Husain Sattar – Tafsir Surah Fatiha. Meaning of the Koran Chapter 1
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So by the praise and glory of Allah,
this is actually our
3rd meeting,
and we meet once a month in order
to cover the conceit of the holy Quran.
We began with Surah Al Fatihah. We're continuing
with Surah Al Fatihah.
In the very first lesson, we went into
details as to why Surah Al Fatihah is
called Surah Al Fatihah, and we talked a
little bit about the
dawword,
what you're supposed to read before you begin
the Quran, how would be that even in
shape on in the beginning.
In the second meeting, we talked about this
in Al Rahman and El Rahim.
And we
sent some detailed explication of what exactly Ar
Rahman and Ar Raheem represent for the Holy
Quran.
In this particular lesson, we'll cover in detail
the first few ayat of Surah Al Ba'ath.
So I'll also turn on Huwadeh states in
his glorious book, Alhamdulillahir
Abdul Adani. This
is the very first verse of Surah Al
Qaziha
and
it really sets the account straight immediately.
If you think about
the great books that have been written in
the history of man
or even if you ask anybody who wants
to write a book, they'll tell you that
the first line is the hardest line to
write.
Even if you sit down and you wanna
begin something, you know that the first line
is the hardest line to write. If you
wanna write a write a letter or you
wanna write an essay for your for some
class assignment
or somebody at work assigned you some sort
of task and you need to write something,
the first line is always the toughest.
Because the first line is really going to
define
what the rest of the letter is going
to say or what the rest of the
book will represent or what the rest of
the essay will present.
And so Allah
in the very first line of this particular
Surah sets the sets the record straight.
All praise.
For Allah
the sustainer,
the nourisher,
the provider
for the Adani, for the universes.
Now if you think about the fact that
we picked up the Holy Quran,
well, actually, let me go into the explication
of the word and then we'll go into
the explication of what this verse means. So
on the hamid, hamid means to pray. In
the Arabic language, there's 2 different words and
we have them in English as well, to
pray and to thank. So there's one thing
called hamid from hamidah
and there's another word called shugr from shakarah.
Shugr means to thank.
So somebody gives you something or does some
favor upon you and you thank them for
it. That's called sugar.
And how do you mean to praise?
Even without that person doing something to you
or doing something for you,
when you praise someone, you're praising them for
the inherent characteristic within them. For example,
if there's a great athlete
and that athlete performs at a level which
is beyond the majority of human beings,
we praise that particular individual. Now when they
play the sport that they play, they don't
do anything for us. They're not necessarily giving
us something, but we praise them for some
characteristic within them.
So in this particular verse,
and this
here is for
is to encompass every type of
So I'll walk straight away then,
all praise,
all types of praise,
all the praise from the beginning of time
till the end of time,
all forms of praise,
every
being who has praise, in essence, is that
it
is a it's for Allah.
Every single praise
of Allah or anything other than Allah since
the beginning of time till the end of
time done by anything created by Allah is
actually for Allah.
That's what this very, very few words is
showing to us.
So today,
if I perform some
great act on the basketball court and everybody
is very, very much everybody is astonished by
my deed,
even if they praise me, in the end,
I'm, humbly, left. All praises so for Allah.
Why? Because Allah is the one that created
me.
No matter who you pray, no matter where
you try to distribute your praise, no matter
what you are praising, in the end, you're
praising Allah.
All forms of Allah, all forms of praise,
all types of praise, whether they be for
Allah or for other than Allah, in the
end they're for Allah. Because Allah's creating everything.
So no matter how much you praise another
human being, in the end, Allah created that
human being, so the praise is for the
creator of that human being who is Allah.
No matter how you think about it. Right
away, Allah cuts the record straight. So you're
taking out time in your life.
You're going to pick up the holy Quran.
You've decided to seek guidance from Allah.
You've made a mirror in your heart to
submit to whatever's in the book. So what
do you do? You open up the the
first page, and right away, Allah
All praises for Allah. The fact that you
picked up the book, it's because of Allah.
The fact that you can read the book,
it's because of Allah. The fact that you
can listen to the book, it's because Allah
gave us ears. The fact that we can
comprehend this book, it's because Allah gave us
a brain.
The fact that we can act upon this
book is because Allah gave us the body.
Every single thing we do,
every single thing we think, every single thing
that we have and every return is because
of Allah.
You can't be you cannot begin you cannot
begin any better way.
There's nothing more comprehensive
than this statement to summarize
everything that exists in the universe. In the
end, it's.
It's something we've created, it's.
If Allah gave us something, it's.
If we have to do something, it's.
It's all from Allah.
For Allah and because of Allah. And so
right away, off the bat, first line, Allah
makes a dead crow in the heart of
every single individual.
That your ability to pick up this book,
comprehend this book, that they'll need to read
this book. The fact that you recite this
first in the last is all because of
Allah.
Mhmm.
And now look at the state look at
the way the statement is created. Now if
you wanna know a little bit of Arabic
grammar, if you say you have the grammar,
then the statement becomes much more
interesting. In Arabic grammar, the outcome
is that the sentence should be verbal. So
it should have said,
hamiddu Allah.
I praise Allah.
You know, the way you write in the
Arabic
language is that you write a verbal sentence,
that's the puzzle, that's the original type of
sentence. And when you read a verbal sentence,
there's a reason why.
So this is called in one of the
he calls this composition of words,
it's
means you take a verbal sentence, which should
because, look, you're standing in prayer or you're
picking up the book and actually you're praising
Allah. Right? I mean, you're saying
so really it should be I praise Allah,
not all praises for Allah,
but instead,
the sentence comes
So this is called in Arabic grammar. It's
near to.
You take the Jummah, the sentence, which was
originally verbal,
and
you change it to a nominal sentence. All
phrase is for Allah. They're here. There's a
subject and a predicate.
Now when you take a nominal sentence in
the Arabic language, it provides two benefits, the
one and the one. The one means permanent,
meaning from the beginning of time until the
end of time, all phrases fall off. And
the one
continuously,
every single moment within that span
from the beginning of time until the end
of time, every moment contained within there
is still
for Allah. It is in praise of Allah
So even just the construction of the sentence
lends to such a powerful statement.
Then Allah provides
the disease,
so
there's a and
then there's a disease.
Means someone who sustains, someone who nourishes,
someone who takes something from nothing and produces
it to its perfection,
takes it from the essence of nothing,
which what which is what all of us
were, and reaches us to the pinnacle of
our perfection.
That's what means.
Allah took this universe. He created it out
of nothing, and he and it is reaching
its pinnacle in perfection.
Allah
took creation,
created them out of nothing and brought them
to their peak imperfection.
Now
a lot of people can be wrong. I
can be wrong for my daughter.
I can help her to grow. I can
nourish her. I can educate her. But in
the end, I didn't create her out of
nothing. I'm a limited love. I have a
limited ability to be a love. I can
be the love of my home.
I can make sure it's fixed, make sure
it runs properly, properly, make sure it functions
properly, make sure that it's all in order.
But in the end, I'm a limited rock
because I did not create that home from
nothing.
I still have to bring the bricks that
I'm not created or the earth that I'm
not created on the ground that I'm not
created
using gravity that I'm not created.
Everything
of mine being loved in this world and
all of us being loved in this world
is a limited rule.
It's a limited
loveness.
But Allah
is the most perfect of all of us.
He created everything from nothing
and then he sustains it to its peak
and its level of perfection.
And not only did he now look at
this. So Allah, that's enough.
The fact that he created one thing out
of nothing and then he needs it to
its peak and perfection, that is enough to
say
So look at Allah. What type of love
is he? Is he love of 1 area
of the world? Is he love of 1
human being? Is he love of his messenger?
No. He
is the Lord, the sustainer, the one who
creates nothing and
who creates something out of nothing and allows
us to reach its pinnacle of perfection, and
he doesn't do it for one thing or
one area or one city or one planet,
the universe.
He is the largest of the.
Allah's being loved is so perfect for an
individual, and then that perfection
applies to the entire universe. This is the
Allah who we are servants of.
You have no choice.
That's why this verse is so deep. We
have no choice but to say
Now look at look at how Allah states
it.
Means world. It's already plural.
It's already full. It includes all the world
that you can think of. The world of
humanity,
the world of the djinn, the world of
animals or the world of Earth and then
the world of the universe
or the Milky Way galaxy. I mean, how
much can you think
one island can contain is contained within this
within this meaning? But Allah says,
the lord of the world.
And it's so incredible that you read the
fear from a 1000 years ago
and the the first thing they write based
on this era, they came up with the
scientific concept that the universe must be continuously
expanding.
They said that
is the most perfect
and he is the love of the.
And because his power is in you cannot
encompass his power. You cannot limit his power.
Therefore, his being love of the universe means
that the universe must be continuously expanding. That
was a 1000 years ago
based on this a
1000 years later, scientists now say, yes, the
universe is not limited. It continues to expand.
Meaning, Omar's being above the universe
continues from the beginning of time and it
will continue all the way until we end.
And Allah is not only love of this
world that we live in, he is love
of Jahannam.
If he decides to put us in there,
we will end up there. And he is.
Should he decide to put us there, we
will end up there. So that's a very
important distinction because that's what matters in the
end for us. But Allah
is
So
all praises for Allah, all types of praises
for Allah, all praise from the beginning of
time until the end of time is for
Allah, and every praise that every single thing
ever done in the universe
in in the end returns to Allah. Why?
He
He produced everything out of nothing and that
everything includes me, you, all of creation from
the end of time, from the beginning of
time until the end of time, the Earth,
the all the planets, the solar system and
all the galaxies that exist within this universe.
Again,
repeats these two beautiful lines that we spent
explicating last month. The Al Wahgnan,
the most merciful
and Al Wahn,
the most beneficent.
This is the only these are characteristics which
Allah
in his own perfection
has bestowed upon his creation. In fact, we
find in Hadith and we talked about this
last time that
Allah said that he divided his mercy into
a 100 parts.
The fact that he's
he divides this mercy into a 100 parts.
One part he's destroyed on this world and
the other 99 parts are reserved for the
day of judgment.
Imagine,
all the mercy that exists between us and
our family members, all the mercy that exists
between the prophets and their communities,
all the mercy that exists between any animal
and its offspring,
all the mercy that exists anywhere in the
universe
is all derived from 1% of Allah's
mercy, the other 99%
is saved from the day of judgment.
So you can always begin to imagine how
merciful Allah
truly is. So despite the fact that this
being is so powerful, like they say that,
there's a statement in English that power corrupts
and absolute power absolutely corrupts. Right? We have
this statement. Anybody that gets power, they get
corrupted.
Anything becomes absolutely powerful, they become absolutely corrupted.
But a lot of time, what I left
is very clear in making this explaining this
to us that despite the fact that he
controls
everything, that he is that all power lies
in his hand, in the end, he is
still Al Rahman and he is still Al
Rahman. And that's the key thing to keep
in mind that this
incredible being who creates out of nothing
and whose power is so expansive that it
spans the whole universe
and the one whom all praise belongs to,
in the end, he is still our Wuhan
and he is still our Wuhan. So we
should never give up hope. You don't look
at Allah and say, look how powerful this
being is. I have no hope of ever
pleasing him. You do what he asked you
to do, and you hope that Allah
will complete the rest of the rest of
what we were supposed to do through his
mercy. And that's the fact. The false statement
said in a famous hadith, he said to
his companions, none of you will enter Jannah
except through the mercy
of Allah.
So
the companions were shocked.
I mean, look, if you have a group
of people, if we give our whole lives
for the Deen,
we don't have anything left, we've given our
wealth, we left our houses, we fight in
battle,
Everything is for the mean, and then somebody
comes and says to you, well, none of
these deals really mean anything. In the end,
it's only Allah's mercy that's gonna get you.
And again, you'd be a little shocked too.
Right? And so this this follow a shock.
They looked at the public side then and
they said, Yara Surula, what about you?
So turn the question around. What about you?
Will you too, the one who established the
beam, who brings the Quran,
who leads us in our
in our in our crusade towards praising Allah,
even you will you only enter Jannah through
the mercy of Allah, the both of them
said, even I will only enter Jannah through
the mercy of Allah
In the end, it's all the mercy of
Allah and this is what we're being reminded,
we did and
and lastly, if we went into extreme detail
of both of these works.
Then I want to make
a very interesting statement,
very interesting statement and this is probably one
of my most favorite ayats in this Surah,
Now the the element being.
That a lot of common words to Allah
is the mannock of the yeoman being. Mannock
means you're the one who possesses,
the one who has howled over something, the
owner of something. So for example, I'm manic
at my house. I'm manic of my jacket.
Okay? I'm manic of my car.
So Allah says
he's the manic. He's the owner. He's the
possessor of what? The day.
A
day,
a redeem
retribution.
The day in which we will be
facing him to answer for our deed, the
day of retribution.
Now the first thing they say, this is
such a strange aya.
Allah says he is not the only thing.
He is the owner of the day of
judgment.
Now if you think about that, that's a
very strange aya. Let me give you context.
Let's say that I buy a mansion.
Okay?
And I invite all of you into my
mansion, and I think, you know, I just
bought this house. I wanna show you my
house. Let me give you a tour.
So I take you through my whole house,
and and then I take you to the
closet,
and I say, look. I own this closet.
Right? I think you I own this closet.
You look at me like I'm crazy. You
say, what do you mean you own this
closet? This whole mansion is yours. Why are
you pointing out that you own a closet?
Are you crazy?
What are you trying to say you own
this closet? Of course, you own this closet.
That's the discussion that the woman is raising
this time.
Allah says that he's man that he owns
this. He is the owner of the unit
judgment, but that's obvious.
He owns the whole universe.
He owns me. He owns you. He owns
the earth. He raised us from nothing.
So why is Allah
after telling us that he is that
he is the one who raised, sustained, and
nourishes the whole universe from a to z,
why is he taking us into this one
closet and saying that he owns the day
of judgment?
Why?
Well, there's two reasons that the the raised
or 2 benefits that they raised to the
phrasing of this particular iron.
Number 1
is that this is a reminder for each
of us that despite the fact that Allah
gives us the ability to own in this
world,
on the day of judgement, we'll be raised
with nothing and will be raised immediately.
Even this world, I have some degree of
vanity yet. My jacket I own my jacket.
I can do what I want with it.
If I wanna give it to somebody, I
can give it to them. If I wanna
throw it away, I can throw it away.
No one can question me because I am
the man of this jacket.
In this world, Allah
gave me the ability
to own.
But on a daily judgment,
only Allah and Allah alone will be mad.
We will all be raised with nothing.
The houses that we have, no. They will
not be there. The cars that we own
will be raised naked. The cars that we
drive will not be present.
Despite the fact that in this Earth, Allah
gave us control over certain aspects of our
wealth on the day of judgment, there will
only be 1 mannet and one mannet alone
and that will be a loss
So although he is manic of the universe,
and even in this case, he is manic
of this whole world and everything that's within
it, he gave us some some ability to
be manic as well in this particular earth.
But on the day of judgment, only Allah
will be the Malik, There
will only be 1 Malik under the Omar's
and that is Allah
That's the first point that the.
The second point that they raised
is that
Allah
is highlighting to you
that while he is the owner, the master,
and the sustainer
of every single thing in this universe,
in the end,
what really matters is the day of judgment.
That's what really matters for all of us.
So Allah is highlighting,
Subhanahu wa ta'ala, in this particular ayah,
that's a real issue for the servants.
The real issue, the practical issue of Allah
owning the whole universe is the day of
judgment.
Because in the end, it doesn't matter if
Allah owns Mars or not. It's not going
to affect us.
In the end, even if Allah created all
of humanity from the end of time from
the beginning of time until the end of
time, that does not affect us.
The essence of what will affect us out
of the of Allah
is the fact that he is the owner
of the day of judgment.
On that day,
each of us individually
will have to stand before Allah.
And we'll have to answer for our deeds,
and it won't make a difference.
Nothing else in the history of the world
will make a difference except that particular point.
And so that's the thing that we wanna
remember.
While we are in awe of Allah
and his incredible power and the vastness of
his ability
and his supreme
supremacy
over everything that was ever created in the
end, the essence,
the bottom line is that we will be
judged on the day of judgment.
And who owns that day? A loss of
heart of heart of heart of heart of
heart of heart.
So when we make decisions in life, we
should make decisions accordingly.
That's how we have to make our decisions.
That is what should drive our mind, our
desires, our energy,
our sleep, our ranking is the fact that
we will be judged for our deeds under
the day of judgment. That's what we're being
reminded of. Now look how powerful this ayah
is. How many times have we read this
ayah and how many times have we even
reflected on what this ayah truly means?
Probably a 1000000 times some of us have
read this
ia, but probably we haven't understood 11 million
of what it really means.
It's reminding us
that our goal
and that everything that matters to us is
on that particular day.
Look how we make decisions in life so
often, we make very difficult decisions
and we'll stand up to make very significant
sacrifices, but it's usually for the life of
this world.
I'll drive that extra hour to work because
the pay is a little bit higher.
I'll spend a couple more years studying with
the difficulties of studying that the difficulties that
studying entails because the job market's a little
bit better.
Right? I'm gonna work an extra couple hours
every day because I can then purchase that
particular house.
Or I move a little bit further away
from the market because I can buy a
little bit better property.
Look how we make our decisions in life.
Allah is reminding us that the decision making
criteria
should be this particular point, and that is
that Allah
is not at the only He is the
owner of the day of judgment.
So everything now he's highlighting for us very
early on that everything else has to come
in this book, the next 600 pages of
this book, the next 115
chapters of this book are to be submitted
to
because this is the this this Allah, the
same Allah who nourished us who raised us
out of nothing, who continues to nourish us,
who continues to sustain us is the same
Allah who will make demands from us as
we progress through the book. Don't drink alcohol,
eat halal, etcetera, etcetera.
So right away, the groundwork is being laid
for a beneficial interaction
with the next 113
chapters in this book.
So
that is the only thing.
EIA cannot do what EIA can explain.
So
these are these 2 items are also very
interesting.
Now as a result of the fact
that all phrases for Allah,
and he is
and he is
and he is and he is.
All of these things
come together and combine
to produce such an effect on the person
who recites these words
that he has no
no choice but to say
what.
This is the combination of these first few
verses.
We you alone do we worship.
You are Allah.
You are the one to whom all praise
belong.
You are the one who is.
You are.
You are. You are.
You are.
We are forced. There's no choice.
With this supreme power that this being has,
we have no choice but to worship him
and him alone.
Nothing else can compare.
If somebody has a little bit of power,
it can't compare to Allah's power. If somebody
else is a lot of some big piece
of land or a lot of some big
company
or a lot of some
industry, in the end, it's limited because a
lot is a lot of money.
Somebody may have some ownership of something. They
may have a lot of wealth. They may
have
property. They may have respect and honor, but
in the end, Allah is not the only
thing. So you have no choice. There's no
other option except
the.
You alone do we worship
and you alone do we ask for assistance.
Now, again, look at the Arabic parameters. If
you understand Arabic parameters, the miracle of the
Quran is actually in Arabic grammar.
And, unfortunately, most of us don't know Arabic
grammar, but the actual miracle of the Quran
comes in Arabic language.
There are other miracles in the Quran, but
the real essence of its miraculousness
lies in the language. Now look at the
look at this first, let me give you
an example from your school.
If you write a paper
and you say,
the Atlantic Ocean is
200,000,000
feet deep.
And it produces water it provides water to
the majority of humanity.
And I I love this ocean.
If you say that, your teacher
will will put an x on that line
because that's called changing tense
and especially people from indoor pack background, they
do this all the time. You change tense,
you guys you're not allowed to do that.
If you're in the 3rd person,
then you have to stay in the 3rd
person. If you're in the 1st person, you
have to stay in the 1st person. So
if you say the Atlantic Ocean is such
and such, it's such and such, it's such
and such, dude, etcetera, etcetera, you're talking in
the 3rd person.
And then you can't all of a sudden
jump in and say, I really love this
ocean because that's the first person. You switch
your verbal tense, your first intense and that's
not
that's not permitted in the Arabic in the
English language. And so they always say watch
tense change, watch tense change. This is to
happen when I used to write in the
6th, 6th, 7th grade. The teacher would say
watch tense change.
Same thing in this particular item.
Now in general, if you look at this
Surah, it's all in the 3rd person.
All praises for Allah.
He is
Allah Imran, he is Allah He is Allah
Abdul Mahidin. 3rd person, 3rd person, 3rd person,
3rd person, and all of a sudden, we
switch to 1st person.
You alone do I worship, and you alone
do I ask for help. So do we
ask for help actually? So now we have
3rd person, 3rd person, 3rd person, and all
of a sudden, you go to 1st person.
So that's actually called
no. I don't remember the
the Arabic term.
55.
That's called 55.
85 means you switch the person tense.
So now in this particular set of verses,
the person tense is being switched in the
language.
And so when the person tense is being
switched, it highlights to the mufassarines
that some very incredible thing happened.
Some change occurred that resulted in going from
3rd person to 1st person, sometimes Allah does
it to warn people, sometimes Allah does it
to show how astonished people are, sometimes Allah
does it to show how much his mercy
is. So in the Quran, you'll see that
there'll be this person tense switching in different
places.
So the ulama, they say that here, the
person tense is switched from 3rd person to
first person for the following reasons.
So in the first verse, we read,
that all praises for Allah
the lord of the universe.
The benefits of the merciful,
the owner of the day of judgment.
Now the owner must say that the person
who truly interacts with each of these ayahs,
they reach a level of astonishment concerning Allah.
Because right away, if you say,
all praise
is for Allah,
Automatically, you're drawn into this particular being. Who
is this person
that all praise from the beginning of time
until the end of time is for him?
Who is this being that no matter who
you pray, you end up praising him?
Who is it being that every type of
praise, whether it be verbal, whether it be
physical, whether it be emotional, whether it be
intellectual,
is for him?
Who is this person who raised up the
whole universe
from the beginning of time to the end
of time from nothingness?
Who is this person who is al Rahman
and al Wahim whose mercy is beyond anybody's
understanding and expectation?
And who is this being
that is managing on the being, how incredible
this particular being must be.
And so all of these verses add up
to create an effect in the heart of
a believer.
They're so awe stricken and so amazed
and so dumbfounded
by the power of this being
that they have no choice, but to desire
nearness to him and to interact with him
on a 1 on 1 basis. So they
leave the 3rd person and they switch to
the 1st person out of force because of
his incredible power and they have forced to
say
You alone do we worship and you alone
do we ask for help. So that's why
the person switches because this description of Allah
is so incredible and so beyond even anything
that we could ever imagine.
We can imagine praise, but not at the
level of Allah. We can imagine somebody being
loved, but not at the level of Allah.
We can imagine that people have power and
ownership,
but not at the level of Allah. And
so therefore, we are forced
to say that
we worship only Allah and we only ask
for help from Allah.
And that's the reality that that's what the
essence of these verses are. And look how
powerful we should be reflecting on it when
we say,
we should think.
These verses is a reason why these are
the off repeated verses. There's a reason why
Allah assigned these verses in Salah and forces
us to recite these verses
sometimes 20, 30, 40 times in a day.
They have a special power. They have a
special ability
and that they should be effectuating a change
within us.
People read their favorite poetry
and they say, oh, this is so incredible,
so powerful these words or they read their
favorite book and they say, wow, this is
so incredible or they watch their favorite
event and they get so drawn into it.
Well, in the case of Allah, we have
nothing there's nothing that can occur except being
drawn into it. There's no one else to
be drawn into when you think about his
his the fact that our praise goes to
him, the fact that he's Rahman, that he's
Rahim, that he is mad at the old
redeem, that he's
There's nothing left except to this individual.
And the beauty of this verse is the
fact that Allah
allows us to attain such a nearness to
him.
Imagine,
he's writing us, addressing in the first person.
We you alone, you, we can even say
the word you to Allah.
You know how different we are than Allah?
There is not a single characteristic
that exists between us and Allah.
There's not one
common characteristic.
Elan requires no food, we require food.
Elan requires neither sleep nor slumber, we require
rest. Elan does not reproduce and he was
not created by reproduction,
we are created by reproduction
and we reproduce.
Allah
needs to grow, we start up small and
we need to grow. Allah has no dependence,
we depend upon one another.
Allah
owns the whole universe, we own only whatever
Allah gives us the permission to own.
There is not
even one characteristic
that you can find in common between us
and Allah
and yet he allowed us to praise him.
I'm happy. That's amazing.
We don't think about it enough. He allowed
us to praise him. We're not doing Allah
a favor when we go to SEDRA.
Allah did not the favor that he assigned
us 5 prayers in a day, and then
he wants to say
He did not the favor. He did not
the favor that he gave us wudu to
purify ourselves so that we can read his
book so that we can pray for him
on his in his house.
He did not the favor that he lets
us come here regularly.
Everything that we have is a favor from
Allah.
And
look, beyond that, he did not favor by
creating us. He did not favor by guiding
us. He did not favor by quoting us.
He did not favor by feeding us. He
did not favor by keeping us healthy, and
then he done us a favor by allowing
us to worship him. We have done no
favors to Allah
and that's the wrong attitude that Muslims in
America carry. We're god's gift to Islam.
We are the best Muslims that ever came.
Are you kidding?
It's Allah's favor upon us that despite a
distance of 1400 years from Mecca and Medina,
we continue to live according to this deed.
It's only Allah's blessing, nobody has done anything
to deserve it. No one in this crowd
can stand up and say that I deserve
to be Muslim, I did something to be
Muslim, I deserve to have prayed. It's Allah's
mercy. The difference between me and a captain
is only that Allah decided to bestow his
mercy upon me and decided not to bestow
that mercy on another individual.
It's all the praise of Allah.
We have to get this through our minds.
We're not doing Allah a favor by coming
here.
We don't do Allah a favor by establishing
this masjid, we do ourselves a favor.
When you do something for this masjid, when
you do something for your community, you didn't
do a favor to Allah, you did yourself
a favor. When you did $5 or $10
out of your pocket to someone poor, you
didn't do that person a favor
and you did yourself a favor because Allah
will give you the reward for that on
the day of judgment and that money was
not even yours to begin with.
What where did you earn it from? Well,
I went to work, I drove my car,
I used my hand. Allah gave you your
car. Allah created the ground that you work
on. Allah gave you the mind you used
to make your money. In the end, even
if you did something to somebody, there's no
phrase that's due to you. All praise is
due to Allah.
We're so caught up in looking for our
own praise. I did this. I did this.
I prayed Fajr. I go to the masjid.
I gave so much in. I gave $10,000
to build this masjid. It has nothing to
do with us. It's all.
That has to be very clear in our
mind.
Now look at these verses, they're reminding
us of this every single day and not
once a day, 20 to 30 times a
day we recite these verses and yet the
reality is not been coming to our hearts
even once.
Even once, have we ever reflected how we've
made, have we understood these verses, have we
realized who we're dealing with,
which being we're bowing before,
which being we recite these verses to,
it's all the mercy of Allah.
So we should spend time developing this gift,
right? People say to an individual, I'm going
to give you a brain,
how are you going to develop it? When
you say to somebody who has a lot
of ability, I want to give you a
strong body, why don't you use it? Well,
I want to give us this gift.
He gave us the gift of Quran's got
to have, and he made it mandatory in
the prayer.
And he gave us the to pray with
him, and he allows us to go to
and attain nearness to him.
This being who all praise belongs to, who
is
who is Rahman, who is Rahim, who is
Mahdi on the beam. He would give us
the ability to interact with him despite these
incredible characteristics.
Even the President of the United States only
listen to you and he doesn't have any
power.
They like to think he has power or
he and the power the president of any
country likes to think he has power. In
the end, he won't even let you interact
with him.
He won't even let you come to him.
He won't even read a letter that you
wrote to him. And I'll watch the panel
who let Allah doesn't allow you to come
in. He doesn't allow me to come in.
He allows all of humanity to come in
from the beginning of time till the end
of time. That's only the mercy of Allah.
It's only through the mercy of Allah.
So now if Allah gave us to to
learn these verses,
to recite these verses,
to interact with these verses, to pray to
the individual,
the being, the supreme being who will be
on these verses, don't you think we should
put a little bit of time into our
salah?
I mean, how much time does it take
to carefully recite these verses?
I mean, I know that we all have
the ability to just say,
the verses are done, we don't even know
what we said.
But these verses are the most powerful thing
you will interact with during your day.
No newspaper article will move you the way
these verses move you.
No events in your whole life, forget about
one day. No events in your whole life
can move you the way these 3 verses
can move you if you were to reflect
upon that. That's the power of a law.
These verses are describing
the power of the most powerful
being of the universe, namely Allah.
How can they not affect us?
How can they not affect us? There's there's
something wrong with us. We should be asking
this question. So
reflect upon these verses. That's really what this
the field is about. It's not an academic
discussion I tell you in Arabic language. This
is this is the the
reality is is that these are the verses
that you have to recite to Allah in
order to attain nearness to him and to
understand who he truly
is. And so we have the and
we have this book that we should regularly
reflect and recite on these on these words.
And that's why we say
You will always be wishing. Now if you're
standing and you're let's just say
you come to the mother of prayer in
a few minutes.
You stand for mother of prayer, you say
Allahu Akbar. You start reciting.
Now even if your mind is distracted
okay, let's
say
let's just say,
make a hypothetical situation.
We come to prayer and our mind is
distracted.
We're thinking about work, we're thinking about the
grocery list that we're supposed to pick up
on the way from home, we're thinking about
what happened in the house right before we
left, so we're a bit distracted, we're human
beings.
But
if we were to truly recite these verses,
all that distraction should move within the first
four verses.
Could you say to this day, oh, long
effort, tie your hand, begin reciting.
Then he recites that, that in and of
itself has its own which will take a
week. I mean, that's such a powerful phrase
of Allah as well. And then he recites,
Right away, you should be thinking, this
is an incredible being.
By that 4th verse, everything in the world
should have left our minds.
Everything
that distracts us or that just pulls us
away from Salah should have lost our minds
at that point
if we truly understood these verses.
So the next time you're in prayer
and you're reciting these verses, stop for a
second
and think
Allahu Akbar.
Who am I raising my hands before? What
am I saying?
That Allah is the greatest.
Allah is above and beyond. What? Allah is
above and beyond the job that distracts me
from him.
The family that
has issues which pull me away from him,
the desires and dreams and aspirations that I
have that take me away from him. He's
above and beyond all of that.
And then think,
We say it. Think about it. We say
each letter.
The prayers. All types of prayers
from the beginning of time to the end
of time. Whether done by hand, whether done
by mind, whether done by heart, all go
on to him.
The
whole
universe
and the multiple universes that are beyond the
knowledge of human
beings.
The most beneficent, the most merciful,
the one whose mercy encompasses the whole universe,
the owner of the Day of Judgment, that
day that means everything to me. The day
when my faith will be decided, my permanent
faith will be decided.
He's the one who's going to decide it
because he's going to own it on that
day.
By that time, we should be gone in
the love for our own love. We shouldn't
be able to think about anything else. We
should be totally intoxicated with it. That's how
powerful these verses are.
And so
they're few,
but there's a reason why
Allah made us repeat them.
There's a reason. When Allah makes us repeat
something, there's a reason he doesn't need us
to repeat something more than once. In fact,
actually, if we really decided these verses the
way they should be recited and reflected upon
them the way that we reflected upon them,
one time would be enough for our whole
life.
It would create such an effect in our
hearts that it would be enough for our
whole life. But on that shows that these
these off repeated versus, this is what they're
calling the Arabic language,
the off repeated versus. The first is better
to be repeated
often
and over and over and over again in
our salah, in our interaction with the Quran,
in our du'a. That's what these these verses
are the most powerful verses that we can
interact with. And so we should begin to
inculcate them, reflect upon them and think about
what they truly mean. And the result of
them is 2 things. Number 1, you will
worship only Allah. If you can put these
3 verses in your mind and inculcate them
in your heart, you will only worship Allah.
You have no desire
to worship our dreams, to worship your aspirations,
to worship our degree, to worship our wealth,
to worship people who have wealth, to worship
people who have limited abilities in this world,
all of your worship will be for the
oneness
of Allah.
And number 2,
they result in asking from asking help only
from Allah.
The Sahara, they were just drowning in the
love of Allah. They wouldn't ask the help
of anyone.
So much so
that they would take
pledge to the whole platform that they would
not seek assistance in anything
so that if they were riding on their
camel
and they dropped the rain, the rain, the
things by which you guide the camel when
you're riding it, if the rain fell down
and they it dropped, they wouldn't even ask
somebody. Even if you're standing next to it
to get it, they would get off the
camel and get it themselves.
This is how much they had pledged to
not ask from anything except Allah, to not
ask from anyone except Allah.
This is how the house this is what
these three verses do to a human mind.
This is what they do to a human
heart. They create such an attitude
that you will only worship Allah and you
will only ask from Allah.
Now in this game, we get so caught
up in asking from other people. Well, you
know, this person has control to admission into
this college, so what will they do if
I look a certain way? So you worry
about how you're going to ask for. Now
you don't verbally ask for it, but you
worry about how your physical being is going
to ask for whatever
they have to offer. We're so caught up
in what people have to offer, but in
the end, it's really a lot that has
to offer. And when these verses are getting
cocated in your mind, that's what the result
is. The result is that you can only
worship Allah and you can only ask for
his assistance and that's called tawhid,
the oneness of Allah.
These verses result in the pinnacle and the
peak of tawhid.
They produce the result, it's a result.
That's something that you convince yourself of, it's
an interaction with this understanding
that produces this result that I'm not going
to ask except for Allah.
And I'm not going to worship except Allah,
not my dreams, not my aspirations, not my
desire, not my bodily needs, I will not
worship any of that except Allah. So I
will eat how Allah told me to eat.
I will look at what Allah told me
to look at. I will act the way
Allah told me to act and I will
emulate
the messenger of Allah because that's who Allah
told us to emulate.
That's the result. This is see, it's not
something that you just sit and convince people
of that's what was this is what the
Deen is about.
This deen is about Allah.
We like to talk about so many other
aspects of the deen, the political aspect of
the deen, the intellectual aspect of the deen,
the artistic aspect of the deen, but in
the end, it's about Allah. And that's what
the Sahaba understood. They connected themselves with Allah.
When you connect yourself with Allah, the natural
changes are that you become a servant of
Allah. So then you follow the sunnah of
the messenger of Allah and you become
course to Allah.
That's what it's this is what we've we've
left this core idea of Allah. People talk
about Islam and they mention so many things
about Islam.
As the scholars of Islam, the books of
Islam, the architecture of Islam, the masjid of
Islam, the countries of Islam, the history of
Islam. What about the Lord of Islam?
How rarely do we talk about the Lord
of Islam,
Allah?
And that's what people call to. That's what
the Sahaba called it. That was their essence,
that was their being, and that was what
they brought other people to. And that's why
people flock to them.
Only so many people will be interested in
the architecture of Islam and will come to
Islam through it. There is a way to
bring people to Islam, but it's a way
to bring people to the Lord of Islam.
Now only certain number of people will be
interested in the academics of Islam, you may
bring people to them, but
were you to introduce people to Allah,
the creator of the world and the Lord
of all of that has come from the
beginning of time till the end, they will
be forced to submit.
And the problem is that we haven't connected
with Allah. These verses haven't been inculcated in
our heart because when these verses getting inculcated,
they effectuate a change in a human being.
And they effectuate such a change in a
human being that that human being then acts
like a servant of Allah. When someone acts
like a servant of Allah, the whole world
gets attracted to that person. And that's why
1400 years later, I say the name Abu
Bakr and everybody says
because he understood Allah.
In his limited way, as human beings can,
they have a limited ability to comprehend,
but he connected himself with Allah through the
messenger of Allah. So much so that then
people came to Allah.
So the paradigm is not difficult, it's just
that we get so caught up in so
many other aspects, but in the end, there's
got to be some aspect of Allah in
the deep and it comes through prayer and
it comes through these verses.
So to understand
that all praises for him, to understand the
fact that he is to
understand that he is and he is
and that on the day of judgment, he
save us when he will be Rahmah.