Hisham Jafar Ali – Names Of Allah And His Attributes #2 The Living, The Maintainer
AI: Summary ©
The importance of the name Islam is discussed, including its combination of two names and its meaning of death. The speaker discusses the concept of manhood, including standing, being alert, and being aware of one's responsibility. The speaker also discusses the importance of trusting oneself and not begging for things, as it is a means of expansion. The importance of learning the Quran and not being annoyed by memorization is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Last lesson we took the name of Allah,
Arrab.
The one who takes things from 0, from
nothing, and He looks after them and nourishes,
cultivates them until they reach their completion.
And the one who is the master, the
one who is the Lord, the one who
has obeyed.
And today we are going to take a
pair of names of Allah.
These two names of Allah
are
debated to be the greatest names of Allah.
We said in our first lesson that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam has said that there
is a name of Allah,
the greatest name of Allah.
Whoever calls Allah with this name with pure
certainty and from the bottom of their heart,
they will never be turned away.
Now this is like Laylatul Qadr. The prophet
tells us that there is a name of
Allah, such a special name, but he doesn't
tell us which one it is.
The scholars had many opinions about which name
it is, the greatest name of Allah.
One of the opinions of the scholars
is that the name of Allah, the greatest
name of Allah,
is actually two names,
al Hayy, al Qayyum.
The hadith of Anas,
Radiallahu Anhu,
that
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was once
hearing somebody else making dua, somebody else supplicating
to Allah.
And he said, and whoever wants to learn
how to speak to Allah using his names,
take notes.
Oh, Allah, I ask you because you deserve
all praise.
There's none worthy of my love or devotion
but you.
You constantly give your favors to me.
You formed the heavens and the earth from
nothing.
The one of honor and generosity.
Oh Allah, the ever living,
the caretaker, the maintainer of everything.
When the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam heard this,
now imagine
he has used
1,
2,
3,
4, 5, 6, 7 names of Allah in
the opening of his dua
just to introduce
just to open up his conversation with Allah.
When he made this dua, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam has said that this man
has called upon Allah with the greatest of
Allah's names, the one which if he is
asked he will never turn you away.
His hadith is in and
and
and and and and and and Muslim and
Muslim.
And in another hadith on the authority of
Asma bind Yazid,
Musalama Al Ansariyah,
she said that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
when he heard the verses,
Allah hula ilaha
illa hul
kayyum.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when he heard
these verses, he said,
that is the greatest name of Allah.
This is in Abu Dawood and Tunnidi ibn
Maji and Ahmad. The previous narration that I
mentioned about the man who was making dua
is not in those collections.
Rather,
it is in it was mentioned in Zadul
Mahad by.
So
these two names,
they have a great importance,
and we'll have to understand and dig deep
and understand why it is that they are
so important.
But it is enough
that they were mentioned
in the greatest verse in the Quran. Which
verse was that?
Ayatul Kursi, the number one verse in the
whole Quran.
And in the opening of that verse, Allah
calls himself Al Hayy Al Qayyul.
So let us
understand and look at what is the meaning
of and
comes from the root in Arabic, to
be alive,
the living.
And so
Allah
is the living.
He is the ever living.
He never dies.
That's why in the Quran, when Allah calls
himself Al Hay, he adds to it another
description.
He is the alive
and he never dies.
You might think this is obvious,
but actually it's not obvious.
And do you imagine there is a day
in which people forgot about this?
The companions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam?
They forgot about this or or they were
confused
on a certain day, and they were reminded
by this verse. Who knows?
Who can tell me?
There was a day in which the prophet's
companions,
they were lost, they were confused, and someone
had to remind them that Allah lives forever.
Yes.
The day the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam died.
You see,
when I tell you human beings are alive,
but the only thing is one day they
will come to an end.
Mortality.
It's hard to face up to this. As
you grow older and as your beard grows
gray and your hair grows gray,
you start to realize more and more, my
death is coming soon. My time is coming
soon.
And that realization, it hits you in the
face. As a young man, as a young
woman, this realization might not really resonate with
you. But talk to the uncles
and ask them, how does it feel to
be 50 or 60 and to know that
you may only have 5 or 10 years
left? How does that feel?
It's hard to describe. How does it feel
to be in that position to know that
tomorrow I might die? But, really, we should
all feel this way. The day the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam passed away, the
majority
or the prophet's companions were in denial. They
couldn't accept it. This is what happens when
you have shock.
When you're shocked about something, you say, no,
no. It's it it didn't happen.
Like some people, when their favorite football team
loses for 1 week, they'll say no.
Some you know, there was a the referees
got it wrong.
They miss misinterpreted the offside. They gave the
wrong red card. They can't accept the reality.
You guys lost. Finish.
The day the messenger sallallahu alaihi wasallam passed
away, who
knows which of the prophet's companions was in
the most denial? He couldn't accept it. Omar.
Omar Khatta.
Stood up
and he said, whoever says Muhammad
has died, what will I do?
I will take his head off with this
sword.
And who is the one who corrected him?
How did Ubaka correct him? See,
people were attached to the body and the
persona of the messenger
an attachment that nobody can ever imagine.
More attached than we are to our mothers
and fathers, the attachment was to the messenger
However, the day he died, it was like
a train hit them in the face.
It's shocking.
And in this moment in time, Abu Bakr
as Siddiq, he didn't come up and remind
them that Muhammad is just a human being.
We don't need him anymore. No. He reminded
him of something greater than that.
He says,
Whoever was worshiping Muhammad, know that he has
passed.
But whoever is in service of Allah
know that Allah is ever living. He never
passes away.
To understand what it means for Allah to
be alive,
You have to understand 1,
why or how many people conceive and they
think about God. You know,
maybe in the 17th, 18th, 19th century, just
the last 2, 300 years,
the vast majority of the world,
they stopped believing in God over the last
300 years. But how did it happen? Nobody
woke up overnight and said there's no God.
Slowly but surely, the first thing the first
thing they changed,
they said God exists,
but he doesn't have anything to do with
us.
It's like
today, I have a mobile phone.
The manufacturer made the mobile phone. He sent
it to me, and then he forgot about
it. That's it. He has nothing to do
with me.
Until something's broken, then I might go back
to him. But for the most part, he
has no control over my phone.
This is how they started describing God. They
said God created the world and just left
it. He has nothing to do with it.
He is inactive,
passive.
You know, like, sometimes a person,
puts a share gets a share in a
business.
They call him sleeping partner.
So somebody has a £100, they say, look,
I give a £100, you give £100, £200,
you go do business. But I'm not going
to be active in the business. Don't call
me at night asking me to come to
the shop. I'm not there. I'm a sleeping
partner.
I'm passive. I'm not active.
This is how they started seeing Allah, that
Allah
is passive.
He has nothing to do with us. So
they stopped asking him.
They stopped speaking to him.
They stopped seeing everything in this world as
coming from Allah
or for Allah or to Allah. This was
the first step to go downhill
because the moment you say Allah is passive,
it's very easy to take the next step.
Allah
is alive.
And what does that mean? How does a
doctor tell somebody has passed away?
We all know.
What is it that a doctor monitors to
see somebody has passed away? Heartbeat. Heartbeat.
What Before doctors existed and before we had
the ECG diagrams, how did people used to
tell this person is alive or this person
is dead?
They used to put their hand on their
chest, feel for the heartbeat. Right? It's movement,
action
that makes a person alive.
And it's inaction, no action, no movement, it
makes a person dead.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala being al hay
means Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is always active.
Who can tell me? There's a verse in
Surat Al Rahman
that tells us this.
Close. Very close.
God? See,
Allah says,
yes.
Everyone in the heavens and the earth constantly
asks Allah.
And every day, he has something to do.
Every day, Allah is active.
He's not passive. And you know what that
means. When you think about how human beings
create things, they create things
sometimes like a cold machine. You look at
a factory, cars.
Human beings are not creating cars. A factory
is producing them, and they're all identical.
However, when Allah
creates, when he interacts with creation,
everything he does is unique. This is something
we learn later about Allah's name, al Badi.
Every snowflake is different.
Every fingerprint
is different.
They're not identical.
Identical twins are different. I'm a twin. I
have a twin sister.
I'm 4 minutes older than her. She's there
in the sister's side. I always remind her
I am 4 minutes older than her. But
we are so different. Chalk chalk and cheese.
As there's chalk and cheese, we are completely
different,
and we are twins.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, this is what the
meaning of al hay. He's always there. He's
always listening. He's always observing, and he's active.
He creates.
He intervenes.
Anything you see in this world, sometimes we
get used to the idea that human beings
are doing things. Things are doing things. There's
a famous experiment.
There's a psychologist by the name of Skinner.
And Skinner, he did this experiment on dogs.
What he did, he was trying to see
how can I condition the dog?
So what he would do, he would ring
a bell. Ding ding ding ding ding.
And the moment he would ring the bell,
he would give food to the dog.
Okay? Then the next day, he rings the
bell. Ding ding ding ding ding. The moment
he rings the bell, he gives food to
the dog. Now what's happening in the dog's
head?
20 days later, when he rings the bell,
what do you think the dog does?
He knows the thunder of the food. He
starts to feel hungry. His starts saliva starts
to be dripping
because he has linked the bell with
with food.
But so in the dog's mind, bell equals
food. The moment the bell goes, food.
He thinks the bell is bringing the food.
Right?
But in reality, they are not connected to
each other. They have nothing to do with
each other.
One person is ringing the bell, and he's
deciding to give them food.
It's quite a subtle point, but this is
how all the things in this world are.
We see wood,
And when a spark goes, we see fire.
So we think wood spark fire.
We see these things are connected. We think
the wood caused the fire.
But who caused the fire?
Allah caused the fire, and Allah caused the
wood, and Allah caused the spark to make
the fire. He, subhanahu wa ta'ala, is active
in every moment of the universe, making everything
linked. We see an apple fall from the
tree.
You know, which physicist first, when the apple
fell on his head, he started thinking?
Isaac Newton.
We see things fall all the time,
and we think these are these are rules
that govern these things. Right? Book falls, gravity.
We don't realize
Allah
applied the force to the book,
not some lifeless law.
Allah is active in every moment, in every
space, in every time, in everywhere.
And when we realize Allah is the living
and he is always living,
that means he's always listening
at all times.
When everybody's asleep and dead, he's always listening.
Human beings become unreliable
because they sleep,
because they disappear. They have their own needs.
They're deficient. So you feel like, I don't
want to bother him. It's 2 AM.
I don't wanna bother him. It's 2 AM.
My car broke down on the motorway. I
don't wanna bother him.
Allah
never has a moment in which he sleeps
or he's drowsy or he's out of service.
He's always active.
You know, you we all have that friend.
Whenever you go on WhatsApp, it says online.
Say, happy be you never sleep. Always online.
Allah
is always active. He's never
to use a human term for for closeness,
he's never offline.
Allah
is always active.
This is very important to understand.
And this is why Allah links him being
al Hay with us asking him and us
relying on him.
You know, when you find out that there's
a shop that's 247
or a gym that's 247, you feel I
can rely on this shop.
Anytime I need, I can go there. It's
not going to close on me. Allah,
20 47,
Allah is available
for your requests.
That's why
when Allah
talks about him being the living,
he says,
If you want to if you want to
rely
or trust someone,
trust on the one that is always living,
and he never dies. Because human beings,
they let you down.
Shops,
companies, they let you down. Today, if you
want to fix your broadband, how long do
you have to stay on the phone listening
to the music,
waiting for your turn? You are number 34
in the queue.
Right? How long does it you feel like
why did I even pick up the phone
and call them? It's so unreliable.
This is how we are used to with
each other, but
Allah is not like that. And this is
why the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam linked this
name. He says,
Your Lord is always living
and so generous.
He is Allah.
He feels shy that if you were to
open your hands to him and ask him
something, he feels shy to give you nothing
in return.
So knowing Allah is always living, He's always
there, means we should constantly rely on Him.
We should constantly trust Him. We should ask
Him. Human beings may let us down, but
Allah
will never let us down. Human beings, us,
human beings are always trying to see how
can we live forever.
Today, there's a technology they're trying to develop
called cryogenics.
Basically, they think the idea is, can we
freeze the human being so that he doesn't
decay and die?
Can he live forever? Before this, you know,
7 6, 7 centuries ago,
pope Benedict, it must have been the 7th
or 8th, when he was about to die
on his deathbed,
he got 3 young children.
He cut their blood he cut their nerves
their veins, sorry, and he tried to connect
their blood to his blood, thinking if a
young child's blood will go in his blood,
he'll live for longer. Human beings are always
thinking, how can I live? How can I
live? How can I live?
Anywhere you may be, death is going to
overtake you.
Even if you hide yourself in the tallest
of buildings, When you and me realize we
are mortal, we are going to finish.
We realize another thing.
Allah
has no beginning and no end.
These are two other names of Allah to
remember.
He is the first and the last. When
the prophet made
dua to Allah, he would say,
Oh, Allah, you were the first and there
was none before you.
You are the last and there's nothing after
you. Just imagine. You can't imagine.
But what that makes us realize
is whoever and whatever we are rely relying
on in this world, it's like the dog
and the bell and the food.
We think the boss brings us the paycheck.
My payslip, my money, comes from my boss.
We don't realize the boss and the paycheck
are both from Allah
because just like that dog, we connected those
two things.
This is Al Hay,
the second name Al Qayyum.
Al Qayyum.
Now I'm going to take you on a
journey in the Arabic language.
Who knows what is the meaning of?
To stand.
To stand. Okay?
Someone who's standing.
But also somebody who's looking after some something
or someone.
Because
if you tell
me security guards. If you tell a security
guard when you come into a, like, a
hotel or a building and you see the
security guard, he's seated.
Okay?
However, when you see a security guard standing,
walking around, who looks more alert?
The one standing.
Right?
Allah talks about the word in the Quran
in the situation where he says, you know,
some people,
if you give them a loan, if you
give them some money, you're never going to
get it back.
Unless you you are chasing this person. You
are standing over them. When is the money
coming? When is the money coming? This is.
You are standing. You're vigilant. You're looking after
something. You're alert. This is.
Now
in Arabic, there are words there are forms
of words
if you want to make something frequent, if
you want to exaggerate something.
One of those is the form
Who does Allah describe in the Quran as
men?
Come on, guys.
Come on, guys.
Men, males, real men,
they are upon women. That means they are
looking after them. They are maintaining them. They
are protecting them. They're taking care of them.
Constantly,
means you are doing it constantly, frequently.
Yes? No break.
You don't get a break. You are. This
is the the the definition of a man,
masculinity. This is what masculinity is about. It's
stepping up, taking responsibility.
You know, this is a side point. Right?
But a lot of the time,
young men, they say, oh,
are we ready for marriage? When when can
we get married? Why don't we get married
young? Like the Sahaba used to get married
when they were then when they were young.
I say, Habibi, look. You're 26 years old,
you still spend most of your time playing
PlayStation.
Yes. The uncles the uncles are shaking their
head. Yes. These are the uncles from age
of 15. They were working in the factory
floors in the shops, and they get their
26 years, 27 year old young lad, and
he's playing PlayStation, and he's saying, oh, I
want to get married quick,
First learn to be a.
Then you become a man, then you can
get married.
Yes.
Don't inflict any damage on a on a
poor young lady. So.
Now let me come to the next the
next one.
This
is a form in Arabic that's very rarely
used.
Because
a someone who's maintaining
or looking after something, they can also fall
asleep. They can also get drowsy. They can
make mistakes. They can get bored. They can
get negligent. Right?
But
never, not even for a moment, stops taking
care of what's in his responsibility.
He
stood him he is the reason for his
own existence, and everything is reliant upon him.
Everything stands because of him. Everything breathe and
exists because of him. That's what Qayyum means.
If it wasn't for him, there was everything
would be dust, nothingness.
You exist.
What brought you into existence?
The things around us, what made them be
when they were nothing?
Al Qayyum.
He made everything standing and then he looks
after it constantly.
That's what Qayyum means.
Now interestingly,
when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala describes himself himself
as Qayum in the Quran, he also
he describes the opposite.
Who can tell me the next ayah from
the young the youngsters?
Yes.
And who can tell me what does mean?
Some blink of the eye.
Yeah. Blink of the eye. I'll tell you
what is You know when you're driving on
the motorway at midnight
and you're very tired
and you
this happens. Yeah? You just kind of you
close your eyes for a moment. This is
feeling drowsy and exhausted, and suddenly your eyes
close. May Allah protect all of us.
Yeah. Is deep sleep.
Is deep sleep. So Allah says,
he is
because why? Why does he have to say
drowsiness?
Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes him. Because if
you go to a you see it very
commonly. You go to an establishment, a shop,
an organization, a building, there's a security guard.
You come there at 1 AM. What's a
security guard doing most likely?
Fast asleep.
Fast asleep. Yes. The saliva dripping down his
right chin. Right side of his chin. Fast
asleep. Because
when human beings look after things or people
or anything, they get tired.
Right?
Husbands,
it's tiring to look after the family. Mothers
is trying to look after the kids. There
are moments when you give up. There's moments
when you get exhausted.
Right? And that's why sometimes we feel like
we shouldn't ask someone for a favor because
we know they've got enough on their plate.
We don't want to bother them. So we
just hold back.
When Allah says he's he is qayyum,
never for a moment does he get drowsy.
Never for a moment does gravity stop working.
If gravity stopped working in this room, what
would have been happening to all of us?
We'll be floating like in space.
See these things, we don't realize. Some people,
you know, you get your you fracture your
pinky finger, the smallest
finger in your in your in your hand,
and suddenly you realize how many things you
needed this finger for.
To write,
to move, to hold, to grip, to cook.
You need this finger for so many things,
and you thought before
I thought this was such an insignificant small
part of my body. I needed it so
much. We we can all relate. When we
fall ill, we feel so helpless. We didn't
realize the blessing of health.
Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he looks after
gravity, looks after you, looks after me, our
heartbeats.
Everything in this world.
We think
that there are some nature looking after this.
No. Allah is looking after every moment.
And if Allah decided for a moment, He
could wipe us all out. And this is
why when Allah
says in the Quran,
to Allah prostrate sujood,
Everyone in the heavens and the earth
whether they like or they don't like.
What does that mean? Because
a disbeliever does not do sujood to Allah.
So how can Allah say everyone in the
world is doing sujood to him? Who can
explain to me this? Who of the scholars
in the audience can explain? Allah says everybody
is doing sujood to him, but we know
so many people they never do sujood to
him.
Yes, young man.
The
including the including the hearts and the and
organs of the disbelievers,
it's
So know how they are praising Allah.
So a disbeliever
may not do sujud physically to Allah, but
their whole body
is subservient to Allah. Allah is controlling every
atom in their body.
This is what Al Qayyum.
Now these two words, Al Hayul Qayyum.
The prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam had a special
special special relationship with these two names of
Allah.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, in the
worst situations of his life, he would say
to Allah,
I seek your help and your mercy. And
in fact,
one of the hardest days in the life
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, the
day of Badr.
Abdul alayb
ibn Abi Talib narrates.
He says, on the day of Badr, I
went forward into war and I was fighting
left, right, and center.
And then I came back just to check
on the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. I
just wanted to know how is he doing.
I came to find him, and I found
him in sujood.
And what is he saying in sujood?
He's asking Allah by these two names.
And he's not saying anything else. He's not
speaking to Allah. He's not asking him. He
just keeps saying
Meaning, he's speechless.
He's not asking Allah for anything. He's just
calling his names.
He says, I went back and I continued
fighting.
And after a period of time, I came
back.
And he still prostrated
the prophet and he's still saying, You Hayyoo,
You Hayyoo.
And,
Ibn Qaym Rahimahullah,
he talks about his teacher,
Ibn Taymiyyah, Sheikh Al Islam Ahmad ibn Abdulsalam,
Ibn Taymiyyah Harrani al Dimashri.
He says that my teacher used to have
such a special relationship with these two names,
He said that from the sunnah of Fajr
to the prayer, the Fajr prayer in congregation,
he says my teacher would say
40 times.
And he said, in my experience, whoever says
so many times in the morning,
Allah
will relieve their distress. Now we have no
hadith or narration to support this, but it
is one experience that he's sharing.
And it was his opinion, the opinion of
Ibn Taymiyyah, that this was the greatest names
of Allah.
Why? What is so special? What makes these
two names special?
Ibn Qayb Rahimullah, he says that Allah's name,
Al Hay,
Allah being living.
Or under this name, so many other names
of Allah comes that he's listening, that he's
hearing, that he's active, that he's helping, that
he's giving, that he's taking, that he's all
all of this comes under the name Al
Hayy.
Because if you are not alive, you cannot
do anything else.
And Allah's name Al Qayyum
under this name all of Allah's actions come
Allah maintains he protects he takes life he
gives life he births the child he breathes
the soul he he Allah grants the soul
to the child All of this activity that
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is engaged in comes
under the name Al Qayyum.
So it is as though these two names
summarize who Allah is.
And this is why in the moment of
distress, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would simply
say,
You Hayyu,
You Qayyu.
Now there's something very interesting about the name
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, Al Qayyu.
And that is
that Allah's name Al Qayyum means that everybody
exists only because he gave them existence.
And what does that mean?
That means we are in need of Allah.
This is something we forget sometimes.
We remember when we are ill. We remember
when we're on our deathbed. We remember when
something's going wrong.
But when we're healthy and we're fine, we
forget that we need Allah even now. Ibn
Khudam al Maqdisir
says in his final letter, in his wasi'yah,
he says somebody in the sea
holding a piece of wood and kicking and
screaming
is say as much in need of Allah
as you and me right now.
But at that moment in time, they are
screaming and crying and begging for Allah. And
you and me right now, we think we're
fine.
We are independent.
We're individual.
And this
this idea is what has destroyed so many
of our lives
when we think we are not in need
of Allah anymore.
Allah
mentions this in the Quran.
Quran. When we give human beings good times,
blessings, happy times, they turn away from me,
and they do their own thing.
But if something bad happens to them, calamity
strikes them, they are constantly making dua.
They constantly feel in need of Allah.
Allah mentions in the Quran,
Oh people,
you are the ones in need of Allah.
And Allah is the well the rich, the
free of need,
the come full of praise,
the the the deserving of praise.
If he wants. He doesn't need you to
such an extent. If he wants, he can
wipe you out and just create someone else.
That's not difficult for Allah. Think of that
for a moment. Allah doesn't need you. He
doesn't need your salah. He doesn't need your
Quran. He doesn't need your dhikr. He doesn't
need you to be satya. He could replace
you.
You know, on a football team,
on a football team, if you make the
playing 11,
what does that mean
about you as a player?
Sorry?
They need you. They need you on the
team.
And if you sat on the benches, what
does that mean?
You're nobody need you. You are replaceable.
That moment in which the the referee says
substitution,
and your name gets called up and you
have to run off the pitch. There's a
sinking feeling in your heart.
Someone could replace me.
Think of that.
We are the playing 11. We are alive.
But how many creations of Allah are on
the benches? Allah could have replaced us with
them.
What made you deserve to be alive?
Why did Allah give you the chance and
the opportunity to breathe when he could have
given somebody else the chance instead of you?
How many people die every year? How many
children die? How many children die in the
womb?
Don't be distracted, brothers. This is the test.
How many children die without even seeing the
world and breathing oxygen?
But you didn't. You made it.
What makes you deserve this?
We have to justify our existence.
If not, Allah will replace us. We are
in constant need of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And we forget this. We don't realize this.
But when we remember Al Qayyum, we remember
the one we are dependent on for every
breath and every movement.
When does a person realize their dependence on
Allah? When they get ill.
Famous example.
Muhammad
Ali. Cassius Clay. What did he used to
call himself?
The greatest. The greatest.
Yes? And a famous situation happened when he
fell ill and he couldn't box for 6
months. When he came back, he said don't
call me the greatest.
God made me ill for me to realize
he is the greatest.
This is what happens when we get ill,
when a family member gets ill, we start
to realize how much we really need Allah.
Why are we waiting for those situations?
Should we not be expressing our need to
Allah more regularly?
Should we not be begging him more regularly?
Should we not be realizing that the comforts
of our life could be taken away at
any moment? We need Allah to maintain them
as they are.
To feel really as I am a beggar
in front. I'm a needy. I'm a miski.
I'm a poor person. You know when you're
sitting in a restaurant here around the corner.
Yes? There's a whole line of restaurants.
And you're sitting in a restaurant and somebody
opens the door and says, can anybody give
me a pound?
And sometimes you're in the middle of eating,
you think,
why do they have to annoy me like
this?
And you could never imagine a day when
you're in that situation
because it's so embarrassing.
It's so humiliating
to go into a shop full of people
and ask them for 1 pound.
Why?
We don't like to feel needy.
We like to give. We enjoy giving. We
enjoy hosting people for dinner. We enjoy gifting
things to people. We don't like the feeling
of begging, of asking, of requesting others. And
that is a good thing. The prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam said to his companion,
try not to ask anyone for anything. Try
your best
as much as you can
to look after yourself. Don't rely on anybody
for anything.
Shabab.
Attention.
Attention. Order in the court, please.
Shabab, if we lose focus
by 1 firecracker
and one conversation in the back of the
masjid, then come on. How can we continue?
We need we need ultimate focus.
So Allah, we are in ultimate need of
Him. And He reminds us of this only
when we are in moments of illness, moments
of calamity, moments of sadness, we turn to
Allah. Allah
mentions in the Quran.
When a group of people ride a ship
and they see waves and they see a
storm,
they suddenly call upon Allah with full sincerity.
But when they reach safety,
they go back to the shirk that they
used to do.
Now think about that. How often it is
that we
we call upon Allah in a moments of
distress and difficulty, but when we're in good
times, we don't even realize he's there.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said to
Abdullah ibn Abbas radiAllahu anhu.
Remember Allah in your moments of good times.
Remember Allah. He will be in your assistance
in your difficult times.
It's the opposite.
Try to remember Allah in your good times.
The test of prosperity and safety and success
is worse than the test of poverty
because you don't even realize you're being tested.
You think I am in Allah's VIP books
because I have I'm paying rent. I have
a nice car. My family is healthy. I'm
chilling. Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, is looking after
me. I'm happy. I'm in Allah's good books,
but you don't realize. Are we are we
really grateful for those favors?
Are we complaining about the little things?
Do we feel in need of Allah? Sometimes
we have to remind ourselves and put ourselves
in that situation of that person who walks
into the shop and begs for a pound.
We should beg Allah for every pound that
we earn. We should ask Allah for every
blessing that we have because he can take
it away at any moment.
When the prophet
loses his child.
Now this is the thing. A woman,
she is pregnant.
She holds a child inside her for 9
months.
How often does it happen? After 8 and
a half months, the child dies inside the
womb.
Now imagine that. Or the the the mother
delivers the child, and holding the child, the
child dies in her hands. Now imagine this.
She has tasted the blessing of her child's
being alive for one moment,
and Allah took it away.
Allah took it away straight away.
Now imagine what that means for her.
9 months.
All the sickness, the exhaustion, the tiredness, and
she has given birth to this child and
Allah took it away.
Allah
is teaching her and teaching you and teaching
me that he owns this child and he
gives and he can take. And it wasn't
yours to begin with.
It wasn't yours to begin with. And you
needed Allah, and that child needed Allah. And
if Allah decided, he could remove
his help, his assistance, his oxygen supply to
that child, to you, and to me.
When the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's child passes
away,
and he's found crying,
and his companions say, oh, Rasool Allah, even
you are crying. He says,
This is a mercy
Allah has placed in the hearts of his
servants.
And he says a very important phrase.
To Allah belongs what he took. My son
belonged to Allah. It wasn't mine. He lent
it to me. He let me borrow him,
and he took him back.
And to him belongs what he gave.
Everything for Allah has an expiry date. Think
of it this way.
Everything in your life you have on lease,
you don't own. You are renting.
Anytime he wants, the landlord can take it
back.
Anytime.
That changes things. The clothes you're wearing it's
borrowed. You don't own it. Allah can take
it at any moment.
The electricity in this masjid, we don't own
it. Allah can take it back.
When you start to think of your life
in this way, that everything I own is
borrowed. It's on loan. It's on lease. I
don't own it.
You start to look after it properly. You
start to respect the caretaker, the maintainer, the
landlord much more. Because you know if he
wants, he can remove it at any point
in time.
And this is the meaning of Al Qayyum,
the one who looks after everything. But he
makes it look like they're taking care of
themselves.
But if you take your attention off for
a second, you become ungrateful for a second.
You think that this is me. This is
me. My intelligence, my hard work has brought
all of this. Allah
will take it away, or he'll make you
miserable while you still have it. How many
people?
Celebrities
with all the funds in the world, with
the biggest real estate portfolios in the world,
they commit suicide out of depression.
How many famous examples do we have from
Michael Jackson onwards?
Why are they upset? Why are they sad?
They own everything. But because they think they
own it, and it's because of their intelligence
and their hard work they own it, they
feel empty inside. They feel miserable.
True freedom is knowing that everything is in
the hands of Allah, True freedom that brings
you happiness and fills you with light and
ease is to know everything is looked after.
And I don't need to worry about this.
I don't need to be have sleepless nights
because
is the one that makes it stand. You
know, we all have stresses, and we all
have worries. One day,
there was a group, a tribe from Yemen,
Al Asharayun.
Not Al Asharayun.
They came to the prophet
And and they were a tribe from Yemen.
They were immigrants, and they had an issue
that
they suddenly realized they'd had no food, and
they had no sustenance, no income,
and they got stressed out.
They went to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
They sent someone to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam to ask him, oh Prophet of Allah,
give us something to eat. Give us some
food, some money. As they arrived, the messenger
arrived to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, Allah
revealed an
ayah.
Every single organism in this universe,
Allah provides for.
There's bacteria in your stomach living off
your stomach acid.
Allah provides for them.
And he knows when they move and when
they are still. Everything has been recorded. And
when this companion heard this verse, he said,
I don't need to ask the prophet
for food. Allah is looking after me.
Why should I worry? Why should I stress?
Yes. I'll work hard, but I will not
stress about the outcomes.
Allah is in control of the outcome. It's
such a freeing idea. It's a liberating idea.
You don't have to stress and worry about
the outcomes.
Right now, we live in a climate that's
very stressful. Economic recession,
rising fuel prices. Today, I bought my groceries.
I think I paid twice of what I
used to pay for my groceries even though
I went to the cheapest supermarket possible. Everyone's
worried,
but you forget about your worries.
It's freeing you when you realize
Allah
controls this. You know? You know, many people,
how they find freedom is they start to
build conspiracy theories.
There's a small group of people that control
everything in the world.
Yeah? A small group of people who control
everything.
They coordinate the wars and the prices.
When they have this conspiracy theory, it's happy.
It's it makes life easy for them because
they can blame someone for it. But when
the real freedom is to realize, Allah
is the one who makes all of these
things happen. He maintains them. He takes care
of them. He protects them. And when he
wishes, he makes them more difficult for us.
A businessman or a businesswoman.
Every day they go into work, and they
don't know this month whether they'll be able
to pay their rent or not. It's very
difficult to be an entrepreneur.
Those who are in fixed jobs with fixed
salaries, life is a lot more predictable for
you. Those who are working in business, ask
them, what happens in their mind every month?
They are not sure, this month, will I
be able to pay the rent?
They have to trust Allah.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, as
comes in
If you really trusted Allah in your outcomes,
he would have provided for you like he
provides for birds. They leave in the early
morning,
empty stomach, and they return in the evening
with full stomach. They don't know how. They
don't know why, where. Allah
provides.
And so Qayyum, the name of Allah
gives you a lot of reassurance
that if you do the work,
leave the outcome to Allah. Rely upon Him.
Trust upon Him. Ask Him. He is listening.
He is alive. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't
nap. He doesn't have fixed hours. He is
never offline.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is always present
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is always in
control.
Never let someone make you think that people
or objects or organizations or groups are in
control. Allah controls them.
Allah tells the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
You see the disbelievers, they come large armies,
large groups, the Romans, the Persians, big empires.
You feel, how on earth am I going
to face up to them? Allah says don't
be deceived by these guys.
Don't be fooled.
They just have a short amount of time
in power,
and then your time will come. Patience.
Don't be deceived by people, by numbers, by
armies, by politics, by governments, by MPs,
by the falling, the living, and the death
of kings and queens and emperors.
All of these things,
Allah is in control.
And one of the names similar to Al
Qayyum is the Allah's name As Samad.
As Samad in Arabic
is used to describe a high place like
a hill.
When it rains,
all the rain starts by dropping on the
hill, and then it trickles down to everything
else.
So if you want water, you're going to
have to sit at the bottom of the
hill and wait for the water to come
to you. Allah is asamad, meaning he is
not in need of anybody,
whereas everything is in need of him.
Everybody is constantly needing Allah, but he is
not in need of anybody at the same
time.
And this makes us realize
this small word, as Samad, how deep its
meanings are. How much we recite the Surah
and we don't know its meaning. Something to
think about that. When we teach our children
Surah al Ikhlas,
teach them
teach them what it means.
When the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam will teach
the Quran to children, to young Muslims, to
his companions, he would never teach it to
them without the meanings. Never.
This is the how we run our Magaris,
our Quran schools. We want children to learn
how to read, learn how to memorize. What
about the meanings?
We don't care about the meanings.
The prophet's companion said,
The people the prophet's companions who used to
teach the Quran, how did they teach the
Quran?
When they would teach the Quran, they would
teach 10 ayahs at a time, and they
would teach its meanings and what actions we
learn from it, and what we need to
do because of these ayat, and then they
would move on to the next.
They would not
move on from these 10 verses until people
knew really what it means.
This is something to think about. When we
learn the Quran, when they teach the Quran,
when we get impressed because somebody's memorization memorization.
Today, many parents, my son is half of
the my son is half of the Quran.
He's memorized the Quran. Yes. Great. Did the
prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam and his companions
emphasize the memorization of the Quran?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala emphasized the meanings
first.
Did Allah say
Quran? No. He said,
Why don't they think about the meanings of
the Quran?
Somebody memorizes the Quran, great. It's a bonus.
But if they have not understood it, then
they have truly failed, and that is the
real education of the Quran. Small tangent. But
to go back, today we talked about al
Hayy, the living, al Qayyum,
the one who looks after everything in this
world. It is close to the name Arrab,
but Arrab is the one who takes from
0, and he nurtures and looks after you
until you are complete.
And Al Qayyum is the one who makes
everything exist, and everything is dependent on him
for every moment. Don't forget the dog and
the bell
and the food.
Because we think the bell brings the food.
We think our boss brings the salary. But
who is behind the bus? And who is
behind the salary? He is Al Qayyum. And
he doesn't fall asleep, and he is always
available.
And we talked about Allah's name, Al Ghani.
Al Ghani, the one who is rich beyond
measure,
and whom giving you does not decrease from
his wealth or his kingdom.
And taking from you does not increase in
his kingdom or his wealth.
And he is not in need of us.
We disbelieve in him. We go against him.
All of that will come back to us.
It's not going to harm him. It's not
going to hurt him.
What would Allah do? What would he benefit
from punishing his slaves?
He wouldn't.
Allahu Ghani
He doesn't need us.
We talked about as Samad,
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the high and
the almighty,
everyone is in need of him,
the dua of the
prophet
that you should read every morning
and every evening.
O Allah, the living,
the one who takes care of everything.
I seek refuge in your mercy.
Look after all of my affairs.
And don't leave me to myself for the
blink of an eye. Memorize this dua, teach
it to your children, and read it in
the mornings and the evenings.