glance what the
meaning of this ayat is, what the ayat
is trying to convey.
And it's quite possible from the that there
are certain ayat. The meaning that they're trying
to convey is obscure. You won't be able
to understand what it is.
Now
this is something we have to understand off
the bat that there are certain parts of
the Quran we're not gonna understand what they
mean.
The Quran has something called a tafsir, right,
which is an explanation of its meanings.
And then it has something called a,
which is
a a a possible,
set of meanings that may be contained inside
of it. So tafsir is to say this
ayah means this, this ayah means that. Tafsir
happens only through 1 of 2 methods.
1 is through
through narration.
Right? The messenger of Allah
said, worship your lord until Yakin comes to
you that the Yakin in this place means
death. This is transmitted from
through a sound chain of narration from the
messenger of Allah.
And the other source of tafsir is what?
Using the the the
the the sciences that serve interpretation,
like Arabic grammar, like Arabic morphology, and
like logic.
Meaning what? If this is true, then logically
this must be true. Or if this is
the grammatical condition of this sentence, that means
that this sentence means this and it doesn't
mean that. These are very decisive ways
of of of saying that this is what
this ayah means, this is what this ayah
doesn't mean.
There's a hadith of the messenger of
and then in different
the person who interprets the Quran based on
their own opinion,
that person is wrong even if they happen
to be right. Meaning, even if they get
their opinion happens to coincide with what the
correct meaning of that aya is, with Allah
that person is still considered wrong.
Why? Because they interpreted the Quran based on
their, opinion. And this is a philosophical
discussion. What's the point of? What's the point
of revelation?
The point of revelation is what?
The point of the Wahi is to teach
the insan what he didn't know from before
and what was impossible for him to have
known.
So ra'i,
opinion doesn't enter into wahi. It doesn't enter
into wahi. Your opinion doesn't enter into revelation.
This is especially important in 2 matters
that are linked with one another.
One is the beliefs of Islam, the aqayd,
and the other is the ibadat of Islam.
Both of them are known only through
only known through Revelation.
Why is it 3 raka'as of Maghrib and
not 4? Allah knows best.
Why are there saba'asamawat?
Why are there 7 heavens?
Allah knows best. We weren't there to take
the grand tour. Nobody asked us when they're
designing it, and it's that's that's it. It's
just it's we we receive the information, and
there's no opinion that enters into it. It's
just something we take as trust from the
messenger of
Allah from Allah
That's it. Done. Okay? So this is the
idea
of. Right? There are many people that say,
Sheikh, you say bida'at, but, you know, why
why don't you ride around on a camel?
Is a camel an aqidah?
Is it a belief of deen? No.
Is a camel a form
of? No.
This is a misunderstanding of the the the
the the concept of bida'ah. Why is bida'ah
represent reprehensible in the deen? It's reprehensible in
the deen because it is talking about those
things when you say something new that's not
there from before regarding
a belief or regarding an.
Right? An act of worship that's that's super
rational. Right? Why does the salat, you know,
why is it farther? What benefit does it
give you? All on those best. There's something
in the unseen regarding it. Right? Versus, for
example,
giving charity, it may be an active
in the
metaphorical sense. But in the literal sense, it's
very well understood that you're giving food to
someone they're going to eat and then their
their hunger is taken care of. And
these are things that are rationally understood versus
the there are literally and they're metaphorical
In the Usul, the
literal are those acts that you do, that
there's no way of knowing in this world
without understanding the unseen what the benefit of
this is. The The only reason we say
it's of any benefit is because we know
that Allah and
taught us that there's benefit in it.
So why are
these reprehensible? Why? Because they are saying
something about from your own
from your own
opinion. And who's the only one who has
the right to give wahi?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Right? Through the next Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, but Allah ta'ala.
You don't have the right to take that
legislation from the the right you don't have
the right to legislate, and you cannot irrigate
that right from him, Jallawalla.
And if you do, you're competing with him.
And if you do so purposely, it's kufr.
If you do so out of your out
of your, heedlessness,
then it's considered bida. It's a very bad
sin. It's a very bad sin that can
be kufr if it gets in in a
gross enough form. And in its even lighter
forms, it's extremely,
it's extremely
harmful sin to a person.
So we come back to this idea, right,
that
there are other things about.
There are other parts of the Quran, there
they are not clear in their indication, their
delineation, what do they mean? A very good
example, easy example,
for this is what? What does mean
mean?
Allah knows
best what it means.
Does the prophet
know what it means?
Allah knows best even even then. Right? It's
just part of the Quran. Why would Allah
put something down in the Quran that we
don't know what it means?
He knows maybe there's some benefit from it.
Right? There are certain. Imagine a person doesn't
understand the link of Arabic. Do they benefit
from, reciting the Quran?
Yes.
So if the the doesn't understand, but some
part of the Quran is there for for
our benefit,
we recite it and we just hear and
we obey.
But you don't have the right to interpret
or say it has a meaning based on
your own opinion. Right? So this is what
tafsir means. Tafsir means to give, say this
means this and this means that.
So you're wrong even if you happen to
be right, if you do it based on
your own opinion and a different narration.
Right? The person who does that, that person
is disbelieved. Why? Because the thing that comes
from Allah, the
creator,
someone as a creation is gonna say this
is what it means. They're gonna impose their
own opinion on top of it. That's irrigating
the right of Allah
if a person does it on purpose. And
if a person does it out of heedlessness,
it's a bidah and it's a very reprehensible
sin.
So Allah tells us there are gonna be
parts of the book that are.
It's not exactly clear what this is trying
to say. It's an allegory. It's words trying
to describe certain things that words cannot describe.
It's words trying to describe certain things that
words cannot describe,
and that happens a lot. You know, if
you were to meet somebody who's from, like,
a pre modern society
and try to explain to them what is
a cell phone, you'll have to use some
sort of, like, simple simplified language in order
to describe something. If you tell them about
radio transmitters and electricity and signals and all
of these things, maybe they won't understand. So
you have to simplify it. You have to
kind of, you know, for lack of a
better term, you have to dumb it down
a little bit. Sometimes we have to do
that when explaining things to one another as
well or when
explaining things to children and things like that.
So there are certain things in the Quran.
They are describing things that words cannot describe.
And so to say to stick to the
the doggedly to the,
you know, the linguistical meaning of those words
that,
that that,
that type of, you know, interpretation, that interpretive
framework,
Allah come forward.
You're late. I'm gonna tell your father.
Now come forward. Come come sit here.
Right? To to try to, to try to,
you know, to try to
take the wording
from these types of expressions of the Quran
and,
impose, like, a literalistic interpretation to
from the from from the from the from
the book of Allah, there's certain that are
clear in there and their indication they're decisive
in their indication.
And those those, ayat and those verses are
they form the the the bulk of the
the book of Allah
And there are other ones that are allegorical
in their indication. They're not decisive in their
indication.
They're trying to describe something,
and you'll receive what you need to from
that description, but those words are not to
be taken as literally.
Those words are not take to be taken
literally.
As for the people who have crookedness inside
of their heart,
what are they gonna do?
Go ahead.
Those people, what they'll do is that all
of these, like, very direct,
you know, pronunciations in the Quran. Don't go
don't come go anywhere near zina. You know,
like, tell the believers to lower their gaze.
Right? The the the the this is the
punishment of theft. This is the punishment of
adultery.
Right? Don't walk around like an arrogant person.
Don't, you know, don't, you know, have hasad
of one another. Don't call each other names.
Don't, make fun of one another. All of
these things and so many commandments in the
book of Allah that are clear, they're like,
that's boring stuff. That's not what we're interested.
They'll pick those few places where the meaning
is obscure and they'll start to nitpick them
and try to analyze them and try to
interpret them,
either based on their literal meaning or based
on some sort of,
some sort of baseless,
speculation regarding them.
Right? Right? They will start to try to
the fixate on these ayaat,
seeking,
seeking fitna,
seeking strife and seeking the punishment of Allah
through seeking the interpretation of these these verses.
Nobody knows the actual interpretation of these ayat
except for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
As for the people who are solid in
their their knowledge,
they say we believe in it, meaning it's
true. Even if we don't know what the
meaning is, that we believe it's true, all
of it comes from our lord.
And nobody will take this remembrance except for
the people of substance.
Now
there's another reading of this ayah. Imam Ghazali
prefers another reading that you stop in a
different way. Right?
So that nobody knows the meaning of these,
except for Allah and those people who are
firm in knowledge. So you'll say maybe there
are people, you know, in the creation who
have the knowledge of what these mean. But
even if that according to that reading, they're
very few in numbers. They're very they're not
it's not just everybody just picks up, well,
I think this and I think that it's
based on a lifetime of study and and
and and and and sharp intellect
and being based in the tradition and and
having some sort of spiritual insight into things
that a person would know what these things
mean. But again, it's something that's reserved for
the elite and the elect and the select.
It's not something that, all in sundry has
access to or has the right to have
an opinion about. Right? And at any rate,
all of them say that it's from our
lord.
We believe in all of it and all
of it is from our lord.
And nobody takes his remembrance except for the
people of substance.
The it's inner substance, spiritual substance.
Now what does this have to do with,
there being there being no one like Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala?
One of the biggest fitan that you will
find is that there are people amongst the
Muslims that will say,
well, it says in the book of Allah
Ta'ala,
that the hand of Allah Ta'ala is above
their hand. This means that Allah Ta'ala has
a hand.
What did we say? The first prime principle
is what?
Right. That there's there's there's there's no partner
unto him and then after that there's what?
There's nobody there's nothing like him. Okay? If
it's something that there's something like, you know
that it's not Allah
Remember I mentioned something before the break where
you have rules of of of varying order.
And if a text will
can seems to conflict with 2 rule the
one of 2 rules, then you'll preserve the
rule of the higher order and you'll interpret
the rule of the lower order
according to an interpretation that doesn't conflict with
the rule of the higher order.
So we'll say that the hand of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, when allata talks about a
hand,
what is it? That is an it's a
it's a it's a aya. What does this
mean? Allah Ta'ala knows best.
So if someone asks you what is the
hand of Allah? What does it mean?
Right? That Allah
was firmly positioned above the throne. What does
that mean?
It's a he say Allah knows best.
This is
What is the What is the pronouncement?
The murkam pronouncement is what? That
that
there's no one like unto him. This is
something everybody
a a a a a person who's very
new to Islam. It's something very simple to
understand. This is the this is the the
the rule. This is the.
This is this is the concept that should
take up 98% of your your concentration, 98%
of your your,
fixation intellectually.
Then you might say, oh, there's an eye
in which it mentions Allah has firmly established
over the throne or that Allah
has or that Allah
says
that the hand of Allah is above their
their their their hands. Right? That would
be
right? And
all of these other places that it mentions
something
that
that according to the first glance may seem
that it describes Allah
like
the creation in some some way, we say
what?
The is what? That there's nobody like Allah
when it describes something that you may think
of as,
being like the creation, then this is one
of the.
This is a rationally consistent,
framework. Now what did we talk about? We
talked about tafsir meaning what?
Tafsir means
saying this is what Allah or this is
what his Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam meant when
they said x y z. Okay?
There's a second there's a second,
interpretive
tool in order to understand what Allah
said about different stuff, and this is called.
This is something that you you should write
down as well. So if tafsir is to
say this is what Allah meant,
tawil
is one one step a little bit more
nuanced and refined. Okay?
Tawil is to say,
this statement of the Quran or this statement
of the
prophet
has a number of possible meanings.
Okay?
So
what are some possibilities? Right? It could
could mean Allah has a hand and he
put his hand on top of theirs. That's
a possible meaning linguistically of this of this
of this, of these these words.
Another possibility
possible meaning is what?
Is that,
you know, the the word here, the the
the word here is the word hand here
means it's a metaphor, for example, Allah's,
you know, being with those people that they
put their hands together to pledge allegiance with
with the prophet
and and Allah ta'ala. And Allah also put
his hand in saying he, I pledge my
allegiance to you, the Sahaba
Alright. What's another possible meaning? Okay.
The word yad here may mean pink lemonade,
and this is a ayah regarding the sacred
powers of pink lemonade. Okay? You can have
a 100 meanings, a 1000000 meanings, and endless
number of meanings.
So the process of is, 1, to look
at all of these possible meanings.
By the way, you guys may think, oh,
that's funny and, like, snicker and whatever. There
are, like, bonafide entire, like, deviant groups of
Islam that are built on interpretations like
that. There are bonafide entire groups of Islam
that are built on weird interpretations like that.
They say, oh, our proof is this and
they'll say it means something completely like off
whack that has no sort of, like, basis
whatsoever.
What real is is to look at look
at an and say, okay, Allah knows best
what what the meaning of this is.
It's it's
it's anyway.
So Allah knows best what its its meaning
is. Right? 1st he says it's if he
says it's this is what it means done.
They say, no. It's not it's
So So it has a number of possible
meanings. Okay? From all of those possibilities,
means to pick one of those meanings
and say, according to my understanding, this meaning
is the one of the great greatest possibility.
This is the most likely
meaning
of of the the ayah because it seems
to fit with the whole rest of the
Quran better and for x y and z
reason.
Right? That's different than saying this is what
this means.
When you make we always say best, what
it means.
But because of
because of, you know, because of the, the
the,
you know, the different possibilities that are there,
if one were to ask me, what does
this verse mean? I would say this possible
meaning is better than that one. Right? I
would say that the the hand being a
metaphor for Allah being with
them is more possible is is a greater
it's a greater possibility
than saying that Allah actually has a hand
because that conflicts with the other decisive and
text
in the Quran
that says what? That there's nothing like unto
him.
Right?
And it's more it's more probable than the
pink lemonade theory. Why? Because that there's no.
Pink lemonade didn't even exist in the time
of the
So you have a reason for for why
you prefer 1, one,
interpretation over the other.
Now,
when it comes to the
of the Quran,
the of
the first generations, the Sahaba and the Tabi'in,
the
is that they say we refer we we
refrain from making
of of of the
of the Quran.
Imam Imam Ahmed bin Hamble was
reported to have said
that for me to meet Allah Ta'ala with
theft and with in my in my, account
of deeds
is more beloved to me than I should
meet Allah and he asked me, you did
you
participate in making
in scholastic theology?
Why did you speculate about me? And why
did you talk about things about me that
you didn't know?
So he considered this to be like very
bad with
and something even more offensive than what we
usually consider sins.
And this is despite Imam Ahmed. We even
recounted a story regarding his. This is how
much how abhorrent to him the idea of
of speculating about Allah Ta'ala was. Imam Malik
was once asked about the verse
that that that,
that that what does it mean?
What does it mean that Allah was firmly
positioned over his throne?
And he says,
to that that that it that that
this statement is true regarding Allah being firmly
seated above the throne. It's known. Well,
well, kefiyah majhul. Right? The the modality of
it. What does it mean? How did it
actually happen? It's unknown.
What does it mean?
Right? What is he saying? He says, obviously,
it doesn't mean Allah sits on a chair
in the sky because that would be what?
Violating the prime principle of what? That there's
no one like unto him.
Obviously, that's not what it means.
What does it actually mean? Allah knows best.
Allah knows best that that what what does
it mean. Okay.
Right? That to believe that it's true, right,
to that it's it's it's known that it's
that that that it's there in the Quran.
How it how it's what the modality of
it, what the details of it are unknown.
To believe in
it being true is Wajib. Why? Because it's
part of the text of the Quran.
And to ask about it, then ask about
the modalities. This is a biddah. We never
saw the Sahaba on whom do this from
before us and the the the Tabireen.
And we consider, like, nitpicking these issues
being what? Right?
Right? Described in his own book that there's
a certain people that have a crookedness inside
of their heart. And what do they do?
They're the ones who fixate on the
They don't pay any attention to the which
is the gonna make up their deen that
they have to live day to day. So
they'll have all these horrible habits that they're
forbidden from having and they'll leave every commandment
Allah commanded them to do.
But they'll fixate on these couple of things
that are allegorical and they'll, like, make it
into like a big deal that will occupy
occupy all of their bandwidth. And,
and trying to figure out what it means
and tell people what it means even though
nobody knows the meaning of it except for
Allah. Right? So imam Malik said what?
To let it take up like, you know,
your bandwidth worrying about it. This is a
reprehensible innovation. This is not how our our
pious forefathers were.
This was a generation of the salaf.
In their time, people were still
relatively,
on on point with regards to their deen.
What happens is in the subsequent generations after
that,
when,
a a a a certain amount of facade
enters into the ummah,
then you will have these heterodox groups which
will come up with these weird far fetched
knuckle headed type of interpretations of of the
the deen and of the Quran and the
sunnah, and they'll say weird things. So you'll
have one extreme which will say that Allah,
you know, he,
you know, he
everything everything regarding Allah is just an allegory
and really he he what he is is
kind of like impersonal cosmos, basically.
That's one
extreme. We have people like that who believe
those types of things to this day. On
the flip side, there appears no. Says, yeah,
he has a hand. His maybe his hand's
bigger than everybody else's hand. And he has
a a shin,
and he has and he's sitting in a
chair in the sky, and it says that
in the Quran, if you don't believe it,
you're a.
Right? The methodology that
is is is what it's and this is
a theme that will come up in the
book again and again. It's a balance between
between extremes.
And so what do we say?
We say that whatever Allah says is true
in the modality he knows best. Now when
you have a group now that's preaching and
proselytizing the streets of Kufa and Basra and
now they have like a 100000 followers. Okay?
It's not enough for them. The ulama got
together and realized it's not enough to just
say
because these people already have these,
wrong beliefs inside of their head.
And this is a problem. You should be
very careful who you lend your ears to
because sometimes you hear something wrong about Dean
even if you don't believe it. But because
it's the first thing you heard about that
subject, it sits in your ears and it
sits in your heart and it rot.
And you think about it every time. And
even if you have the common sense to
say, well, that's not true because the guy
who told me is like a quack.
Right? But it's still sitting there. What am
I supposed to do with it now? It's
like it's like, you know, it's like a
a rotten dish inside the fridge. You have
to throw it out somehow.
So then the later ulama, what they what
they did, right, the moon, right, the
the what they'll do is they'll start to
make regarding
these
not to establish what we believe, but just
to establish that these crackpot theories are
are inferior.
Right? They'll say, well, if you say that
that means that he sits on a chair,
then we say, look, there's these other ayaats,
like, there's no one like unto him.
Right? He is the one. He is god
in the heavens and he's god in the
earth.
So you'll say what? If you're saying
means that Allah
he's
on the throne. We'll say, look. There's another
eye here. It says that he's god in
the sky and he's god in the earth
as well.
Right? He's in the sky and he's in
the earth. They'll say, no. No. It just
means that that his godhead
is there, you know, his his his his
divinity
is valid in the heavens and in the
earth. We'll say, you made that wheel right
now. You made that wheel right now. You
see that? You see how you made that
wheel? You can do it. We can do
it as well. Our wheel is better than
yours. Don't try to browbeat the Muslims and
say that, oh, we're the ones sticking to
the
the book of Allah Ta'ala and you guys
are the ones who are trying to twist
it up. If you're gonna stick to the
mad hub of not making taweel,
then say no. This eye indicates that Allah
Ta'ala is both in the heavens and then
the earth at the same time.
Right? So we'll say what? Because there are
these other texts,
right, that negate that Allah ta'ala would sit
on a throne like a person sits or
that negate that
Allah locusts is somewhere in the sky versus
somewhere in the earth or whatever.
Right?
Because there are explicit texts from the Quran
that negate these things, we'll say what, a
more befitting,
interpretation of what it means is what that
the the arsh the throne is like a
a metaphor
for Allah's sovereignty over the heavens and the
earth.
That's what they do. Like for example, in
England, they have something every year
saved our forefathers from the tyranny of the
monarchy. Right? So he's England, they have something
called the throne speech because they still have
a queen over there.
Right? So what does the throne what does
that mean? Does that mean the chair talks
to the people?
That would be kind of weird, wouldn't it?
That, in fact, be very weird.
That's not what it means.
Rather, the throne is a metaphor for the
imperial sovereignty of of the the the British
monarchy.
Right?
So this is also this is this is
this is what that
Allah's,
established on the throne. It means that his
sovereignty is established over the heavens and the
earth. That's what it means. It doesn't mean
that he's physically
sitting on a chair in the sky.
Why? Because if he was, then he would
be like the creation.
There's nothing like him. This is just a
point number 2. You may think, oh my
god. If he's taking this long on point
number 2, how are we gonna finish this?
This is a really important point. It's something
that we'll come back to again and again.
This is a point. This point will be
the gift that keeps on giving. Because the
kufar the kufar of a lot of people,
has to do with not understanding this point.
And the reason that Christians and Jews have
left their deen en masse is because they
haven't understood this point,
Which is what?
They think of because of the influence of
neo platonic thought and because of all sorts
of other deviations that have crept into traditions,
they think that Allah is
like Zeus,
like a person has a body like a
human, maybe bigger, he can shoot lightning bolts
and do like some some kind of x
men type magic tricks. But he's a he's
a essentially a souped up person up in
the sky.
Right?
I would make kufr of that as well.
I would make kufr of that as well
because that's not that's not that's not an
Allah Ta'ala. That's that's what is it? That's
something else. That's something completely different.
We don't believe that. Right? We believe the
entire heavens and the earth are creation of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And we'll talk about
that a little bit later. But what is
the creation of Allah ta'ala? If Allah is
the one who created the heavens and the
earth, can the heavens and the earth contain
him?
No. Because if they do, it's a conundrum.
It's a paradox.
There's a lot of messed up stuff that
happens when you start to believe that Allah
ta'ala is contained within his creation. A lot.
A lot of messed up stuff happens.
Why? Because it makes the physical world superior
to Allah Ta'ala.
And if Allah Ta'ala is within the world,
it it means that the world has some
sort of divinity to it. That's what materialism
comes from.
That this world is big enough to contain
Allah Ta'ala, so then it of of itself
is something somewhat of a, you know, it's
shat and its affair is at the same
level as the affair of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. We don't believe that. We don't believe
that. We don't believe that at all. So
many people,
what they disbelieve when they say they're atheists,
the god that they disbelieve in, we also
disbelieve in that god as well.
We say allah ta'ala there's nothing like unto
him. You can think of it, it's not
him.
Right? It's just like the the carpenter understands
the table he built.
The table can never understand the carpenter.
So people who talk about, like, you talk
on the behalf of Allah and they act
like they're the representative of Allah
these people are off their rocker. Whether they
be Muslims or anybody else, you do not
represent Allah
Ta'ala. How can you represent Allah Ta'ala? You're
not even a worm in front of him.
You're not even a bacteria or a virus
in front of him.
There's nothing like unto him. Right? That's the
first.
Right? To know that you're,
completely
unable
to understand Allah
is your understanding of Allah. It's your most
perfect understanding of
Allah. We'll get to the questions later inshallah.
Unless it's a
clarifying question, like you said, this word, what
does it mean or something like that. No?
Yeah.
So we say that there is
there is nothing like him and there is
nothing that overwhelms him. Right?
Why? Because the creation is is the creation
is infinitesimal
in its entirety in front of him.
He's not contained within his creation.
The creation doesn't frustrate his plans at all.
Right? There's a lot of things in this.
Like, how can Allah Ta'ala be so unfair
about whatever? What do you mean how can
Allah Ta'ala be unfair? Your very concept of
justice is a creation he made. If you
made it in a different way, it would
have been something else.
This is the the the of the prophet
Oh, Allah, I'm your slave and the son
of your slave man, the son of your
slave woman.
My forelock is in your hand.
The thing that will come to pass with
regards to me is your order. And the
justice the idea of justice to me is
is your command. You said it. That's what
justice is.
If you have an external standard of justice
that
underneath fits God and the creation,
then that then you don't know who Allah
is. Allah is whatever is above all this
stuff that you know and think about. This
is what Allah is. This is why the
Christians have to have this whole, like, cosmic
stage drama
that God loved his creation. The creation sinned,
God is just. He wants to be able
to forgive them, but his justice doesn't allow
him to forgive.
So he asked to, in order to be
just, this is the kicker, in order to
be just, he has to make someone who
doesn't make a sin and then punish that
person.
Which doesn't make any sense because that's even
more unjust.
Okay?
So that he can forgive the other people.
We say what? Allah created every it's his.
He can do whatever he wants with it.
He wants to. Allah forgive. Allah forgive. It's
done. It's finished.
Any other questions?
There's no there's no process there.
But you understand how kufr when you don't
believe in Allah Ta'ala correctly,
one
one,
one, like, line of irrationality
will lead to another to another and you
just spiral down deeper and deeper into this
whole, like, pit of just stuff not making
sense.
Nothing overwhelms him. There is no person strong
enough
that they can wrestle with Allah ta'ala,
nor is there any idea or concept like
justice that will overwhelm him or thwart whatever,
you know,
or or or will that he has regarding
the heavens and the earth.
There's nobody worthy of worship other than him.
Right? That's what they say. Jesus loves me
for who I am. Say, listen. The only
one who's has the right to be loved
for who he is is Allah Ta'ala. Right?
And when you say it's kufr enough that
you worship Jesus, you do you worship him
or do you want him to worship you
that you say he loves you for who
you are?
It is not the it's not the the
the the the the creation that the the
creator that should conform to the creation.
Rather, it's the creation that should conform to
the creator. This is why I'm not a
big fan of people who say we have
to reinterpret the deen, we have to reinterpret
this, we have to reinterpret that. Do you
want Allah to fit your ideas,
or do you wanna fit Allah
what he wants from from you?
Allah ta'ala is
Hadim. Right? Hadim linguistically means like old. Okay?
But here we're not talking about old. Here
we're talking about primordially pre eternal.
Like go back forever.
Allah ta'ala existed forever in the past.
Without a beginning and Allah ta'ala shall exist
forever without an end.
Right?
What does this mean? Okay. We're gonna escalate
this to even higher level.
Time and space are both creations of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Allah ta'ala's existence
is not bounded by either time nor by
space.
So to ask what happened before
and what happened after with regards to the
holy that of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
a wrong question.
Because it presupposes that Allah ta'ala is
encapsulated
with time.
So there are different ways of experiencing things.
I'm not saying this is how Allah experiences
it, but I'm just saying that this is
a
way you can understand how to think about
concepts differently. So in the old days, we
have some young peoples in the front.
Before DVDs,
when when you went to the movie theater,
they used to have reels.
There's a reel with film on it that
has, like, a whole bunch of pictures and
they just roll in rapid succession 30 frames
per second or whatever.
And,
that's how a movie was done. Not that
anyone here watches movies.
Okay?
But, like, that's how a movie was. So
how long does it take the movie to
watch the movie? Maybe, like, what? 90 minutes?
2 hours? Depends on how long the movie
is. Right?
So you experience the movie one frame at
a time
in the theater, one frame at a time
for 90 minutes or 2 hours.
Imagine if we had a huge wall that
was backlit
and you splice the entire movie up on
the wall, you could see the entire movie
at the same time. Right?
So we're watching this entire movie of our
life right now, one frame at a time
from the beginning to the end. Okay? Is
aware of
what happened
when you were born, what happened when you'll
die, everything before that, and everything in the
middle of it all at the same time.
Each frame is there's no no qualitative difference
between one frame and the other to him.
Why? Because he is not bound up by
time, and he is not bound up by
space. Time and space are creations of Allah
He is not bound up by them.
If you were to think of Allah Ta'ala
which I I you know, if one were
to do so, which they shouldn't, it's haram,
it's kufr to do so. If one were
to think about Allah Ta'ala as bound up
in time and space, this would present a
large number of problems.
Not the least of which is it would
it would it would then insinuate that time
and space are greater than Allah
or that they can somehow contain him.
Rather, it's not even an issue of, like,
someone someone someone says like, you know, what
came before Allah ta'ala. Your very concept of
before is and after is a creation of
Allah ta'ala. The question is null and void.
And so one thing this isn't a concept
that you that you should, you know, think
about when
understanding
and understanding different things in deen and just
in life in general. Okay?
Everything is
has to do with a frame of reference.
There's a point of view from which you
talk about every issue.
Okay?
So who here is taking, like, physics?
So if I throw a ball that way
20 miles an hour,
right, we're all stationary, balls going that way
20 miles an hour.
What if the frame of reference of the
observer is also going that way at 20
miles an hour? Then the ball is stationary
and all of us are going this way
20 miles an hour.
Okay? There is different perspective.
You have a different perspective as a as
a created thing.
That's in this world. You'll have a different
perspective when you're in, you'll have a different
perspective. When you're,
you'll have a different perspective in Jannah Insha'Allah.
Right? The people who disbelieved in Allah Ta'ala,
Allah Ta'ala protect us from being of them
or amongst them. They'll have a different perspective
from their from Jahannam.
Right? There's a different perspective for the angels.
There's a different perspective of the and
we won't even talk about okay. There's a
different perspective of Allah ta'ala. It's a universal
perspective.
It's all encompassing. It's complete. Okay?
So someone someone says, like,
do we have,
you know, free will or do we have
a a a predestination? From the universal perspective,
everything is predestined
very solidly.
From your perspective and my perspective, we seem
to be making choices and those choices seem
to be having,
effects.
Right? To understand what something looks like from
your perspective as an observer doesn't negate that
from a different perspective if something else is
going on.
But you have to be able to understand
from which frame of reference, from which perspective
is which thing happening which way.
So from our point of point of view,
one might ask, what did what what happened
to, you know, Allah before this or before
that or after this or after that. Right?
But from the universal
perspective, time and space are a creation of
Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. He is not he is not encompassed
by them. And to think of him in
as being chained and shackled, this is a
prison that we're in right now, time and
space.
To think of him as being imprisoned and
shackled by it then
means that this is not Allah to Allah.
Allah is the one who's bigger than that,
whatever is bigger than that.
It's a it's a wrong question from the
beginning.
And this is also a a you know,
it's a it's a theoretical question even for,
like, a physicist. Right? If the big bang
happened and it was truly the
the,
beginning of the universe. Okay? So if t
equals 0 at the time of the big
bang, someone I wanna ask you what happened
5 minutes before the big bang.
You'll say there's nothing there's no 5 minutes
before the big bang.
What would time mean at that time?
A day is like like a sidereal, like,
rotation of the earth or like
you know, a year is a rotation of
the earth around the sun or whatever. If
there's nothing there,
how would you measure it? What time is?
What time is? It it's just not there.
You know, there's no t minus 5 seconds.
It's t minus 5 minutes. There's nothing happening
a year before that. There's nothing. That's when
time begins done. Right? So we're in that,
like, t t is like a value 0
or greater. We're like
bound up in that. Right?
Allah
that whole thing is like just like a
a a small part of his creation. It's
not, it's not something that we can look
at him through, and that's very important to
understand. Once you can understand that that he's
not caged up in his
creation and he's not bound up into time
into space, there are many things that you'll
understand about him that make him,
someone that you can,
you know, make him make Allah
your your your I don't wanna say your
conception
of him because what it is is it
allows you to understand you cannot conceive of
him, and that's the best conception of him
that you can ever have
intellectually. Right? There's other ways of,
of of of perceiving Allah to Allah not
through the mind, but through the heart. That's
a subject of a completely different class that
we're not talking about right now. But for
your mind, the perfect perfection of your mind's
Islam. Right? We're not talking about the heart's
Islam. The mind's Islam is to what? Is
to just to give up. Just to give
up. The person who gives up earlier, that
person's smarter. They understood
quicker what what was going on. You know
how, like, you know, a person who is,
you know, there are oftentimes people who are,
like, disabled, they cannot they cannot, like, use
their legs. They have really strong arms. Oftentimes,
people are blind. Their sight their hearing and
their, like, sense of smell and their other
senses become heightened. Right? The quicker your mind
can give up
with regards to Allah ta'ala, the stronger your
heart will be.
But we don't say give up in the
sense that the Christians like, okay. He's 3
in 1 and it's a holy mystery and
doesn't make sense to shut up, accept it.
This is give up give up based not
on on on on
on ignorance, but give up based on knowledge.
It's irrational to think that the carpenter will
make a table that's going to understand the
carpenter more than the carpenter understands the table.
We understand these are these are very rational,
concepts
that Allah ta'ala, if he created time and
space, it cannot he cannot be contained within
within it. Right? If he's the one who
created the heavens and the earth and created
what is justice and all of these things,
then he cannot be
sub subjected to justice to the point where
it overwhelms him or whatever. You know, all
of these things become become
understandings that we we all of these things
that they happen on the back of understanding.
And when we say we give up that
that no one can understand Allah, we understand
why that has to be the case. Why
that has to be the case.
Let me tell in the Arabic language that,
you know, there's a a beauty to it
also if you even if you don't understand
it, it has a kind of an aesthetic
quality that's missing from the
from the English language. For those of you
who know some Arabic, this is a text
you can very easily memorize.
And, if a person does memorize it, like,
you know, 4 or 5 lines a day,
in a very short amount of time, you'll
memorize the entire thing. It's something really worth
memorizing. That's what our before they used to
memorize their books, Allah ta'ala,
have mercy on them.
So Allah
he never runs out and he never ceases
to exist.
Right? He doesn't he doesn't he doesn't he
doesn't ever run out.
He's not gonna ever burn out nor nor
does he ever cease to exist. And nothing
happens in this universe except for what he
wished to happen.
Okay? Everything that happens in the universe, Allah
allowed it to happen.
There's we don't believe in Allah regretting things.
We don't believe in Allah ta'ala. You know,
we said nothing overpowers him anyway. He doesn't
resent what happens and he doesn't regret what
happens. Everything happens because he allows it to
happen.
So this is this brings up a a
couple of concepts.
One is that there is
Allah wanting something to happen and Allah not
wanting something to happen.
Okay? The things he wants to happen, they
happen.
His.
Right? And the things that he doesn't want
to happen with that he dislikes happening, those
things just don't happen.
They just don't exist. It doesn't happen. Never
happens.
Everything happens because he wants it to happen.
But then from amongst the things that do
happen, there are certain things that he has
his and the things that have his,
things that he's pleased with, and the things
that he's not pleased with. So there are
certain things he wants that that he allows
to happen. He wants them to happen, but
he's not pleased with them. So somebody, for
example, kills an innocent person.
Allah ta'ala is not is not pleased with
it, Although he let it happen.
Why would he let that happen? Maybe he
wanted the person who was killed to have
a vehicle for for their sins being forgiven.
Maybe he hated the person who killed. He
wanted a vehicle for this person to go
to Jahannam.
Did he have to do it? No. He
could have sent him straight to Jahannam, but
maybe he wanted to have that person go
to Jahannam in such a way that he
that person intimately knows that I deserve this.
This is his this is his sovereignty. He
do does whatever he wants in whatever way
he wants for whatever
knowledge he has and some wisdom he has.
Why he does what he does?
Nobody can understand.
The wisdom in him doing he what he
does in small pieces, we can understand that
sometimes.
But why he does what he does? How
could you understand that more than, you know,
how could you understand that? Bacteria
and a virus doesn't understand why you fall
in love with somebody. Right?
Well, guess what? The bacteria and virus have
more more chance of figuring that out than
you and I have of figuring out why
does what he does. But there's hikmah. You
can see, like, oh, Allah did this and
now this benefit has come out. You can,
like, you know, small little hikmah's little wisdoms
in it. You can you can, definitely pull
out and understand. But nothing happens except for
what he wants to happen. Okay? This brings
up another issue that there are 2 systems
there are 2 systems that are functioning in
parallel to each other.
You know, there's, like, like, 3 branches of
government. There's 2 systems that are functioning at
the same time.
Okay? One of them is the the the
system of
Taqeen,
in Arabic
taqeen.
And one is
is what happens.
Is what Allah ta'ala legislates.
So Allah ta'ala is a sacred law, made
it haram for us to eat pork,
but in the tashiriya of Allah ta'ala, some
people are eating pork, some people aren't.
The taqween is sorry. The tashariyah is that
it's haram to commit zina and the tashariyah,
there's some people are chased and some sorry.
In the tashariyah, it's
and the, some people are chased and some
people are not.
Sent the as a sacred law for us.
Our job is to learn what it is
and to and and to enact it.
He sent down the sacred law to us.
Our job is to learn what it is
and to enact it.
His job is to what? Make what happens,
happens. He's not bound by his own sharia.
He's allowed to bind bind us to it.
He's not bound by his own sharia.
So he allows certain people to violate his
sharia and he allows certain people
to follow it.
And the ones who follow his sharia, he's
pleased with them.
The ones who violated, he's angry with them.
He'll punish them. The anger is and pleasure
are not like the anger and pleasure of
the creation.
These are like these are like technical terminology.
Right?
That the the the anger is someone someone
Allah is angry with is doing something that's
going to garner Allah's punishment.
The one who Allah is pleased with is
someone doing something that would garner Allah ta'ala's
reward and his love.
So the fact that the taqeen exists
doesn't negate the the validity of the tashariyah
at all.
This is why people there are many people
are very,
fickle, like, philosophical understanding to say, if god
exists, why does he let little kids get
cancer and people die in unjust wars?
He gave you the sharia so you can
obey it and you can receive his love
and you can receive his reward for for
obeying
it. And so the that that certain people
will disobey it and they they will be
they'll be punished.
If somebody is somebody is dealt a a
harsh hand in this world, Allah will give
them a reward for it or give them
some sort of
compensation for it in the akhira.
The inability to reconcile
which matter is a matter of Allah's taqeen
and which matter is a matter of Allah's
TaSharia.
And this inability to reconcile these 2 separate
issues will cause a lot of stress and
grief for a person who is trying to
understand how the universe works.
But, no, nothing happens except for what he
wants to happen.
1 of our grand mashaikh,
He was a great alum, a great scholar
of of burning
wit. He was a extremely intelligent person. He
would go out and debate with different people,
heterodox sects with people of different religions, Christian
missionaries. He lived at the time,
of the height of the British colonial rule
over the Indian subcontinent.
Right? He's like the sheikh of our sheikh
of our sheikh, like, 4 generations up.
So he was debating one time with a
missionary.
And these people came with a lot of
arrogance
and they came with the might of the
Imperial British Army. And they looked at our
our forefathers as
like
subhuman vermin and scum and animals.
Right? So they thought this should be cakewalk,
man. We just beat these people in battle
so hard.
Their religion must be really dumb. We're this
is gonna be cakewalk.
So he says to Mu'an Al Qasim, he
says, do you believe that Muhammad is a
prophet of Allah? He says, of course, I
do sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Right? Was was Hussein his grandson? Yes, he
was.
Did he love his grandson? Of course, he
did.
If Allah loved his prophet and the prophet
loved his grandson,
why is it that why is it that
on the field of Karbala, he let him
die without anybody, coming to his aid and
assistance? A horrible
death.
He says, okay. Good point. Let me ask
you a couple of questions.
Do you believe that Jesus is the son
of God?
He says, yeah.
You understand where this is going. Right?
Kufir is Kufir is like
it leads to a lot of, like, really,
like, just things not making sense. Okay? So
what do what
everything happened for a reason. Allah wanted everything
to happen. Right? The masha'i Qur'i, Ibneutania writes
that, you know, that perhaps one of the
hikmas or the wisdoms of what happened to
say, no Hussain
is what? Because they didn't have to go
through the difficulties. They were born after the
difficulties that the Muslims,
went through in Makkah Mukarama and some of
the earlier battles and hardships.
They they they, they they weren't around for
that time. So Allah wanted them wanted them
to go through certain hardships so that their
maqam will reach with the maqam of the
other sahaba
and and Allah knows best. Allah knows best.
But the point is that we don't have
this idea that, oh, this thing happened. Maybe
Allah made a mistake or he didn't really
want it to happen but it happened. No.
Everything happened. Allah wanted it to happen.
Why Allah knows best?
You'll see everything, you know, you know, what
you know, you'll see a lot of things
sort out and make a lot more sense
to you. This is part of our our
our also that if you believe in Allah,
then whatever is happening is happening for the
best.
This is not something that, like, we did
to earn or whatever. This is just a
gift Allah gave us.
So don't worry. As long as you believe
in me,
whatever it is, whether you understand it, don't
understand it,
all of it's working in your favor. You'll
see that one day inshallah.
But everything, there's nothing happening except for by
Allah's will.
Allah
the oham. What is a is like a
spurious thought that comes inside of your mind.
Okay?
And you think like, you know, what is
a waham? Waham is like,
you're like, I never,
went to the gym before, but I bet
I could bench press £300.
No. Like £3,000.
Right?
Anyone here bench press £3,000?
Are you sure you don't?
Okay. How much is this gonna kind of
rip my shoulder? He's like, maybe. This is
a You
don't bench press 33,000
pounds. It will bend the bar. I I
mean, it doesn't work. Right?
You don't bench press 3. It's a. Right?
So even if the person had the most
wildest of, they're that is not gonna let
them reach or
under like, they're not gonna be able to
say something so crazy that, oh, that's so
big that that's actually what Allah
is. To the route of, you're not gonna
reach describing
Allah, and through the right
Right? One route is which is like spurious
just craziness. Right? That's not gonna reach Allah
and nor will the reach Allah that a
person really is a person of understanding and,
like,
you know, forget about a 1000000000 trillion, like,
somebody knows, like, scientific notation so they can
write a number like on a sheet of
paper that's much bigger than just adding zeros
to it or you just by through your
being smart, you're not gonna you're not gonna,
also be able to reach the description of
Allah Ta'ala.
None of the none of the creation bears
resemblance to him.
And this is kind of a repeat
in the sense that there's nothing like him,
but this is something we we state again
and again. Allah
the the creation doesn't bear any resemblance to
him. Allah
is
is living
and, he never dies.
Allah is living and he never dies. We
don't believe in this impersonal god of, like,
laws that run the universe, that god is
just in, like, whatever gravity and things like
that. This is nonsense.
Why is it that you believe
that you are a subset of the universe?
Okay? You're a subset of the universe.
You're not even a majority of the universe.
You're like a small fraction of the universe.
You're able to, like, figure stuff out, look
around, judge the difference between beauty and between
ugliness and
do simple mathematics and do all this stuff.
And you're able to have
you're able to have some sort of desire
to do this or do that and form
intentions and things like that. Okay? But the
one who created the universe that has a
lot of people
like you, in fact, many of them are
much smarter than you are,
and many of them are much smarter than
I am. Right? They're the the creator of
Einsteins and
the creators of, like, you know, the newtons
and etcetera. And there are people smarter than
that as well. The creator
of and angels.
But somehow,
the table is, like, smarter than the carpenter.
That doesn't make any sense.
That's a logical
fallacy.
It's a priory. It's that
that the the creation the creation is alive
than the creator is more alive. The creation
has intelligence than the creator is, has more
intelligence.
This is something that is really silly. I
don't understand why people can't understand that or
why that's not something very obvious to people.
But Allah
is living
and he doesn't die. He lives and he
doesn't die.
Rather he doesn't change at all. Why? Because
time is
something that's not he's not he's not subject
to it. It's a creation of his.
Right? He doesn't change.
Think about this. He doesn't change.
If you were to change,
that means he was either imperfect before and
now he became perfect, but he was never
imperfect. Or it means that he's perfect now
and he's gonna become imperfect. He's never imperfect.
Or like some Protestant theologians, the theologians, they
say, he's evolving to ever ever higher and
higher levels of perfection. From one perfection to
a higher level perfect, that doesn't mean anything
at all. It means nothing at all. It
means he was at a lower level before.
Playing wordsmithy type games is not gonna not
gonna change that. Right?
Is not is not is not affected by
by, by time. He's living and doesn't die,
and he's the one who stay sustains everything.
Al Tayyum is the one who sustains everything
and he doesn't rest. He doesn't sleep and
he doesn't rest.
Allah ta'ala is the one who created and
he had no need for the creation.
He had no need for the act of
creation and he had no need of anything
from the creation as well.
He is the creator who created without any
need from it for anything from anyone.
And he is the he is the one
who gives the risk to his creation without
having to have any sort of external source
of giving you risk. He created you and
he created your risk as well.
He created you and he created your risk
as well. Shalom, we have 10 minutes before
the salat.
So I'll give maybe time for 1 or
2 questions. If somebody has to go and
make wudu or something like that,
I suggest that they go right now
and,
inshallah, not be late for the salat. Go
ahead.
Yeah.
Taqin taqin
is from Al Qon. Qon means existence.
So taqin is what ends up happening.
Is like sharia. Right? Is to give sharia,
and that's the legislation of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala of the divine laws.
What's the point of him giving us a
if what's gonna happen is gonna happen? Through
the we know how we gain his pleasure.
Right? Just being being alive is in and
of itself not such
a great great thing. Right? There's a day
when the the the right?
The. Such a day will come that the
will say,
I wish that I was dust.
That he witnessed the animals after
after the day of judgment is over and
the animals also receive their justice, and he'll
tell to tell them to to to to,
become dust and they'll become dust and the
caprials say, I wish that was me.
Just being alive is in and of itself
not so hot necessarily.
So what is the point of the tashariyah?
The tashariyah is so that you can make
your taqween a good one for yourself
And hopefully for your other for others people
around you as well. But inshallah, at least
for yourself,
that you can be the one that that
ends up being happy that you're alive rather
than,
than your than your life being a misfortune
on your head.
Yeah. Take another question in the back. Sisters.
Sisters questions?
Sorry.
We're gonna give priority to sisters because brothers
can still accost me in the hall. Sisters
don't have as much ability to do that.
So okay. In the back, go ahead.
Yeah.
Is every type of attribute of Allah
something that is in the?
Yes and no. We'll get to it though.
That's like a that's like a whole section
of
the of the book.
We'll discuss it at its proper time. But,
yeah, the idea is this is that, like,
all of the
so Allah Ta'ala is that. Right? His essence,
what he is to ask what is Allah?
Who is Allah in his essence? This question
is not only haram. It's not a sin.
It's shirk.
Why? Because it presupposes the possibility of your
mind being able to figure the question the
answer to the question out. And we said
that the mind is not able. The mind
is very powerful thing. Right? It takes,
like,
whatever some
7, 8 minutes for light to get from
the the sun to the earth. Right? The
mind can think of the earth and can
think of the sun in a split second.
It's like the only thing faster than the
speed of light.
Right?
But,
the mind, despite all that power, it still
cannot apprehend what Allah is.
So
that's haram and it's kufr.
But, to ponder over Allah
his his his attributes,
This is encouraged by Allah. His sifat are
the experiences that we have with him. It
doesn't encompass all of what he is, but
it's how we
have experienced with him. Even the sifat we
say we don't understand them completely,
rather rather,
you know
So, yeah, we're commanded to
when we think of Allah to
ponder over his sifaat, his
attributes,
which are not
which are not doesn't answer the question of
who is Allah
or what is Allah,
but how his interactions with us are, how
we experience those, that much is permissible
for us. But then even then we say
that we don't understand Allah Tala Sifat in
their entirety.
Rather, when we speak of rahma, when we
speak of mercy,
you know, the mercy that people, human beings
have to one another is like just a
shadow of the mercy of Allah ta'ala. Right?
What is a shadow? It's kinda like the
same outline stuff. Right? So you have a
shadow of somebody, say, okay. That's like Khaled.
Right? The shadow you pointed. But it's not
really Khaled. The real Khaled is three-dimensional and
is, you know, more than one color and
speaks to you and blah blah. Whereas the
shadow is just like an outline. Right? So
the hadith of the prophet
that that,
you know, so many parts of mercy,
You know, there's a 100 parts of mercy,
99 of which there's one part of which
he spread throughout his creation,
and 99 of which he kept with himself.
That one part. It's only because of that
one part that even an animal doesn't trample
its young,
if it wasn't there. Right? So we say
that Allah even then the depth of those
those those sifaat are something that are not
fathomable by people, but there is something for
the mind to
cling to that Allah gave us the permission
to to reflect over those things.
But we'll talk about that inshallah when it
comes to that point.