Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Khutbah Oneness is More Than A Number Hira 01132023
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AI: Transcript ©
Continuing
with
the discussion from last week
with regards to
the essential attributes of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
We
talked about
the wahdaniyah of Allah Ta'ala.
Meaning,
not simply that he is 1,
but a type of singularity of being that
he has.
The singularity,
we talked about 3 aspects of it.
1 is in his that. In his
that. The word that translates to English as
quiddity
in
proper philosophical terminology,
but I don't like to translate it as
quiddity because that always leads to the next
question is, which is what does quiddity mean?
Quiddity means the answer to the question, what
is that?
Whatever that answer is, is liquidity of a
substance. The thing that makes that thing what
it is.
So the dzat of Allah ta'ala, who is
Allah, The answer to that question is that
He's 1. He's not separable into
subsidiary parts
because if He was, then each of them
would be a God
or
if parts of Him were not a god,
then that would not be part of Him.
It
leads to a number of rational
conundrums, paradoxes.
And the wahdaniituzhaat
also means for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that
there's no other god
like him,
that he is 1
in his essence that he's indivisible
and in his essence in the sense that
there's
no multiple entities like that. Lokana
fihimaalihatan
la fasadatta
Allah Ta'ala himself puts this very rational,
argument that if there are more than one
god in the heavens and in the earth,
you would have seen mischief. They would have
been spoiled. But since the same math works
on one side of the universe,
as it does on the other, the same
gravity works on one side of the universe
as it does in the other. Mischief may
happen from the volition
of those who are given a short rope
of choosing their own actions for themselves.
Otherwise, the underlying fundamental realities in the universe,
they're all consistent in one place or the
other. Allah ta'ala asks,
Were you more
difficult?
Were you
more difficult?
Were you more extreme? Were you more emphatic
and harsh in your creation?
Or the heavens?
How small is a person?
Even if they're powerful like Hitler or like
Stalin.
How small is a person
even if they're powerful like Firaoun?
How small is a person even if they're
powerful like
Sultan Suleiman al Khanuni, the famous Ottoman Emperor.
Khanuni means the lawgiver.
Otherwise, his enemies knew him as Suleiman the
Magnificent.
Virtue is that
thing to which witness is born by one's
enemies.
No matter how righteous or how
impious,
what amount of mischief can a person make
that compares to the size of the earth,
which is itself nothing compared to the size
of the sun, the solar system,
galaxies, black holes,
galaxy clusters, galaxy super clusters, all of these
things that bound the known and seen universe.
Allah ta'ala asked this question himself. All of
them, they
move according
to a very fixed and predictable
set of rules.
If you saw
more than one god, you would see mischief
therein.
We talked about the wahdanit of Allah Ta'ala
and His Sifaat,
that His attributes are His and His alone,
even if linguistically we share words
for describing attributes of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
That the mercy of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is not like the mercy of the creation.
The knowledge of Allah ta'ala is not like
the knowledge of the creation. They share words,
and there's some sense that a person gets
about
some partial portion of the interaction of God's
attributes with the creation.
But the reality of those attributes, every single
one of them is completely and 100% singular.
It's not it's not relatable to the creation.
And then finally, we said, fil fial
that nothing, no cause has any effect in
this universe,
except for through
His willing and decreeing that cause and effect
to happen. And when He
makes an exception, and exceptions are quite rare.
But when he makes an exception, because if
it wasn't rare, it wouldn't be an exception,
it would be the rule. When he makes
an exception, that's his ability to do so.
When Allah Ta'ala caused the moon to split
at the isharah of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. When the Rasul sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, all of his miracles happened, the people
drank from the well that sprang from his
hand, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
The people
heard that knowledge of the ghaib that was
impossible to have except for through supernatural
ability from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He
predicted things in the future
that would have been impossible to know except
for through the ghibs sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
and likewise the miracles of all of the
prophets alayhi wa sallam.
Those are exceptions to the rule, and they
prove that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala
is in control of all things.
We mentioned this thing last time that we
believe in miracles which are karqul aada, they're
not karqul aqal. None of the miracles of
the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam are anti
rational.
They're just anti conventional.
We talked about the difference between the 2
of them. Insha'Allah, if somebody wishes to, I
can discuss it with them later,
lest we
sink the entire, time of today's short talk
in review.
But
the extension to that talk, talking about the
wahdaniyah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala being so
much more than just God being 1.
So much more than just God being 1.
It says He's singular, that He's unique.
That Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, his very nature,
his essence is what? Unlike that of the
creation. It is
antithetical to that of the creation.
It is diametrically opposed to that of the
creation. It is qualitatively different than that of
the creation.
Thus, we say, tawhid is not simply saying
that I worship 1 God.
If somebody worships a cat, says, I worship
this cat and I don't worship anything other
than this cat. This is not tawhid.
This is not tawhid in the sense that
the Quran
taught, and in the sense that the Rasul
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam taught.
Why?
Because the sifat,
the attributes, the nature, the essential reality of
this cat is the same as
everything else. It's like a person goes into
a store and say, I wanna and says,
I want to buy red paint instead of
green paint.
There's still multiplicity
in the thing that you chose.
You have to not only choose 1,
but it has to be 1 in the
sense that it's singular, it doesn't bear any
resemblance to the creation.
This brings us to another point
which a lot of people are mastoon, a
lot of people have some sort of fitna.
They're tried and tribulated inside of their minds
because of.
They don't think about these things. They say
things, they utter things that they hear and
they think that they know what they're talking
about and they don't know what they're talking
about. When I say Allah ta'ala does not
resemble the creation, it's not me who's saying
it. Allah ta'ala himself says, walam yakullahu kufu
an ahad.
There was there's nobody like unto him. The
word kufu in the books of fit occurs,
for example, when talking about marriage.
It's such and such a suitable match. If
a girl runs away from home and she's
like the crown princess of Denmark, and then
she marries like a garbage collector.
Her father can go to the judge and
have the marriage annulled. Why? Because there's no
kufu, there's no kafaa between the 2 of
them.
There is no kafaa in any way, shape,
or form. That's
small example has to do with marriage as
a particular
usage of a broader concept indicated by this
word.
But we say in general, in an unlimited
sense, there's no kafah between
in any of his creation.
There is nobody like unto him.
Which means what? I will say this one
time and I will say it very clearly.
Allah Ta'ala does not have a body and
he does not sit in a chair in
the sky.
Allah Ta'ala does not have a body and
he does not sit in the chair in
in a chair in the sky. In that
sense, what did what did the ancient Greek
pagans, what did the Hindu current pagans believe,
what did the Romans pagans believe?
What did the pagan Arabs believe?
They believed in gods
that are anthropomorphic,
that move around in time and in space,
that see things, they make an idea about
it, and maybe tomorrow they change their mind.
We do not believe in that. It's just
like
saying, I worship this dog or I worship
this cat and only that one, no other
one.
It's one choice out of a number of
other choices.
Allah
describes himself as what?
There is nothing like unto him.
There's nobody has any. Nothing from the creation.
No item from the creation. Whether it's a
person, whether it's a physical manifestation, whether it's
an idea,
whether it's a time, whether it's a place.
None of it. None of it at all
has any sort of relationship with him
Someone will say, this guy is getting up
and now he's crossed the line. He's spouting
all this nonsense. Allah says in his book,
Allah says in his book,
Allah says in his book, Allah says in
his book, all of these things that that
a person might think this is what a
reference to some sort of attribute, like the
attribute of created things.
This is a good point. It comes up
to people, people are mastunbayed. People who don't
study, people who don't ponder, people who don't
listen to what the masha'ikh said, and don't
listen to what the aslaf said.
The companions,
the tabireen, their successors and their successors, and
the people who carry their chain of narration
to this day, they're mastooned by these things.
This is a fitna for them because they
think, I'm sticking to the Quran by thinking
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala as a body
in a chair in the sky.
How will you dispel that? Allah in his
own book, in surah to Allah Imran,
he mentions,
He's the one who sent down upon you,
You Muhammad
the book, meaning the Quran.
Certain verses of it are muqamat. They're very
clear in their delineation. It's very clear what
they're talking about.
This is not a metaphor for the beauty
of springtime.
This is not really a metaphor for anything.
It's very clear what the point of this
ayah is.
That there is something called theft,
and there's a punishment for it, which is
what? Decapitation.
Does it say anything about how much the
theft has to be, which circumstances are exceptions
to this rule? It's not not at all.
But the general idea is very clear to
a person. You don't need to be a
specialist in order to understand what it means.
Hunnu'umul kitab. Such clear verses are what?
Are the
bulk of the book. They form the backbone
of the message that is being communicated by
the Lord to the creation.
And there are other ones that are allegorical.
They're allegorical.
Means what?
Something looks like it's being said, but it's
actually something else. The words resemble one set
of meanings in the head, but they mean
something else.
Mutashabihat.
Mutashabihat.
They seem like one thing, they may seem
like one thing to a person, but they're
talking about something else. The very nature of
wahi is what? Alamal insana malamyaalam.
The very nature of revelation is what? To
teach mankind that which he knows not.
Allah Ta'ala and His Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
tell us about jinns. They tell us about
creation. They tell us about before the existence
of time. They tell us about a hereafter.
They tell us about bodily resurrection. They tell
us about a Jannah
which no eye has ever seen, nor ear
has ever heard, nor has ever occurred to
any heart whatsoever.
They're using words
to describe those things that there are no
words to describe.
They are using words to describe those things
that there are no words to describe. Now
imagine,
if you flew to some remote island
where people have been untouched by modernity, untouched
by technology,
and you yourself only came with the clothes
on your back, and you were trying to
explain to somebody how a cell phone works,
you can get the general idea across.
Right? How can you use, like, pre modern
verbiage that there is a
a small rectangular object
maybe in the shape of like a very
thin box and I can
somehow
modify it in order to
speak to somebody else who has the same
box somewhere halfway across the world. You can
get the general idea across. The person will
understand it.
Does that mean that the person knows how
to manufacture that box? No. The point is
you're trying to explain to them something that
they've never seen before, they never heard of
before, they never understood.
To explain to somebody how a cell phone
works is a lot easier to explain than
somebody who is themselves
from the creation about that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala
who is unlike the creation.
They're using words to describe those things that
there are no words to describe.
The point you're supposed to get from this
is Allah Ta'ala's greatness is something that is
sublime and is above and beyond that of
the creation.
Afterward to think that now I know how
to manufacture the cell phone your yourself and
myself, This is a type of stupidity. This
is a type of silliness. It will it
will 100% lead to failure.
It will be like that person on the
island who finds a black rock and then
sands it down into the shape of the
cell phone and paints, you know, the home
screen on it and says, look, it's a
phone. It's not. It's fake something. It's inside
a person's mind.
100%
inside the person's mind.
If somebody were to say, All of these
things you're saying about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
that He's not a body that sits in
a chair in the sky,
and these are my proofs, and you also
heard you you so you spit off a
number of mutashabihaats from the Quran and from
the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. And then on the flip side,
I said, well, he he says himself that
there's no one like unto him.
He says himself that,
He's the one who's God in the heavens
and in the earth. So you can't just
point in a particular direction and say, this
is a physical, spatial
relationship.
Other than the fact that the earth is
spherical, and if everybody pointed up like this,
it would be pointing in a 1000000 different
directions.
If it meant spatial orientation.
And that the earth is literally moving.
Other than the complete and utter irrationality of
the proposition,
which our deen is not irrational. There's no
place inside the Quran where it says,
don't think thinking too much reasoning too much
is a bad thing. It in fact blames
the kufar for not being people who think
and not being people who reason. Other than
that,
think about this inside of your head. If
you were to be at at work and
someone asks you, you know, can we have
the New Year's party on the 3rd January
instead of 1st?
Because half the office will be out of
country or whatever. So, yeah, I have to
go talk to the people upstairs first.
Think about that.
What if the boss is in the basement
at that moment? Can you say this person
has lied?
No. These are very common figures of speech.
They're very common human figures of speech. Now
someone might say, well, this is a type
of interpretation,
that, you know, you shouldn't take these liberties
with relation to the book of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. First of all, if you read
the book of Allah Ta'ala, absolutely, literally, this
is always gonna be a failure.
You and those who you worship other than
Allah are going to be the hasa bujahnum
and tublahaw aridun, they'll be the gravel of
the hellfire, that hellfire to which you're about
to come.
Does this mean the Christians who worship Sayyidina
Isa Alaihi Salam? That he's going to be
the gravel of the hellfire with
with them? If a person says that it's
kufr,
try to extend your mind in such a
way that makes the Quran not fight with
itself.
Because the Quran itself mentions one of its
own Sifaats, its own attributes.
As, Do they not ponder deeply over this
Quran? And know that if it came from
other than Allah, they would have found much
discord inside of it.
That you have to fight one verse over
the other. Or is it the superior way
to think about when something is said? What
the possible meanings of this are? And which
meanings are harmonious with which meanings? I'll give
you another example.
Someone says, Sheikh, don't say that the,
that Christians and Jews are kafirs. They're the
people of the book.
Okay. Well, it says, you know, it says
What are you gonna do with that? Are
you gonna fight one verse of the Quran
against the other? What kind of stupid person
would believe in a religion? That the book
itself, it doesn't make any sense. It fights
with itself.
This is not revelation. This is schizophrenia.
Why would a person choose to think about
the Writ of the Lord like that?
Whereas we would not even trust ourselves.
We would not even want to visit a
person that has a psychological condition, but we
somehow think about Allah ta'ala that way. This
is not correct. Allah ta'ala gives the answer,
and gives the correction, and gives the cure
to this disease, and gives the solution to
this problem in that same verse of Surah
Al-'Al Imran.
As for those people who have crookedness inside
their heart, deviation inside
their heart, instead of focusing on those things
that are muqamat in the book of Allah
ta'ala that are clear in their indication.
Pray.
Give sadaqah.
Make hajj.
Be good to the poor.
Don't harm other people.
Tell people a good word, a good message.
Instead of fixating on those things, what do
they fixate on? They fixate on the mutashabihat,
seeking to interpret them. Those things that are
using words to describe those things that there
are no words to describe. They fixate on
trying to interpret those things.
Seeking the interpretation, thereby seeking fitna.
Fitna means what? Fitna, the basic meaning, the
proper meaning if you look up in one
of the classical Arabic lexicons is what? It's
punishment.
It's not a test. It's that test.
It metaphorically means that test that you'll fail
and you'll be punished because of your failure.
Its actual meaning is what? Punishment. They're seeking
the punishment of the Lord by trying to
interpret these verses, And nobody knows the meaning
of these verses except for
Allah.
And those people are firmly rooted in knowledge.
They say, We believe in it.
So if there's anything, anything in the book
of Allah Ta'ala and in the sunnah of
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that linguistically bears
a number of different possible meanings.
Some of which indicate or imply that Allah
ta'ala resembles His creation. You know, you can
discount those possibilities
to the exclusion.
To their exclusion, and take the other possibilities
to the exclusion of those versus that indicate
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is somehow just
another
Greek god, but we worship 1 of them
instead of 12 of them.
It's a very simple concept. And if it
confuses a person, if someone said, This guy
talked about all this nonsense and talked about
quiddity, I don't understand what the point of
this khutba is, then suffice to say what?
Whatever is there in the Quran,
just say, I believe in it. Whatever the
description of Allah ta'ala is, just say, I
believe in it. Don't then go in and
try to say that the chair of Allah
looks like this and that the the, you
know, that he's in this particular direction and
you have to say it in this way
and not just believe in it. Just believe
in
it. You believe in it, I believe in
it. Leave the rest of it on the
side. Don't try to interpret it. Why? Because
those people exert themselves in trying to interpret
it.
They seek the punishment of Allah Ta'ala by
seeking their interpretation,
and nobody knows their complete interpretation except for
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. As for the people
who are firmly rooted in knowledge, they say,
we believe in it.
All of it is from our Lord.
All of it is from our It doesn't
say go around asking people what direction is
Allah and point and don't know. What does
it mean? So just we believe in it,
all of it is from Allah
and nobody will take this reminder except for
the people of wisdom.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make us from them.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make us from them.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala clear out all of
this junk from our heart that makes us
think of Allah Ta'ala as some part of
the creation, no matter how souped up it
may be. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
give in our heart the illumination of what
knowing His transcendence above His creation. May Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala put that in our heart
and put make that the cornerstone of our
remembrance. This is the meaning of La ilaha
illallah.
It's all of these things.
All of these meanings, they're all gathered into
the saying of La ilaha illa Allah. The
true understanding of Allah Ta'u is transcendence. It
gathers all of these meanings, and for that
reason, it is the sign of iman.
So, next time you say it, remember all
of these things. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala give
us all tawfiq, wa sallallahu ta'ala, wa rasoolihi
Sayyidina Muhammadu Allah Alihi wa sahabi ijmaain.