Hisham Jafar Ali – Names Of Allah And His Attributes #1 The Master & Nurturer
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AI: Transcript ©
Last week, last lesson, we covered the name
Allah
and its roots from Al Ilah.
And before we jump into the names of
Allah that we're going to cover this lesson,
I wanted to talk a little bit about
the approach and the method that we're going
to take when studying the names of Allah.
If you look around on the Internet and
you read some books on this subject,
you'll find that most approaches,
they give equal attention to all 99 names
of Allah.
So if it's a series of talks, they
will have 30 minutes for every name of
Allah. If it's a book, it'll have 3,
4 pages for every name of Allah.
However,
I will try to do it with a
slightly different approach, and I'll explain why.
Whenever we try to do something, we should
first think
how did Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala do this
himself?
So if we look to the Quran, and
we ask the question,
how did Allah introduce
us to His names?
Does Allah use all of His names in
equal measure in the Quran?
No.
The name, for example, the
ultimately
appreciative, the one who appreciates.
This name
comes in the Quran a few times, a
dozen times.
But the word and
the word
comes in the Quran close to 50 times.
You start to realize certain names of Allah
have more emphasis in the Quran than others.
Allah gives them more time. Allah repeats them
more often.
He makes indications to those meanings more often.
And so we should those names and those
attributes deserve more time with us in our
discussion than other names and attributes. That's the
approach we're going to take. We're going to
emphasize what Allah emphasized.
If he repeats an attribute or a name
100 of times, we're going to take a
long time with that name or attribute. And
if he mentions a few names in passing,
we're going to mention those names with less
time given to them.
And so we're going to take a thematic
approach,
and hopefully this means that the lessons won't
be 99 in number,
but probably between
15 to 25.
And we'll take themes of Allah's names in
the coming weeks.
Today, I wanted to focus on one name
of Allah and one name and attribute of
Allah
that is perhaps
the most repeating name and attribute of Allah
in the Quran
after his name Allah.
Who can take a guess?
What's sorry?
Someone said al Malik?
Alim. Alim. It's not alalim.
There's a name that's been repeated in the
Quran more than Alim.
Sameer.
Sameer
usually comes along with alim.
Right? Usually.
Yes. Yes, ma'am.
Arrahman,
not quite.
Not not Ar Rahim.
Al Ghafoor. Al Ghafoor. No. Not Al Ghafoor.
Arrab.
Arrab. What's your name? Ibrahim. Ibrahim.
Maybe we need to bring chocolates for people
like Ibrahim. Ibrahim. Ibrahim?
Insha'Allah. If not, we can bring you crisp
bracket as well. No.
We have to be healthy. Sheikh Hassan will
not be happy. Insha'Allah. Apples and bananas, insha'Allah.
Rab.
From the first page of the Quran to
the last page of the Quran, you will
be hard pressed
to find
a page that does not mention the name
Arrab.
Many people don't associate it as a name
of Allah.
We are used to thinking Ar Rahim, Ar
Rahman, etcetera. But Arrab
comes in the very first surah of the
Quran. Alhamdulillahi.
Straight after Allah's name. Arrab Bilalami.
What is Arrab?
Arrab is usually translated in English as
Lord or
master. These are the two name the two
translations given to the word arab, and we
always start with the translation.
Because the translation is always a very sorry
attempt, a very sad attempt at understanding
the true meaning of this word. So let
us go
and invest. And before we do, we can
tell a small joke about translation.
We know that translation can never capture the
meanings of a word.
Never.
The true meaning of a word can never
be captured by translation.
And so there's a famous saying that,
there was a poem in Urdu.
I don't know how many of those of
you who speak Urdu. There is a poem
in Urdu
that
kind of
describe
the falling of a kingdom. There was a
big king, he had a big kingdom.
And then this whole kingdom destroyed,
and so a poet wrote
Now if you know Urdu, this is like
a very beautiful rhyming couplet.
So this poet, he gave it to someone
to translate it to English.
So the person wrote, this, that, how, how
become.
How, how, this, that become.
This is this is just a funny example
that translation
is very difficult. You cannot translate truly then
there's no such thing as translation.
It's a it's a it's a try. You
try to interpret the word. So let us
dig deep into this name, Arrab.
The word rub
comes from the root in the Arabic language,
and it means
You might have heard this word before.
To look after something, to grow it until
it reaches full maturity.
To plant a seed and to keep watering
it and giving it everything it needs until
it's a full plant, it's a tree.
To give birth to a child and to
look after all of its needs until it's
an adult and then to let it go.
This is
to look after the needs, to cultivate, to
nurture,
to take care of something until it reaches
complete independence,
it reaches maturity,
adulthood, completeness.
This is the first meaning of the word,
Rab,
the one who looks after
every need
and every aspect of our life
until
we reach maturity.
Well, until we return to him because he's
always looking after us.
This is the first meaning of the word,
rab.
Now, who is usually given the term?
Who can tell me? Who is usually given
this word?
A teacher.
Who else?
Parents. Parents. Why is a teacher and a
parent given
this word
someone who gives
Because a parent,
they get the child, they get they have
the child when the child is 0, nothing.
Allah says in the Quran.
Allah removed you from the wombs of your
mothers and you knew nothing. You were useless.
You are fully dependent.
Babies don't even have neck muscles.
You know, they have to be propped up.
They are dependent upon their
their parent
for everything.
When a child is in their mother's womb,
they're even dependent on their mother for blood
circulation.
They are connected to their mother via the
umbilical cord. They are fully dependent.
That is why the parent is a and
the parent takes this useless,
spineless,
boneless, muscle less
child, this baby,
and they nurture and look after their every
need until they are an adult.
This is so selfless.
It's so tough.
It's so difficult. It requires so much hard
work and so much energy, so you get
the honor of the term
You looked after this child's every need
until they were ready to look after themselves.
A teacher
gets a child.
Now this child, they're not looking after the
child physically, but this child knows 0. Sif,
nada, zilch, nothing.
And they take this child, and they teach
it.
Morsel by morsel, letter by letter,
until very patiently, until this child knows something,
and they can go, and they can use
that knowledge.
This journey is tough.
Teachers in this country are the most overworked
and the most underpaid.
Parents,
we expect our pay to come from Allah
but we are, we do work hard as
parents.
It's a tough job to be a merabi
because there's no pay.
The one you are giving tarbia to, the
one you are looking after, their every need
and their every angle shows no gratitude most
of the time. They don't know how much
hard work you are doing.
How many times
how how often it is that we only
appreciate our parents when we become parents. I
still remember the day I became a father.
This was the day I realized
the gravity of what my parents did for
me more than any other day in my
life.
Because tarbia requires being extremely selfless.
And tarbia usually, you get nothing in return.
It's a hard job.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, this is the
first meaning of arab, the one who looks
after, the one who nurtures, the one who
takes something from 0
to 100%,
and goes through all the pain and the
patience of that journey.
The second meaning of the word rub is
what you all mentioned, the Lord, the master,
the king.
In Arabic, in the Arabic language, I mean,
the Arabs, they used to call the master
a rub.
Now if I say master,
that implies something.
If I tell you mas if I tell
you teacher, who's on the other side of
the table?
Student. If I tell you chef, who's on
the other side of the table?
Customer. If I tell you master, who's on
the other side of the table?
The slave.
And in the Quran,
the word Rab
is very often paired with the word.
Who can give me one example? The first
commandment in the Quran
in order. The first time Allah tells us
to do something in
Quran.
Not aqimusara.
Before that.
People,
make yourselves
in service to your master.
Make yourselves in service to your master who
created you and those before you so that
you may become God fearing.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, very frequently in the
Quran, he combines his name Arrab with your
name Al Abd.
And we're going to come come to that
and what that means in a moment. So
now you know there's 2 there's 2 meanings
for the word Rab.
And let us look at the first meaning.
Al Murabbi,
the one who looks after all the needs,
manages everything.
A child doesn't have to cook. A child
doesn't have to clean. A child doesn't have
to clean themselves.
Their parents
do everything for them.
Now in our lives, Allah
is our murabi, ultimately.
He looks after everything in our life.
He manages
the laws of physics.
Why isn't the ceiling falling on us right
now?
Why is it being held up?
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he created rules and
laws to govern this universe.
He's looking after us. The water cycle. Why
do we get rain?
Who makes the water
evaporate, then condense into clouds, then come from
the sky in that beautiful manner? Why doesn't
the the sea just jump on us like
a tsunami, like we see in other parts
of the world, like it's happening in Pakistan
right now?
Who makes it happen that way, in that
gentle pitter patter that we hear on the
on the roof? Allah,
He looks after us.
Who makes us
allows us at night,
just when we get tired, he makes the
sky go dark
so that we can find our eyes can
get some rest,
and our bodies can make
can recover overnight.
Who gives us that privilege? Allah.
In the Quran,
often times when Allah is mentioned as Rab,
he is mentioned as the one who looks
after us in so many ways ways that
we don't even realize.
Yusuf alaihis salam
goes through so many difficulties in his life.
From being
attacked by his brothers,
to the the bottom of the well,
to the palace of the emperor of Egypt,
to the prison and the dungeons of Egypt,
to the ministry of Egypt and the throne
in front of which his parents are doing
sujood.
And at this moment in time, his whole
life starts to make sense to him. It
crystallizes in front of him.
All the events suddenly make sense.
And when you look back on your life,
you will see your life has had so
many ups and so many downs.
But when you look back on them, they
start to fall into a certain pattern. Everything
begins to make sense. And you realize every
up was given to you by your Rab
who looked after you,
And every down was given to you by
your Rab because he wanted to look after
you. When Yusuf alaihis salam stands there seeing
his dream come true, what does he call
Allah?
Oh my Reb,
the one who looks after me,
You gave me this kingdom,
and you taught me how to understand dreams.
You originated the heavens and the earth.
You are my true helper in this world
and the afterlife.
Let me die as a believer,
and let they come after me, the righteous.
He realizes in this moment that when Allah
put him in the bottom of a dark
well with his brothers ready to kill him,
Allah was still looking after him.
He realizes in this moment that when he
suffered for 10 years
in the dungeon of Egypt,
Allah was actually looking after him.
But in that moment,
it doesn't make sense.
In that moment, you only feel the pain.
In that moment, you only feel the suffering.
But later on, you realize
your Rab
is always looking after you.
When the people of the cave
when they end up in the cave,
with no food,
no army, nothing.
Allah
makes sure
that the rays of the sun don't touch
them, doesn't harm their bodies.
Allah turns them over while they are asleep.
He makes their dog frozen at the front
of the cave. He changes the laws of
physics to protect them. Why? How did they
address Allah?
When they make dua to Allah, when
We will never call upon a God besides
him.
When they call Allah, they know he's going
to look after them. That's why they say
Rab.
That's what gives them the confidence to stand
in front of someone who could kill them
any moment because they know
this man thinks he's a Rab, but above
this man is the greatest Rab.
When Firaun sits on his throne,
and he looks at this small man Musa,
alayhis salaam,
and he looks at his vast kingdom of
Egypt.
How does he call himself?
Anaradbukumul
a'ala.
I am the greatest master.
I am the greatest king.
And when Musa alayhi salam comes in front
of him
and tells him that there is a God,
a creator, he asks him the question,
Musa,
who is your Rab?
Who is this ultimate being that looks after
every element of this universe? Who really is
he?
And Musa, alayhi, salam starts
with something Allah always associates with his name,
Rab, in the Quran.
Musa turns to this man who calls himself
a Rab, and he says, the real Rab,
the real master,
the ultimate one who looks after every atom
in this universe.
He created everything from scratch, and then he
showed it where to go. He guided it.
In the Quran, the word Rab is always
very often it's linked with guidance.
Because what does a teacher do, a do?
They guide.
The student comes lost,
confused. They have a question. The teacher says,
this is where you should look. This is
where you should go. A parent, a child
comes to them confused, in pain, sorrow, sadness.
The the the parent says, this is how
you should go. This is what you should
do. They guide.
And one of the ideas associated with Arab
is that he always shows us the way
when we are lost.
As Musa alayhi salam stands
in front of the sea,
a massive ocean stretching as far as the
eye can see.
Behind him, the sound of horses and hooves,
the rising of dust, the clashing of swords,
as the army of draws near.
He is stuck between an army and an
ocean. Where is he to go?
And to make matters worse, at this moment
in time, the people he is with, they
lose hope, and they quit.
They say we are finished.
We are done.
There's no way to go from here.
It is at this very moment
when you are in the darkest depths,
when there is nowhere to turn, there is
nowhere to look, you don't know where to
go, you feel lost.
This moment,
the one who shows you the way is
arab.
What does Musa alayhi salam say to his
people?
Who can tell me the ayah?
He says, no way. My rab is with
me. He always shows me the way.
Arrab
is that creator
that not only creates challenges in your life,
but shows you the way around them. Arrab
is the one whom in your most confused
moment you turn to because he makes you
know what is the next step that you
should take. Arrab is the one who looks
after you even when you think that he
has forsaken you.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam doesn't receive
Quran for months,
and he becomes extremely upset.
And he feels
lost.
Because without the Quran in your life, you
will feel lost too.
And as he feels lost, and as he
feels upset, and as he feels those feelings
of despair,
Allah says
to him, your Rab
has not forgotten you nor has he left
you.
In every moment in our lives,
there are moments in which we feel very
alone,
As Yusuf, alayhi salam, felt in the darkness
of the well, as Yunus, alayhi salam, feels
in the belly of the whale in the
depth and darkness of the sea, as Musa,
alayhi salam, feels as he exits Egypt and
he walks towards Madyan,
He felt
alone. No one was with Musa,
and no one was with Yunus,
no one was with Ayub.
And as Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam stands in
Taif,
bleeding
to his slippers,
his blood dripping as he walks.
His fa his uncle and his wife have
died.
There's no man sadder than this man. He
feels alone.
And it is in these moments of loneliness.
The word Rab reminds you that you are
never really alone.
Which is why when Musa alaihi salam makes
that lonely walk out of Egypt to nowhere,
he doesn't know his destination.
What does he say?
Oh Allah, my Rab,
the one who looks after me in my
moments of loneliness. You are with me at
every moment. Show me, protect me from those
who are coming after
me. When he reaches Madyan, and he's alone,
and he knows nobody, no property, no army,
nothing, no job, no wife, nothing, he stands
there alone. What does he say?
My rub,
I am in need for whatever you give
me now.
In the moments of loneliness, in the Quran,
in the moments of despair, in the moments
of ineptitude, in the moments of difficulty, the
prophets remember the
My Rabb,
you know what we show and what we
hide,
and nothing in this earth or the sky
is hidden from Allah.
Your Rabb is the companion for you in
your times of solitude,
The one who is with you in your
times of despair.
The one who is called upon when you
are standing in front of the ocean and
called upon when you are in the depths
of the whale. In the Quran,
the word used
the word used to make dua to Allah
the most in the Quran
is
the word Rab.
How many times have we heard the word
Rabana?
Who can give me some dua? Some supplication
to Allah with the word?
Who can give me another?
When Adam alayhis salam comes to this earth,
is there any other human on this earth?
He is alone.
And at this moment,
the only human being on the entire earth,
how does he call Allah?
My master, the one who looks after me,
the one who looks after my every need,
the one who knows my hidden and my
apparent.
I have wronged myself.
Allahumma in the Quran is used very rarely,
5 times in the Quran.
You search the word
with a kasra,
100 of times in the Quran,
or over a 100 times in the Quran.
And this is the name of Allah, the
only name of Allah you can attribute to
yourself.
That's one of the unique things about it.
In the Quran, you never see the word,
Rahmani,
my Rahmani.
You never see the word.
You never see it in the Quran. You
never see
my king. You don't see it in the
Quran. But you see,
my.
You see,
our.
Why is that? Because this is the most
personal name of Allah.
This is the name of Allah that is
most close
to you,
and you can say it's mine.
Because he is your Lord.
He is your caretaker.
He is your nurturer.
He looks after you when others have abandoned
you. He is the one who provides for
you when there's no one to provide for
you. He is yours.
And there's something beautiful in that.
It's very different
if I talk about a team.
2 teams are playing football today.
But it's very different when I say my
team.
Those are my boys.
In my jersey,
there's a attachment.
There's a belonging.
There's an intimacy. There's a closeness.
And the only name of Allah
that the prophets would call out to,
and they would attribute to themselves his name
is Rab.
As Ibrahim alaihi salam stands in the middle
of an empty desert,
and he builds block by block this Kaaba,
not knowing
what is going to be the future of
this land. What is going to happen to
my wife and children? They are so alone.
It is at this moment he asks Allah
by his name, Arrab.
There's another beautiful thing about the word Rab,
the name Rab of Allah. So he said,
there's two meanings of Rab.
The one who looks after, the one who
nurtures, the one who takes something from 0
to 100%,
number 1. Number 2, the one who is
the Lord, the master, the king,
and that makes us
the slave.
Now there's something important here.
People don't like the word slave.
This is because of the history of the
last 3 to 400 years and the transatlantic
slave trade in the USA and other parts
of the world, slavery of the last 1000
of years was an ugly mark in the
history of humanity. People don't like to think
of themselves as a slave,
because a slave
is one who's beaten by their master, one
who is tied by their master. They don't
want to be doing things for their master.
Their master is beating them and screaming at
them and owning them as property.
So when we think of ourselves as slave,
that's not a nice thought for many people.
They don't like that idea.
But
what does it mean to be?
In Islam, we don't have this negative idea
that the rab is someone who beats you
with a stick, that the rab is someone
who ties you to a tree, that the
rab is someone who tortures you. That's not
our rab.
In Arabic,
is to serve someone out of love for
them. That's very different.
My parents,
they don't have handcuffs to tie me to
the house.
Why do I do things for them? Why
do I feel like massaging my mother's feet?
Why do I feel like giving my father
some money? Why do I feel like getting
them gifts? Why do I feel like doing
things for them? They haven't obliged me. They
haven't forced me. They haven't tortured me. Why
do I feel that way?
Who can tell me?
Why do we feel this way to our
parents?
Out of love, out of gratitude.
This is the meaning. This is the secret
of the word.
Because when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam stands
for the night prayer,
and he's praying all night,
as the hadith of his wife comes until
his feet become swollen,
they bulge out of pain.
And Aisha asks him,
oh prophet of Allah, why do you stand?
Your previous sins and your future sins are
forgiven. You don't have to be here.
What does he say?
How can I not be a grateful servant?
This,
because he's torturing us, not because he's got
a whip in his hand.
Because when people think master, this is the
image that comes to them, but we have
a loving master. We have a caring master.
We have a master that gives us the
oxygen that comes out of our lips, and
the heart that beats the blood through our
system.
We have a Master who never let us
alone for a moment in our lives. This
is our rabb. We feel obliged to worship
Him and to please Him because we can't
help ourselves.
There's a poet who said a line in
Arabic,
show people kindness, you will find them wanting
to serve you.
Because the best way for people to serve
you is for you to be kind to
them.
It is the kindness of Allah that brings
in our hearts the meaning of Ibadah,
the desire to be in service of him,
the desire to do as he says, the
desire to please, the desire to be loved
by him.
Not because he's tortured, not because he's a
master who is going to punish us. No.
Out of a sense of gratitude.
And this is why the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam says this word.
And this is why the greatest honor Allah
gave the prophet in the Quran,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
is the moment Allah revealed.
Glory be to the one who took his,
his servant, his slave,
from the
to
And the prophet
would say proudly,
I am just Allah's abd and his messenger.
Abd
is someone
who makes themselves in someone else's service because
they cannot bear to be otherwise.
Ikhtiyaran
laikrahan
out of choice, not out of force. Doesn't
Allah say in the Quran laikraha fiddeen? There's
no force or compulsion in religion.
And so that is one important thing that
when we say slave and master, people have
a very different image in their mind, a
very negative image. But we are not talking
slave and master.
We are talking about a one who cannot
help but love and feel so grateful and
so indebted to this creator. They want to
do everything possible for this creator. This is
Abd. This is you, and this is me.
And that's why when Allah tells us to
do ibadah, he tells us to be in
service of Allah, to please him as his
ibad, as his slaves,
he always reminds us why.
Be slaves to Allah because he made you
from nothing and those before you. You are
0. You didn't exist, and here you are.
Isn't doesn't that require some gratitude?
Doesn't that require some appreciation
for your oxygen?
Someone comes to your house, and they buy
you a box of chocolates, and you say,
why? No formalities. It's your second home. Don't
bring the chocolates. Then you take the same
box and you gift it to somebody else
the next day. This is the chocolate box
circulation. You go to somebody's house, you give
them the same box, they go to someone's
house, they give that box. Well,
that box comes back to you one day
from someone else.
We don't like people to come and give
us things
because we feel why. We did nothing for
them. Why is he giving?
But with Allah, we feel indebted to Allah.
He has loaned us things we can never
pay for.
Allah says in the Quran.
Who is it that can give Allah a
loan?
An indefinite loan. Imagine, can we loan something
to Allah? Allah calls charity the giving of
a loan to Allah because He's going to
return it to us in many multiples. He's
going to return our investment to us.
And so when you look throughout the Quran,
you always see this word Rab. It's not
used
as a harsh
torturing master. No. It's used as a guiding,
loving master.
Allah says in the Quran,
then
his Rabb selected him and showed him the
way.
Rabb is not the one that tortures, but
the one that shows you when you are
lost, that guides you, that directs you, that
makes everything make sense for you.
And in fact,
in the Quran,
the intent to destroy or the intention to
harm has never never been linked with the.
When Allah uses other names of his,
like his name Allah,
he does say
that it is possible for Allah to want
something negative or something evil to befall someone
because he has a wisdom behind that. As
Allah says, in
He uses his name Allah, then he says,
Allah, if he wanted
to destroy
the the messiah.
But the word
Allah never ever links it with the desire
or the want to destroy or hurt or
harm.
Look through the whole Quran, you will see
this.
When Allah talks about the word Rab, he
says, rahmatamirabbik.
It was a mercy from your Rab.
And so,
this Rab that we have,
though many people think of it negatively,
this master that we have is a benevolent
master.
In fact, one of the most beautiful ways
to remember Allah as Rab
is that the Rab takes care of everything,
and you don't even realize.
Yusuf alaihi salam is sitting in prison.
He does not even realize that his Rabb
has already started taking the steps to make
him the minister of Egypt. It's beyond his
mind. He cannot imagine it. And you're sitting
here today,
and you don't know what your Rabb is
planning for you,
and what beauty is coming your way.
No soul knows what is hidden from them
that will cool their eyes.
As a reward for what they used to
do.
And And so when the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasalam, every morning and every evening, he would
make this Dua,
one of for me personally, my favorite Dua,
my favorite supplication.
And this supplication
reminds us of the meaning of arab.
He says,
Oh Allah, the ever living,
the one upon whom everything
depends.
I seek help and refuge in your mercy.
Fix all
of my affairs.
And don't leave me to myself,
don't let me look after myself for the
blink of an eye.
Every morning
and every evening, he would say these words.
Because truly, this is what it means to
be a Ram.
If you are a and you have a
child,
you don't want to let your child worry
about anything for the blink of an eye.
Your child comes, cries to you. They're hungry.
You want to give them food straight away.
Anything.
Your Your child comes, they want the latest
toy. You want to give them the latest
toy because you don't want them to feel
upset even for the blink of an eye.
Sometimes you watch your child going through difficulty.
You watch them climb up and you know
they're going to fall, but you know they
need to fall so that they learn next
time not to climb up again.
Allah
as Rab,
there is not a moment in our lifetime
except that he is looking after us.
He manages all of our affairs.
We have the illusion
that people manage our affairs.
I want an airplane ticket, I call the
travel agent.
My child needs to go to school, I
call the head teacher. I need medicine, I
call the pharmacist. We have this illusion that
these are the people that look after us.
So when they let us down, we are
really angry.
When the pharmacist one day is too busy
for us.
The barbers are all closed, or they do
a bad job,
or we lose our job and our boss
doesn't give us our payslip.
We are so invested in this idea that
people are the ones managing our affairs. People
are the ones serving us.
We get pulled into this imaginary world where
human beings are all powerful,
such that when one of them falls, one
of them disappoints us, one of them breaks
away, we feel brokenhearted.
How could it happen?
My teacher let me down. My driving instructor
didn't show up. Just when you trust them
the most, they didn't do good. That chef
gave me food poisoning.
Right?
When in reality,
to be a Abd of Allah,
really and truly,
is that you see all of these people
as middlemen.
The ultimate one who gives and takes and
tests and harms and benefits is dharab. Ultimate
one looking after our affairs, testing us, challenging
us, giving us, taking from us. When someone
comes to you, your car breaks down in
the middle of the motorway, you don't see
this as a mistake of your mechanic. You
see this as your Rabb has given you
this situation.
This is what is about. True
is to see things as they truly are.
To not see the illusion,
to not see the picture, the false image
that people are the ones managing the world
around us, but to see the true reality,
which is that Allah
manages everything,
the good, the bad, and everything in between.
In the Quran,
when the prophets speak to Allah,
they always, most of the time, if not
all the time, they address him with his
name Arrab.
What does Zakariyah alaihis salam say?
My Reb,
you look after me in every way,
don't leave me alone,
and you are the one who gives the
best following generations.
Rab.
Now there's something interesting in this ayah.
Who can tell me?
If you want to say my rabb, how
would you say it in Arabic?
With a yeah at the end, right?
But in this ayah, what does he say?
What's the difference?
Kasra. Kasra. What happened to the yeah? What
happened to the rabbe? Where's the yeah gone?
It's gone.
It's missing.
This is one of the beautiful subtle things
in the Quran.
Sometimes you'll find the prophet saying,
and sometimes you'll find them saying.
Why?
There's a pattern.
There's a reason.
Allah doesn't remove a letter or add a
letter except he has a reason.
Next time you read the Quran, look every
time you see a rab. Is it or
In moments of desperation,
the prophets say.
They are so desperate to call upon Allah,
they don't have the time to add the
you at the end and stretch it for
2 harakas.
No time.
You have to understand,
this is not a man who didn't have
a child for 6 months.
And then he tried IVF, went to the
NHS, went to a private doctor, then he's
saying, come on, Allah. What's going on? This
is not this is not that kind of
a man. This man waited nearly a century,
and he reached a level of desperation
that he said,
and he removed the you.
When you see in the Quran without the
you, it's in a moment of desperation,
difficulty.
The moment.
Sorry?
At the moment. In that moment.
Yeah? It's the heat of the moment.
What does Musa alayhi salam say? He reaches
Madiyan. He's got nobody, nowhere to look, nowhere
to hide, no job, nothing.
I am in need, desperate need for anything
you give me. Give me anything. I'll be
happy.
And so when you read the Quran, notice
this
point
about the name Rab.
There's a way to call your Rab in
moments of desperation, 90999,
SOS.
And there's a moment to call Allah and
there's no urgency, 111.
You'll be there with the questionnaire
for a long time.
Do you have heat? Do you have a
fever?
Do you have arm pain? Yes. No. Yes.
No. Yes. No. But 999, within 3 seconds
you get a yes?
What's the problem?
Yes? Rabbi without the you is a 999.
Mahdoofa aliyah.
And is the 111. Good analogy. Allah
can never be compared to an analogy.
But what you note
is that the prophets were calling their
in their good times and in their bad
times, when they were squeezed and when life
was easy.
And this, Allah mentions in the end in
Suratul Ambiya.
These prophets were competing in doing good.
And they called upon us in fear and
in hope.
And they were humble in front of me.
If you understood
what and who is your rab,
there's never a moment in your life when
you would be alone.
There would never be a situation in your
life when you would feel too squeezed
because the word and would be always on
your lips. Look at the life of the
prophets in the Quran.
Every turn and twist in their life, they
say the word
Rabii. Rabii.
In constant conversation with Allah.
Constantly talking to Allah
because the health of any relationship is determined
by communication.
I love my parents,
But if I call my father after 5
days and I say, father, I was missing
you. He says, yes, Habib, you're missing me.
Why didn't you call me then?
Really, you're missing me?
If I go for a trip, I call
my wife
after 10 days of not speaking to her
and say, I was missing you. She says,
of course, you are missing me.
I have 0 missed calls from you. Clearly,
you are missing me.
Yeah. The health of every relationship is dependent
upon communication.
And so if we know our Rabb, and
we are attached to our Rabb, because he,
my Lord,
and he addresses us by saying,
my slave.
It's two ways.
And in fact, it is at that moment
in time when
one really thinks that Allah would abandon us,
he says.
Imagine, when does a parent say to their
child, I don't ever see your face again.
Get out of my house.
It takes it takes a lot for a
parent to kick their child out of the
house. The child has to do something really
wrong.
Yeah? The child has to make some big
crime, fail their GCSEs,
marry someone from outside the village, outside the
tribe,
Come home with a revert sister or a
revert brother. Finish.
The do the door is not opening. The
locks have been changed. Out.
When this happens, when the major crimes happen,
the parent, they know we don't even wanna
look at you, don't wanna know you. However,
when the Abd, the one so indebted to
Allah that he needs him and he feels
obliged to please him in every moment, you
and me,
when we commit the major crimes,
how does Allah address us in the Quran?
My slaves.
My slaves who committed crimes against themselves.
My slaves.
Never despair of the mercy of Allah.
No matter what major sin we committed,
what crime we committed, what wrong we did,
Allah says, you're mine.
You're not out of the house. Come back.
This is the
the mercy, the gentleness,
the appreciativeness
of our Rab.
And so the action to take away from
today
is if you knew the meanings of Rab,
the master,
the nurturer,
the one who looks after your every affair,
the one who keeps the door open when
you leave, the one who tells you to
come back when you've wronged,
the one who when you're not even aware,
he's planned everything for you.
If you knew that Rab,
then the word Rabbanah would be on your
lips
as often as possible.
You would be in constant conversation with your
1 and a half minutes.