Ibrahim Hindy – Fitnah of Money
AI: Summary ©
The importance of reciting the book " opportune time" to connect with the light of the sun and receive a light from the Prophet is emphasized. The use of date palms and words like " fruits" and "ram materials" in describing the seed and water that grows in the garden is also discussed. The speaker emphasizes the importance of protecting against spoilage and the natural river system in protecting against storm attacks. The speaker also discusses the benefits of prosperityipped profit, including health and wealth, and the importance of following spiritual teachings and avoiding accusations of seeking fame.
AI: Summary ©
Today is a day of Jum'al,
and we are encouraged
on this day to recite
Surat Al Kahf.
Our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
tells us many of the benefits of reciting
and connecting
to this surah.
He tells us,
He said, Whoever recites
Surat Al Kahf
on the day of Jum'ah,
Allah will strike forth for them a light
that will enlighten between their 2 jumas.
From 1 jum'ah to the next, Allah will
give this person a light.
And our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam encouraged us
to memorize Surat Al Kahf.
And he told us in one hadith,
That whoever memorizes 10 verses
from Surat Al Kahf is protected
from the fitna
of Adjjar,
from the tests
and the trials of the Antichrist.
And in one hadith, the Prophet says to
memorize
the first ten verses of the surah.
And another hadith, he says to memorize
the last ten verses of the surah.
Now what is the connection
between the surah
and between ad dajjal?
What is the connection between the surah and
between Allah giving you a light in your
week?
This surah has 4 different stories,
and each story
tackles a form of
a form of test and trial and tribulation.
One,
the in regards to people's religion,
the young people who ran to the cave.
Another, a test in relation to wealth, and
how does wealth change people.
Another is a test in our
knowledge.
How do we deal with the fact that
we don't know everything, and sometimes bad things
happen?
The story of Musa and Al Khidr.
And then finally, the test of power. How
do we deal with power when we have
it? Which is the example of.
And today, I wanna speak about the second
story.
Wealth,
money, the of wealth and money.
Allah gives us the story
of the man who has 2 gardens.
And before introducing this story, Allah
tells us something else.
He speaks to us about paradise.
He says,
that indeed those who believe and do good
deeds, we will never lose the reward
of those who have done goodness.
And then Allah says,
They will have
the permanent
the permanent gardens.
Flowing beneath them will be the rivers.
And Allah
describes all of these amazing things about
paradise.
That it is the best reward and it
is the best resting place. Then after speaking
to us about Jannah,
the real Jannah,
the Jannah in the next world,
then he speaks about this man and his
two gardens,
then he speaks about the Jannah in this
world, the gardens of this world.
Allah says, give them the example
of 2 men.
1 of them, we gave him 2 gardens.
Both of these men have gardens. 2 men.
1 both of them have gardens. But one
of them was given double.
He had 2 gardens.
And not just that he had gardens, Allah
tells you about his gardens. In it is
Many grapes.
And grapes
is the most luxurious,
the most expensive,
the most difficult to cultivate of all the
fruits is grapes. It requires a lot of
water.
Allah is telling you he had 2 gardens,
and in the gardens he has the most
prize
of all the fruits, grapes.
But he tells you even more than that,
we gave him date palms. But we didn't
just give him the date palms,
we bordered
his garden with date palm date palms.
All around the borders of this garden are
the date palm trees. And if you've seen
the date palm trees,
they're extremely tall,
and extremely sturdy, and strong.
The best protection for a garden, if you're
worried about the wind
harming your garden,
the rain, and the wind, and the storm
destroying your garden,
the best protection would be a wall of
these trees all around it. So Allah is
saying, not only did we give him the
day palms,
we gave it to him in an arrangement
that protected
his garden.
And then Allah says, in between them we
gave him many crops.
So it's not just the beautiful dates, It's
not just, the beautiful grapes as well. No.
All kinds of crops,
filled with crops through all of them.
Allah
says, Each of these two gardens we gave
him,
they are producing their fruits, and they do
not fall short at all.
Both of these gardens are producing the maximum
amount of fruit that they can. They are
yielding
the maximum
output of fruits. There's no shortage.
There's no spoilage.
Every farmer
worries about spoilage.
Every farmer is worried, I'm gonna plant the
seeds, and nothing is gonna grow.
Every farmer is worried, I'm gonna plant the
seeds and water it, and then it grows,
and then there's some pests who come and
eat it. Some animals come and eat the
whole thing.
Some insects come and ruin everything that I've
grown. Every farmer is worried a storm wind
is gonna come and blow away all of
my fruits. Allah
says,
all of his gardens are producing the maximum
output.
Everything that he wants.
It doesn't fall short at all.
So everything that he wants,
if you can imagine it, this man is
given the best quality of fruits, but he's
also given the best quantity of fruits.
And then Allah says, And
between all of these gardens,
we have given him, we have set forth,
gushed forth
with rivers.
So not only does he have the best
fruits,
not only does he have the most amount
of fruits, the best quantity of fruits,
but he has the lowest
effort and labor required.
He doesn't have to walk to a faraway
lake, and fill up buckets of water, and
drag it, and have people carrying it on
their heads, and walk for kilometers, and then
throw the water on his foot. He doesn't
have to do that. He doesn't have to
dig
irrigation, dig trenches from another river, all the
way to bring yield the water to his
gardens. He doesn't have to do that. Because
in between his gardens,
Allah has given him a natural river.
It is gushing forward. There's a lot of
water there.
It's there for him. He doesn't have to
do the labor.
It's all there for him. The best possible
setup he can have.
And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, and
he had fruits.
Is fruits.
But here sometimes when we say the word
fruits, even in English, when we say the
word fruits, we can mean literal fruits, like
apples and oranges and things like that, or
we can say the fruits of something like
a luxury.
Right? We use the word even in English.
We can use to mean a luxury, fruits
to mean a luxury.
And here, because Allah already described the literal
fruits,
he already
described the the grapes, and he described the
date palms, and he described the crops,
this is not the reference to his literal
fruits. This is
saying, above his fruits he has luxuries.
We would understand this first
to mean
he has horses.
He has livestock.
He has money.
He has gold. He has silver. He has
luxuries even more than what's growing in his
garden.
He has everything you can think of. Allah
has given him all of it.
Now what happens when a person has all
the wealth that they want? This is the
test of wealth. Can the wealth change the
person?
Allah says,
He said to his companion while he's having
a discussion with him, I am greater than
you
in wealth, and I am mightier and more
noble than you in my children.
He's saying, I have more than you, and
I'm better than you.
He's talking to his friend and telling him
this. Now realize, the other verses that are
describing this garden that he has, what does
Allah say?
We gave him.
And we are the one who set poured
forth his rivers. Allah is saying, we gave
him this. But what does he say when
he speaks about his wealth?
He
says, I have.
I am better than you.
I have more than you.
Right? He ascribes what he has to himself.
I did this. I made this. I have
this.
And this is the way that men become
feeble,
deluded with arrogance. We assume it's because of
my intelligence, my hard work, my genius that
I have all this money.
And despite all of your beautiful thoughts, and
all of your energy, and all of your
hard work, you would have nothing
without Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Without Allah giving
you opportunity. Yes, you worked hard, do not
deny it, you worked hard, but Allah gave
you opportunities.
Yes. You had a brilliant idea. Allah gave
you that idea. Put it into your head.
Everything you have came from Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. But this person assumes
that it all came from him.
Allah says he entered into his garden, and
he is harming himself.
He's wronging himself
because, subhanAllah, his arrogance,
no matter how much his arrogance makes him
harm other people, in reality, the one he
is harming the most is himself.
His arrogance is bringing him down. His arrogance
is taking him away from Jannah, making him
amongst the people of the hellfire.
And so Allah describes him as being unjust
to himself
because your arrogance destroys you more than anyone
else.
And then he says,
as he enters his garden,
I do not think that this will ever
perish.
This wealth that I have, these gardens that
I have, I don't think they will ever
go away.
They're so amazing,
so protected,
so beautiful,
so plentiful
that I think they will remain forever.
Now before Allah told us these stories, what
did he tell us about? Jannah.
He told us about
the real permanent Jannahs,
the real permanent gardens, which are the gardens
of Jannah.
So this person has deluded himself.
Now why is this the case? Why is
he making this assumption?
Why is he saying this?
He says, another assumption.
And I don't think that the hereafter will
ever be established.
And if I do go back to my
Lord, I will find something even better than
what I have here.
He's making another assumption. There is no hereafter.
There is no day of judgment. I don't
think the day of judgment will happen.
This might seem disconnected.
What does this idea of there is no
day of judgment have to do with his
money, and his wealth, and his arrogance? You
see what happens is you become so engrossed
in the dunya,
so invested in the dunya, so singularly
focused on the dunya,
that the person starts
to have these evil assumptions about the akhira.
He says, there is no akhira
because his heart and his mind is so
invested in the dulia.
And then he says, and even if I
do go back to my lord, I will
find
good things over there too.
Now why does he make this assumption?
Why does he assume
if I go back in front of my
lord, I will have jannas as well?
Because he thinks that since I have money
and wealth here in the dunya,
this means I will always have money and
wealth.
Because the fact that I have money and
wealth here in the dunya
means that Allah is happy with me.
So if there is an afira,
I'll be okay.
Allah talks about this mentality in many places
in the Quran.
Allah says, ask for mankind.
If his lord tests him, gives him
tests.
What is
the For Akroma.
He has honored him.
He gave him
generosity.
Gave him luxury.
He will say, my Lord has honored me.
Allah tested him with money,
so he said,
Allah loves me. Allah is taking care of
me.
But if Allah tests him,
and Allah restricted his money.
Both are tests.
The first person was tested with money, Allah
gave him generosity.
The second person is tested with no money,
with restricted money.
He says, my Lord has dishonored me. My
Lord has humiliated me. What does Allah say
to this mentality? This is the mentality he's
describing. What does he say about this mentality?
He rejects it.
No. This is all to be dismissed.
And then he says,
rather you are not honoring the orphan.
What Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying,
the sign of whether Allah loves you or
doesn't love you is not whether he gave
you money or didn't give you money. The
sign of whether he loves you or doesn't
love you is did he allow you to
do good deeds?
Did you take care of the orphan?
Did you feed the hungry?
Were you doing good deeds?
Because this dunya is not worth much. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says,
That Allah gives the dunya to those whom
he loves and those who he does not
love, but he does not give faith except
to those whom he loves.
Allah says we give to all of them,
this group and this group. The believers, the
disbelievers.
The dunya, ummah will give it, because it's
not worth much.
And this idea, this prosperity doctrine, by the
way,
it's called the prosperity doctrine, very well known
amongst Christianity.
You go to the pastor and they're raising
money, and they buy private jet after private
jet. We're trying to put flooring.
They're buying private jets. And then you go
to them and say, How are you doing
this? You're taking all these people's money, and
you're buying private jets and luxury for yourself?
He says, no, no, no. Look at my
Bible. When I have this money, it means
that God loves me.
This is the prosperity doctrine.
So it's actually good for me to take
all this money and buy the private jets.
This is the prosperity doctrine.
And we Muslims have been infected with it
in many different ways.
Amongst those ways
is we look
to the people who have money and wealth,
and we say to ourselves,
the fact that they have money and wealth
and power
means we should follow them.
Look at the people in the West, look
at this haircut, we should get the same
haircut. Look at the clothes they wear, we
should wear the same clothes. Okay, fine, whatever.
The haircuts and clothes are not a big
deal. But then they say, look, their women
don't wear hijab, our women should not wear
hijab.
Look, they have no haya between men and
women, there's no modesty, let us also have
the same thing. Why?
Because they say America and the west has
all the power and the money,
Therefore, we should follow them.
It's the same mentality.
Allah is telling you money and power does
not mean anything in this world.
It It does not mean that Allah loves
the person. It does not mean they are
worth following,
they are worth imitating.
It doesn't mean we follow their footsteps.
His companion now speaks to him and tells
him, have you disbelieved in your Lord who
created you from dust?
Notice in the beginning, the first thing this
man says to his friend is what?
He insults him. He says, I'm better than
you. I have more money than you. I
have more children than you.
Right? Usually when somebody speaks to us like
that, what happens? Our ego comes out. Our
ego comes out. Somebody tells you that, my
kids are better than you, my my car
is better than you, my house is better
than you, what happens? You get upset. Your
house is garbage. Your kids are this, right?
We want to respond back to him. He
doesn't respond for himself.
When does he respond?
When the person says there's no akhira. And
he says, Are you disbelieving in your Lord?
Are you rejecting Allah
Are you rejecting the one who has created
you? And by the way, this mentality is
the way of our prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. Because the prophet Aisha says the prophet
never got upset for his own sake. Only
when the rights of Allah were taken away,
then the prophet would get upset.
So he's speaking up when the person is
rejecting Allah
Your Lord created you from dirt, from dust.
Then from a drop.
Then he made you into a man.
Why is he telling him this?
Because he can see this man's arrogance is
overtaking him.
So he tells he's trying to humble him.
1 of the scholars of the salaf, he
saw a man, a rich man, son of
a king or something, he's walking, he's he's
strutting
with arrogance. He tells him, Allah does not
love this walk.
The man tells him, I say, Harishni, do
you know who I am? Like I'm a
big deal. Do you know who I am?
He says, yes, I know who you are.
He says,
He says, your beginning
was an impure drop.
Your end will be a rotting corpse.
And between these two states, you are carrying
your impurities.
When we relieve ourselves in the washroom, this
is what you're carrying.
This is every human being. He says, this
is what you are. Why? He's trying to
make him humble.
So he's telling him, Allah, you are from
dirt. Allah made you from dirt.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said
All of you came from Adam, and Adam
was made from dirt.
So be humble.
He says,
Rather he is Allah, my Lord, and I
do not associate anyone
with my lord.
I do not do shirk
with my lord. Now what is the shirk
happening here? Did this person build an idol
and worship it and prostrate to it? No.
Did he say the sun is God, the
moon is God, and worship it? No. He
didn't do that. What is the shirk that
is happening here? The shirk is that this
person's ego is being worshiped.
He is worshiping himself. He's worshiping his ego.
And so he's telling him, I don't do
shit with my lord.
He He said, why isn't it that when
you entered into your garden, why didn't you
say,
this is what Allah willed?
Meaning, this came from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
This didn't come from me. This came from
Allah, Asoja. Why didn't you say that?
There is no power except through Allah. The
prophet said,
The prophet said, increase as often as you
can by saying.
This is a door to enter Jannah.
Whenever you feel delusion, you feel arrogance, you
feel jealousy,
remind yourself
everything came from Allah
Even in our adan, we hear in the
adan,
Why?
We don't wanna be arrogant in our prayer.
Stand there, say, I'm the best, I'm praying,
all these other people are not praying, I'm
way better than all of them. We don't
wanna come to prayer with arrogance. We wanna
remind ourselves, even our coming to prayer came
from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Even our good
deeds is because Allah allowed it.
If you see me as being less than
you in wealth,
as being less than you in children,
This is you insulting me in the beginning.
You're insulting me and saying this, if you
see this,
perhaps my lord will give me better.
Perhaps my lord will give me better than
your agenda. In the he'll give me better
better.
And he could send against your garden a
calamity from the sky.
And it will become smooth, and dirty, and
destroyed. Why is he telling him this? He's
telling him, why are you being arrogant? This
garden that you think is gonna last forever,
it could go away in a minute.
Allah
could destroy it in a minute if he
wants. Why are you being arrogant?
And just as he's telling him this,
or the water could spoil,
and it's already sunk it could be sunken
into the ground, and you can't extract it
again.
While he's telling him this,
the destruction comes.
His fruits are destroyed.
Allah spent verses
describing the garden,
and in two words,
In two words, the garden is gone. And
this is the indication of how quickly
it was removed, how quickly it was gone.
The garden, he thought, would be there forever.
He started to
churn his hands in regret. I spent all
my money, I spent all my time, I
spent all my effort building these gardens, now
they're gone.
And the ceiling of the garden has become
its ground. It's been turned upside down.
And he says, how I wish I didn't
worship alongside Allah anyone else.
And there was no group that could aid
him or help him against Allah nor can
defend him. He was boasting about all the
children that he has and all the power
that he has and nothing could help him
when the time came.
Today, in the past few days,
there have been students, as many of you
have heard, protesting in different
universities across America,
colleges.
Many of them are protesting
the genocide happening right now in Gaza to
our brothers and sisters.
And they're protesting that their universities are invested
in this state that is committing genocide.
And in return, these students, many of whom
are Muslim,
are being told,
if you do this,
you won't get a job.
They're being told, if you do this, you'll
be blacklisted.
If you do this, you'll be expelled from
your school, you'll be banned from your campus,
you won't be able to finish your degree.
All of this is threatening them with their
livelihood.
This surah, as we said at the very
beginning, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
one hadith, whoever memorizes the first ten verses,
another hadith, whoever memorizes the last ten verses
will be protected from the fitna
of Adjjad.
One of the ahadith about Adjjad says that
when he comes,
he will threaten people with livelihood.
So much so,
that the people who follow him will get
rain, and those who don't will experience
a drought.
Understanding this,
it becomes imminently
important
for us
to understand the lessons of this surah.
That this money
is in the hands of Allah
alone.
Your sustenance
is determined before you were even born.
And there's no one,
not a university,
not a millionaire,
not a media outlet.
There is no one who can determine your
risk.
Only Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does so. Our
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, the
holy spirit, meaning Jibril alaihi salam,
inspired within me
that no soul will die
until it fulfills its lifespan.
No one can take your life before your
time.
And it receives its sustenance.
No one can withhold the wealth, the money
that Allah has portion for you.
It's not possible for you to die
without you drinking a single drop of water
that Allah wrote
that you were going to drink.
It's not possible for you to die without
a single dollar or penny to enter into
your account that Allah had written for it
to enter.
If it's written and decided,
there's nothing you can do to avoid it
or miss it.
And if we know this,
then why succumb to these threats?
Why lower your voice?
Why avert your eyes
while they commit and support and fund the
genocide?
Allah
says, in the heavens
is your sustenance and all that you have
been prom promised.
And then Allah takes an oath.
By the Lord of the heavens and the
earth, indeed this is truth.
Your risk is with Allah
Your sustenance is with Allah
This story reminds us that might is not
right. Having the money, and the power, and
the influence doesn't mean you're right.
Doesn't mean you're on the right path.
The man had the 2 gardens, doesn't mean
he's on the right path.
And no matter how great their wealth appears
to be,
no matter how large their money seems to
be,
if it doesn't have barakah from Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, it's insignificant.
It will blow with the wind.
At the end of the surah, Allah tells
us, at the end of the story, Allah
tells you,
There,
the authority of Allah, the of Allah, the
guardianship of Allah
is in truth.
And the moment that he needed his wealth,
where did it go?
This is the protection of Allah. They act
like they control the world.
They act like they control everything.
But the
in truth is with Allah
The true control over this world is with
Allah
And when the believer needs it, Allah will
give it to him.
And when this believer needs it, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala will deceive them.
This is the best reward and this is
the best result. The best result is for
the believer.
Believe in Allah
have this taqwa of Allah,
Allah
will take care of his servants. He created
you. He's the one who's going to sustain
you and to protect you.