Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Fiqh 20150211190333.mp4
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
That teaching the book of Allah to
children,
blows out the fire of Allah's anger.
Blows out the fire of Allah Qala's anger.
And,
this is,
something that has been
witnessed by a great number of the mashaikh.
You may remember some time ago, there was
an earthquake, a very devastating earthquake in Pakistan,
in Kashmir. I think it was, like, 2,005,
2,004, something like that.
Whole villages were swallowed up by the ground.
And so our sheikh,
I was staying with one of my and
he said he received a call
from
one of the,
from the that area of Kashmir where that
earthquake happened. And so he said,
he said,
he said that I saw a dream. And
can you interpret it for me? He said,
what was the dream you saw?
Saw? And so he said that I saw
2 angels come and look over,
the the valley in which we live and
say, should we not destroy this valley? And
then the other says to him that the
children are still reading Quran.
So you'll remember that earthquake was during Ramadan.
And so the madras are scheduled
in in in in the subcontinent,
they have Ramadan off. It's one of the
first days of Ramadan that that earthquake happened.
And so, you know, you don't understand those
things when when they're happening in hindsight, and
then you can see what's going on.
But the teaching of the book of Allah
Ta'ala is a
it's something very important, the teaching and learning
of the book of Allah Ta'ala. It's one
of my hopes and one of my dreams
for this community inshallah
that,
when,
you know, when I when I become more
settled over here that we can try to
see some system by which the children come
to the masjid and read the read the
Quran and learn to read the Quran because
we don't really give it too much importance.
It's the cornerstone of of all of the
learning, and,
it's the place to start when teaching people
about the deen. It's definitely not a place
to end. A lot of people take it
as an end, and then they stop learning
after that. But,
it's something that it will be a source
of barakah for our community, inshallah.
And it's also said that teaching
something to someone when young
is like etching something in stone.
This is a very well known,
expression amongst the Arabs that teaching things to,
young children is like etching something in stone.
And so he says that, this is the
likeness of that which I
put forth something that the, you know, this
book will be what I put forth in
this book, which will be something that the
children will benefit from, inshallah,
by memorizing it. This is another thing is
that in the old days, people used to
memorize texts.
It's
something, you know, people don't.
I guess people find it strange the way
that books were written in the old days.
They they seem very difficult to understand. One
of the reasons they wrote in such terse,
in such a terse manner is because books
were had to be copied by hand and
people used to memorize their books as well.
So something that's written in a terse way,
Once it's understood, it's understood. And it's, you
know, if it's terse, it's much easier to
to memorize so that you can keep that
knowledge with you wherever you go.
Something that they'll benefit from memorizing and something
that they'll be honored by knowing and something
that they'll be happy by believing it and
by by by putting it in action.
It comes in the hadith of the prophet
that children should be,
given the commandment to pray at the age
of 7,
and they should be,
you know, they can be physically chastised for
not doing so at the age of 10.
And that at that age, they should be
separated in terms of sleeping arrangements.
That a boy and a girl shouldn't sleep
under the same
blanket.
They should be separated, at least
in that regard at that age. And this
hadith of the prophet means
what? When it says that they should be
taught to pray at the age of 7,
That doesn't mean
that just a prayer, rather the prayers and
for the entire deen. It's a it's a
metaphor for the entire deen because it's part
of the literary style the Arabs to refer
to, something by its most important part, and
it's something we do as well. People say,
oh, what phone do you have? Probably the
telephone calls is, like, the least amount of
things that a person does with their phone
anymore.
But we still call it that because if
it didn't have the phone function in it,
you know,
most people wouldn't carry it around.
So,
so the prayer when we say the prayer
at 7, the entire sharia, we should teach
our children to,
you know, we should encourage and give them
positive encouragement
to,
enact the entire Sharia from the age of
7.
Whatever it is. So if it's a boy,
you know, he should he should, you know,
also
lower his gaze and he should not,
you know,
you know just whatever whatever commandments of the
sharia there may be all of them, he
should be commanded to. And if it's a
girl, likewise.
Malik, Imam Malik,
he made one exception to this. And the
exception he gave was fasting because he felt
that making a 7 year old child fast
is going to be deleterious to to to
the child's health.
So he said that fasting, unlike the rest
of them, should be. You should wait until
the child is older and able to deal
with it. But,
even then that's only Malik who said that
the rest of them said that if that
if the child was able to fast, they
should be. They should be,
they should be made to fast.
But it's a positive it's a positive
enforcement only at the age of 7. When
you tell them to pray,
tell them to fast, tell them to dress
appropriately, etcetera, etcetera.
And if they don't do it, don't harangue
them. Don't don't be negative with them. The
the thought of the mention of physically chastising
them,
that's at the age of 10. At the
age of 10, then if you tell them
to pray, you tell them to get up
for fajr, etcetera, etcetera, and they don't do
it,
then then you can bring down a little
bit of firmness on them. And this is
really important. I don't really understand how how
to say this anymore
emphatically, but, you know, I see there are
a lot of people who pray in the
masjid and
their children, they don't bring them. And it's
like, hey, man. You're
you're like already both of your legs are
dangling in the grave.
You know, you need to make sure someone
is gonna come and pray fajr after you
in the masjid.
So, oh, well, you know, they're going to
school. They're just they're that the other thing.
And, it doesn't really work that way. You
know, there are some people exceptionally,
they will make these habits later on in
life. But generally speaking, majority of habits a
person has to get from the time they're
a child.
And, you know, if people have to go
to school or whatever, maybe they should just
go to sleep earlier or maybe they should
do other things. But the only way that
the prayers are going to be kept is
by
by by, you know, having these habits given
to children at a young age. And so,
you know, even if we don't make it
to the masjid, at least we should make
sure that our children are at least try
to wake them up at the age of
7. And if they don't by the age
of 10, if they don't wake up, you
know, being a little bit more stern with
them about it.
At that time, they'll be annoyed annoyed that
you're kind of busting their chops and, you
know, you know, making them get up so
early.
But, you know, if you start from the
age of 10, by the time they're 15,
by the time they're 17, by the time
they're, whatever, older, then it will be a
habit. And it comes to the point where
a person gets, you know, so accustomed to
waking up for Fajr that even if they
al Hu Dua were to, like, not not
even try anymore, they would wake up at
that time anyway. In fact, this is the
experience that most people have. Even when they
miss the sloth or fajr, they'll just wake
up, like, 10 minutes, 15 minutes after it's
after it's over because the body becomes accustomed
to that at that point.
And then, you know, it's that's a leg
up that that, you know, we give to
our children. We give them education so that
they can get a job. This is a
type of education as well so that they
can have a spiritual life,
that's functional too.
And in such a manner it's prescribed,
it's made far by Allah ta'ala on his
sorry it's prescribed by the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam that the children should know what's
far upon them before they before they hit
the age of maturity,
before they hit the age of puberty.
So that when they actually enter the age
of puberty, which is the age of adulthood
in Islam, we cannot baby our children and
and, you know, treat them as children once
they're already legally responsible in front of Allah
Ta'ala.
That,
that that
in such a way, if you train them,
give them positive enforcement at the age of
7 and negative enforcement at the age of
10,
that way their hearts are already
firm with the teachings of the dean
and their their their their personalities, their persons
are calm. They're they no longer resistant
by the time the age of puberty comes
upon them.
And their physical bodies have become accustomed to,
those things that they learned.
Well, what do you have in your text?
Hello? You don't have I am yeah.
Yeah. I think you're somewhere or somewhere else.
Oh, yeah. Well, I'm trying to read.
Okay.
Yeah. There are.
Let me look in the shot if it's
different.
Yeah. The I guess it's just a different,
it may be just from a different manuscript.
Okay.
So then he goes on to segment 2
different types of
2 different types of, obligations Allah made on
on p on people.
1 is the obligation of the hearts,
which is what the hearts need to believe,
and the other is the obligation of the
limbs,
the outward limbs of the body, which is
those things that a person has to do.
And so he says that all of these
things, I will,
explain them and make them clear,
chapter by chapter so that a person's understanding
will,
be
get closer and closer the the learner's understanding
will get closer and closer to what it
needs to understand,
insha'Allah.
And so and then and then he says,
then we we ask him for that which
is best and his help do we seek,
and there's no,
force or power except for with Allah, the
most high and the majestic.
And may the peace and blessings of Allah
be on our master, Sayedna Muhammad and his
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and on his family
and on his companions.
A great peace and a great great peace
and a great blessings in many numbers.
So we start inshallah,
So this is the chapter the first chapter
that he, puts in his book. Every every
one of the olamas has a different style
by which they,
they write their books
and they have a different order by which
they, put their you know, they they rank
their chapters.
And so this,
this book
is it takes a very holistic approach to
the Sharia.
And so it ties in what we would
generally call aqidah with what we would call
fiqh. It ties in the,
the matters that the heart is obliged to
believe with the matters that the limbs are
obliged to perform as well. So it starts
with Aphi that because a person's mind has
to be oriented properly before
their actions can be oriented properly as well.
And he has a very brilliant and short,
track on what the beliefs of the Muslims
are, and he made that his first chapter.
By and large, most
books of FICC will start with,
will start with,
with the law of purification
and he brings that second. He he puts
first aid, a summary of the beliefs of
the Muslims. Can I put in this? This
is called the rasalat Ibn Abizaid.
It's a it's called the Risaleh. It's written
by Abin Abizaid from Qara'an. It's one of
the oldest, fiqh books
that was written in the history of Islam,
and we use it as a kind of
a launching point for our discussions inshallah.
So he starts, this is a chapter regarding
that which the tongues must speak and the
hearts must believe,
in terms of the the obligatory
matters of deen,
in terms of the obligatory matters of deen.
So the first commandment of
that we must believe in our hearts is
the iman inside of the heart as well
as the speech on the tongue that Allah
is one God. There is no God other
than him.
The,
the definition of or of God in the
Arabic language when we say
is the one that is worshiped which is
worshiped and has a right to be worshiped.
There's no none that has a right to
be worshiped,
other than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, one god.
And he has nothing that resembles him
or looks like him.
And, there's nothing that's equal in stature to
him.
And he has no child,
and he has no parent,
and he has no female companion,
and he has no partner
in his, godhood.
His
his
being the the the first,
to existence
doesn't have a beginning. His firstness is beginningless,
and his being the one that will be
last
doesn't have
any ending.
That nobody who has the ability to describe
or use language to describe things
will ever be able to,
use,
his or her description to,
to arrive
arrive at his reality. There's no words to
describe what the reality of Allah
is.
And there's nobody who through deep thought and
reflection and meditation will be able to
understand quite,
you know,
with any comprehension
quite what Allah
is.
Are commanded to reflect over his signs,
but they are not allowed to reflect over
what he is in his essence.
This is something very important to understand, that
the knowledge of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, at
least the rational knowledge of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala
that we have is a negative knowledge, it's
not a positive knowledge. We don't know what
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is, we know what
he isn't, which is like his creation.
He's not anything like his creation. That's why
the statement of
of of of iman,
starts with the negation
and it ends with the affirmation. The most
perfect knowledge that we can have at least
through the intellect of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is that he is not like anything else
that the intellect can know.
And,
you know the intellect, the imagination, the mind
that Allah gave a person
is very
it's a very incredible gift.
It's a gift unlike anything else in the
physical universe in the sense that even in
the physical universe, the fastest anything can travel
is the speed of light.
And so
it takes,
it takes, you know,
quite some time for light to travel, you
know, for light to travel from,
the sun to
the earth.
It's what, you know, the speed of light
is, 300,000,000
meters per second.
Well, whatever it is. At least 27 something.
Also 300,000,000.
Yeah. It's at least yeah. So
it's it's
it's it's at least in that scale.
And the sun is, like, 98,000,000 miles away,
so it takes something like 7 minutes for
light to get from the sun, 6 minutes,
7 minutes, 8 minutes, something in that order
at least for the light to get from
the sun to here. But the mind is
such that the mind can think about the
sun and it can think about here in
an instant. It can bridge those types of
gaps. It can make
things that are not that are not physically
possible possible in some realm.
There's a whole discussion amongst the philosophers as
to what the reality of existence is,
and, if a person imagine something in their
mind,
you know, for imagine, like, a pink elephant
tap dancing on the moon, Okay. That doesn't
exist, but
the existence of that elephant is
more real than the existence of something that
nobody has ever thought of before.
There's something or another that you give to
it in a philosophical sense because this is
important to understand when we say that there's
there's no one like subhanahu wa ta'ala, and
the ulama later on you'll read, you know,
in your your further readings and whatnot, the
ulama say that there's no one no Jews
except for Allah to Allah, nobody exists except
for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
What is meant by that is that if
you look at the existence, the the true
and the fullness of the existence of Allah
and then you compare your existence and my
existence to it, they're not the same kind
of existence.
Right? When you look at a a human
being, you look at Sharif walks outside and
Sharif casts a shadow on the floor. Right?
The shadow, if someone asks what is that,
they'll say, oh, Sharif. But the shadow is
not doesn't have any color. The shadow doesn't
have any it's not physically alive by, like,
a biological standard. The shadow doesn't tell jokes
and isn't, you know, a a witty and
intelligent person.
You know, the shadow cannot eat and drink
things. It's there, but in a in a
much more,
in a much more,
limited way than the actual,
the actual Sharif himself.
And so we say that the the the
that Allah exists and that we exist.
We say that Allah exists and that we
we exist. We don't say that we don't
exist or that our existence is one with
Allah Rather,
Allah's existence is complete and perfect,
and our existence
when compared to Allah's is weaker than the
existence of the shadow compared to the one
that's casting the shadow.
And so all we can say is that
Allah is not like his creation,
just like Sharif is not like the shadows
or even,
more more unlike the shadow is like with
Sharif.
And and so for that reason, it's
haram for people to try to understand what
is the essence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
what is the reality of Allah ta'ala's existence,
Because in even understanding or thinking you can
understand that you made shirk between your aqal,
between your intellect and between the reality of
Allah ta'ala.
Everything everything
created in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is it becomes powerless. You can think of
the entire universe and it's whatever 15,000,000,000 years
of existence
and how many light years it is from
one side to the other. The mind can
fathom all of those things,
but if you think that the mind can
fathom or wrap itself around
who who what Allah Ta'ala is,
then you have committed shirk between your mind
and between Allah ta'ala because Allah ta'ala, nothing,
nothing's able to understand him. And so there's
a different and this is not properly the
the the subject of class, but there's a
different,
spiritual apparatus that Allah
has given,
a human being in order to under to
understand or to try to,
have some sort of connection with Allah ta'ala.
And it isn't the apple, it's the heart.
And that's not the subject of this class.
As far as the apple is concerned,
the apple is not going to be able
to understand Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The most
perfect understanding that the aqal can have of
Allah ta'ala is to know with complete surety
that it will never be able to understand
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And for that reason,
Allah ta'ala commanded us to,
ponder over his signs and his ayaat,
and forbid us from, trying to understand or
thinking we can understand,
you know, who he is,
jallallahualla,
on his own.
This is the meaning
of the, part of Ayatul Kursi where Allah
Ta'ala says,
they will not,
be able to encompass anything from his knowledge
except for that which he wishes them to
encompass. Meaning what? His knowledge is greater than
than our intellects. We will not be able
to completely or comprehensively understand any of it
except for the small pieces that he throws
to us. In its completeness, it's impossible for
us to to encompass it.
His Kursi is more expansive than the heavens
and the earth.
The word Kursi is, an interesting word as
well.
Many people translate the word Kursi to mean
like a like a throne,
but, it's a it's
bad translation.
The more proper translation for Kursi is something
like the piece of furniture that we refer
to as an ottoman.
It's kind of like a footstool or something
that you put your feet up on. So
the cosmology of the earth that's described by
the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, not just the earth but of existence,
is that this earth is just a part
of
1 one sama, one one celestial,
realm.
And,
around it, spherically
surrounding it, there's another celestial realm that's much
bigger than the this first one. And around
that one, there's another one that's bigger and
like that there are 7
celestial realms. All of them are
encircled, 1 and the other, inside the other,
inside the other.
And the size of the the one we're
in right now compared to the second one
that surrounds it, it comes in the hadith
of the prophet
that it is in the size it's in
size or in scale,
the likeness of if someone threw a ring
into a desert somewhere,
a huge vast desert and there's just a
small ring somewhere, who's gonna look for it,
who's gonna find it? So the reality is
that this is very small
a very small,
existence. If you look at how big the
universe is, we're a small planet. We have
a medium sized star coming around us,
so that we sorry, go around that we
orbit around. There are other stars that are
so large
that,
that this sun would not even look like
a speck in front of it. And there
are galaxies that are made up of 1,000
and millions of stars, and there are 1,000
and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands
of galaxies that make galaxy clusters.
And then there are 1,000, tens of thousands,
100 of thousands of galaxy clusters in a
galaxy supercluster,
and there are 1,000 of those also
that bound the known limits of this universe.
And there's a second there's a second, celestial
abode that's bigger than than this one by
so much that it makes this one look
like a ring tossed in the middle of
the desert, and there's a third one around
that that makes it look just as small,
and a 4th, and a 5th, and a
6th, and a 7th.
And then wasi aqoursiyuhusamaawati
walarb. The kursiyu of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is greater than all of the 7 heavens
and the earth as well.
And it comes in that same author of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that the
Kursi is not just bigger than the 7
heavens in the earth, but is bigger than
it's bigger than,
bigger than them by the same amount that
it makes the 7 heavens and the earth
look like a, a ring tossed in the
middle of the desert. And there's above that
the arsh of Allah ta'ala. The word arsh
is most properly
translated as throne, and that throw that throne
makes the Kursi look like a ring thrown
in the middle of the desert,
as well. And so when we say arsh
and when we say Kursi, although the word
Kursi means something like an ottoman or a
footstool,
and the word Arsh means a throne, what
they are not is chairs in the sky.
Rather, they are,
celestial phenomena that have these names. The this
thing is the Arshun, this thing is the
Kursi. Just like one
this is the the the the the lowest
of the heavens, the second heaven, the third,
the 4th. All of creation
is all of the creation living creation is
bound by the 7 heavens, and then around
them is the and around that is the,
which are made entirely of light. There's nothing
living there,
but they are there so that the angels
and that the people and whatever spiritual beings
reach the highest of maqams that they're able
to understand and comprehend everything inside of the
physical universe, they can see these huge
bodies of light that bound the,
bound the, edges of the universe,
from all sides.
And they see them, and they know that
the one that created them is is unfathomably
larger than,
unfathomably larger larger than the,
heavens and the earth, and is,
is is is greater than anything a person
can think of themselves.
That that these, do you have a question?
Yeah. So the is actually not the
earth? No. There's the difference between the ash
and the. Ours is like, the Polish the
4,
7 or 8 angels are holding the arsh
of,
Allah.
There are angels that the that that are
the hamalatul arsh, but they are not it's
not like they're in size similar to them.
They're just massive angels that are are are
just in size that are huge,
that are posted at the edges of the
arsh. But when they're called hamartal arsh, it's
not it doesn't literally mean that they're holding
the arsh up like a chair. Rather, they're
posted at the the the the bounds the
boundaries of the at the universe of the
universe.
Then?
The
is something like the arsh in the sense
that it's larger than the heavens and the
earth, and then the arsh is larger than
the just like this first heaven is bounded
by the second one. Just like that. The
Arsh is a
a
a a structure that bounds the universe made
out of light, and then the,
the the arsh is something that bounds the
edge of the kursi as well, and it's
made out of light as well.
So,
the
the arsh and the kursi are these structures
made out of light that remind thee, the
angels
and the spirits and the creation of Allah
Ta'ala that reached the utmost limits of his,
of his creation and of intellect and of
knowledge and physical might, that there's something much
bigger than than you in creation and the
one that created those things,
overwhelms you and overpowers you. Because this thing
that we're talking about Allah Ta'ala being unknowable
by the intellect, it doesn't just apply to
Banu Adam and to the jinns. It applies
to the animals and it applies to the
angels themselves.
It applies to the angels and whatever else
Allah created, it applies to,
all of creation.
And so they look at those
structures that surround the heavens and the earth
made out of light, and they remember that
there's
there's Allah who created them who is greater
than than than all of us. And the
angels are big. There's some of the angels
are really large. Some of them are small,
some of them are really large.
There's different kinds of angels,
many different kinds of angels and they all
are in different arrays and different ranks, sizes,
power, nobility, intelligence, etcetera.
And, you know, it comes in the hadith
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that
after he received it, the wahi, the revelation
of iqra,
from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that he left
the cave and
he,
saw Sayyidina Jibril alayhis salam in his full
form
and he was so huge that he could
see nothing in all of the directions, the
four directions of the horizon except for Sayyidina
Jibril alayhi salam. The word Jibril is
a Suriyani, it's a Syriac word
meaning Jabal, the brute force
Jabbar of Il, the brute force of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And so for for an angel to be
able to lift entire cities out of their
foundation and slam them into the ground and
to be able to deliver
deliver adab the way he does his true
form is is unfathomably
large. But even even Jibril alayhis salam,
who was is the most noble of the
angels who is tasked with 2 things with
delivering Allah's punishment and with carrying the Wahi
of Allah Ta'ala.
Even he when he sees
Thee, the expanse of the Arsh and Kursi,
he is overwhelmed
by those 2 creations of Allah Ta'ala that
that overwhelm the creation. But at any rate,
I think one thing is really important to
understand is that the what the Arsh and
the Kursi are not
is they're not pieces of cosmic furniture, and
Allah Ta'ala doesn't sit in a chair in
the sky with iyadabillah.
This is not something that we believe. There
are certain people out of their simple mindedness
they believe. This is not what we believe.
We say, this is they say,
There's nothing like Allah ta'ala. There's nothing like
unto
him, and he is the all, hearing, the
all seeing.
The they're they are not they are not
Arshin Kursi in the sense that Allah
sits in them.
Rather, they are called the Arshin Kursi because
those are two
words that that that that are used to
name this celestial phenomenon.
And the reason those two words are appropriate
to name them is because the word throne
the word throne, even in the English language,
is a majaz. It is a, metaphor for
for sovereignty and of of of of of
sovereignty and complete control.
And so when we say, for example, like
in in Canada and in England, there's a
yearly speech that's similar to what we call
the state of the union. They call it
the throne speech. It's not like the throne
is speaking, but the throne is a majaz,
it's a
metaphor for the for the king or for
the queen. And here the king is the
Malik al Mulk, the king of kings, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So his throne is
a metaphor for his overwhelming might.
That's why that's why that structure of light
in the heavens named that. It's not that
Allah
sits in it because he doesn't have a
body like,
like his creation, rather he's completely
like his creation.
There's nothing like unto him.
And he doesn't slacken in his guardianship
over both the heavens and the earth,
then he is the most high
and the and the most magnificent.
Al-'Alemul
Khabir, he is the one who knows everything
and who is informed of everything.
Al Mudab Birul Qadr. He is the one
who plans for everything, and He is the
one who is able to do everything.
As Samir al Basir. He is the one
who hears everything, and he is the one
who sees everything.
Al Ali ul Kabir, he is the most
high and the most lofty, and he is
the the the greatest
in both size
and
in in in terms of in terms of
the importance of his,
of his affair.
And he is Al Majeed.
He is Al Majeed. He is he is
the grand, and He is higher. His affair
is higher than even His,
His throne itself.
And so that's also one of the reasons
for Allah Ta'al creating the throne is that
the throne is a
creation, but the physical
scale of it is
is so much bigger than the the rest
of the creation,
that the creation can understand, okay, there's something
or another out there that must be greater
than us. And so since we can't understand
him, at least he made the throne,
there for us in order to overpower us
and to make us understand the
the the the the kind of awe inspiring
right that he has over us. But as
far as the throne is concerned, he is
higher than that throne in his affair. His
majd and his his grand grandness is higher
than that throne itself. The throne is nothing
in front of him.
What is throne?
Mhmm. Arsh.
Throne is arsh? Yeah. Arsh translates as as
throne.
And he is when we like people ask
when children ask, like, where is Allah? Right?
So this is a really complicated
question.
And strictly speaking, it can't be a simple
answer, can't be given about it. Why? Because
it involves again,
you know, it involves again trying to
abstract
what Allah ta'ala what Allah ta'ala's reality is.
So we tell children Allah is everywhere.
But strictly speaking, the correct answers, Allah is
everywhere in his knowledge,
that through his knowledge, he's everywhere.
And so Shai Ismail Shaheed, one of the
ulama of the Indian subcontinent, who
is also himself a great and master of
Aqidah.
He gives a an example of of a
man
who closes his eyes,
then he imagines a house,
in his mind,
and he imagines a man sitting in inside
of that house.
If you were to ask that that man
sitting inside of the house, where is the
one who's imagining you?
He can't answer the question, why?
Because
the concept of you, the concept of your
mind, the concept of where you the plane
at which you exist, it's something that's not
it's something that's not, it's not doesn't exist
in that construct that you made inside of
your mind. And so we say that Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the likeness of us to
Allah Ta'ala, is even weaker
and more
limited
than the construct of that person that you
imagine inside of your head, and then you
ask them, where is hamza?
And that person obviously cannot answer that question
because
the answer to that question, you know, transcends
that that that that imagined being's own existence.
And so we don't say that's the likeness
of us with Allah ta'ala. Rather, we say
the likeness of us with Allah ta'ala is
even weaker than that infinitely. But the reason
that we bring up this,
analogy
is just to say that just to explain
why it's
the question in and of itself and strictly
speaking is an inappropriate question because for us
to understand where Allah Ta'ala is,
involves us knowing a,
what the essence of Allah Ta'ala, what the
nature of the essence of Allah Ta'ala is,
and b, it also involves us,
you know, these
constructs that we have like time and space,
all of these are,
these are constructs that they're like cage it's
a cage that we're bound inside of time
and space.
But to Allah, they're not a cage that
that binds him nor is it something that
he is,
surrounded by or limited by rather their creations
from amongst his creation.
He is greater than time and he's greater
than space. So to, you know, ask where
is Allah strictly speaking
is a not not not a it's a
question that doesn't make any sense. It's an
incoherent question.
But, we do say,
you know, if we do say to all
the the children when when they ask where
is Allah,
we tell them that he is in every
place through his knowledge. That there's
that there's no place that his knowledge, jalla'a
jalla'ala,
doesn't pervade.
But as far as where Allah ta'ala is,
we know he's not contained anywhere in 6
directions,
nor is he contained by time or space.
Rather he super exists them. They are the
cage in which we are bound, but to
him, they're just creations from his creation. He
surrounds them,
in a greater way than they surround us.
He's the
one who created insan,
and he knows,
the the whisperings that happened between
a person and between his own self, meaning
the innermost secret of every person.
He knows what that is.
And he is closer to every person
than their own jugular vein
or their own carotid. Actually,
this is probably best translated as the carotid
artery. It's the artery that takes blood from
the heart to the brain.
And,
it's something that runs through the middle of
the neck. And so this is part of
the fasaha of the Quran. Also, this is
from Surat Al Kahf,
that Allah
closer to a person than even the blood
that flows between their their heart and their
brain,
through the middle of their neck. Meaning Allah
ta'ala knows he's with you wherever you are.
There's nothing you can hide from him.
There is no leaf. This is from Surat
Surat Al An'am. There is no leaf that
falls
except for he knows about it.
That there is no leaf that falls except
for he knows about it, and there's no
seed that is in the darkness of the
the the earth that's planted inside of the
darkness of the soil.
There's nothing,
moist nor dry, except for Allah Ta'i knows
it, and Allah Ta'i has had it written
in a in a open and manifest record.
And that Allah ta'ala when we say, you
know, when it says in the Quran, Alal
Alshistawah.
Right? Alistiwa
in Arabic language is
an expression that means to sit or to
be firmly planted in something.
So when you say
when when you say is firmly seated on
the throne, again,
not everything in the Quran is meant to
be taken literally
true.
The delive for that is that Allah ta'ala
says in his book that you and all
those things that you worship other than Allah
Ta'ala will be the gravel of Jahannam.
People worship, say, Sayidna Isa alaihis salatu aslam.
Does it mean that he is going to
be the gravel of Jahannam? No.
There are many figurative expressions in the Quran.
And so when we say alal alshistawah that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is firmly,
firmly established on his throne, this is also
again,
a metaphor. Remember we talked about that the
the throne, even though, for example, in England,
there is a physical throne,
that the that the king seats king or
queen sits on in Buckingham Palace or whatever
other palace they have. It doesn't mean when
the throne speech happens that they take that
chair and they bring it to parliament and
it talks to people.
Although that would be really funny to see
if it did, but it does. Unfortunately, you
know, it's like only only child would think
about that. You know, serious people
would know that that's not something that that's
meant by that. So when we say Allah
ta'ala is firmly established on the throne,
the throne being a majaz or metaphor for
sovereignty,
and for might, and for dominion,
that we say that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
his sovereignty is firmly established.
His mulk, his ownership of the creation is
firmly established.
And that's what we mean by that.
It's like the,
the.
Yeah. Right? So that's what that's what they
say this is. So someone made istewa on,
Caifulan, made istewa on on on a country.
Right? It doesn't mean he's sitting on the
entire country. It means that he's conquered that
country.
And Allah has taken
and Allah is firmly in control of
of,
of of the the the the mood, of
the the the dominion of the heavens and
the earth.
And he to him belong the most beautiful
of names,
and the most sublime of of characteristics.
That Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
he has the most,
beautiful of names and the most sublime of
attributes,
and he always had all of his attributes
and all of his names.
So we say that Allah Ta'ala was the
Khalip, he was the creator
before before anything was created.
And Allah ta'ala is the the one who's,
merciful even when he's punishing somebody.
Meaning, he is what he is. He doesn't
change.
So one of the things that we have
to understand, it's not a simple concept to
grasp, but it's something that,
you know, if you struggle, you should be
able to have some sort of benefit from,
is that,
again, time and space are creations of Allah
Ta'ala from his creations.
And so we experience
we experience life through the the cage of
time and space, But Allah ta'ala is not
bound by it. So if you take for
example, like, you know, they have the reels
in in the movie when you go to
the movie theater.
Right? So it's playing, what, 30 frames per
second or now they have, like, a 120
or something like that. Right?
Well,
what if you, you know, you know, one
way of what experiencing the movie is by
looking, you know, watching the movie from beginning
to end
in sequence, one one frame after the other.
But imagine if someone had, like, a huge
back backlit wall and they just put the
entire
they spliced off the entire,
they spliced off the entire,
film onto
the backlit wall, then you could theoretically be
seeing the entire
the entire movie at the same time.
The beginning is happening at the same time.
The middle is happening at the same time.
The end is happening at the same time.
And so again, we don't say we don't
say this is how Allah ta'ala experiences the
universe, but we do say that this is
a way that that, you know, time can
be experienced differently by different
different entities.
What whatever Allah ta'ala's way of experiencing the
universe
is, one thing we can say for sure
is that it's not sensitive to time. He
knows exactly what is going to happen, what's
happening now, and what has already happened. And
all 3 of them, even though they're very
different for us, they're very they're exactly the
same for him.
He doesn't change.
And this is another very big difference between
the conception that the Muslims have of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala versus the the Jews and
the Christians.
Is that they they they say Allah, this
happened, and then he said this, and then
he regretted this, then he was angry at
so and so, and then he was sad
about so and so. And we say that,
we say that when we talk about the
anger of Allah ta'ala, the pleasure of Allah
ta'ala,
we are not talking about the anger and
pleasure like the anger and pleasure of human
beings.
Rather, we're talking about someone did something which
is,
which Allah will will reward and we describe
that thing as pleasure. And we say talk
about some someone did something Allah will punish,
and we describe that as anger. But the
pleasure and anger of Allah Ta'ala are not
reactions against something.
Rather he always knew what was gonna happen,
and so he's the Khalip before we the
creation experiences,
before the creation experienced his being the creator.
And,
he's the merciful
even even when,
some part of his creation is not experiencing
his mercy.
But whatever he is, he always was, he
is right now, and he'll always be. He's
never going to change.
Not in his names and not in his
attributes.
He is too exalted
that any of his,
any of his attributes should be created.
Or that any of his names should be,
accidental
or from the realm of causes causes and
effects.
That that you know, to even think about
that is to have underestimated,
the reality of
Allah rather he is, as he always was
and as he shall always be. We we,
you know, we experience Allah
being
through time and space because that's what, you
know, the boundaries in which Allah ta'ala created
us. But what what he is, jalawala, is
not sensitive to those types of to those
types of issues.
This is one of the reasons, you know,
when we when
we say that people should ponder over Allah's
signs or ponder over
his attributes
and not try to think about what the
what the essence of Allah
is.
The reason is because the sifaat of Allah
Ta'ala, the
attributes of Allah Ta'ala, what they are in
reality is
how we interact with him, how we interact
with him. But our interaction with with him,
it doesn't it's not even dropped in the
bucket of who he is in reality, Jallawalla.
But all we can know about him is
what we see or what we feel, you
know, just like a person who some someone
if you take a class from from them
at school, so you may know something about
what they know, it's like a mathematician. You'll
know something about their knowledge of mathematics, but
you may not have any idea of how
they are as a father or how they
are as a husband or, you know, you
know, you know, whether they like to eat,
you know, this type of food or that
type of food or whether they're, you know,
physically in shape or whether they're lazy or
whether they clean up or this and that.
And this is with human beings. And so
what is Allah ta'ala?
We don't make any analogy with him, but
we say that that that his sifat are
there. He tells us that these are the
things I do, and you, you know, you'll
know something about me through them. But what
you know about him is much less than
what you don't know about him.
Yeah. Right. So
Yeah. Right.
So to feel overwhelmed and unable to
to understand completely who he is, is
the best understanding that we can have of
who he is.
So,
are there any questions, Inshallah?
The slot is in 7 minutes. Are there
any questions?