Mikaeel Smith – Forged- Reflection on Surah Hadid #08

AI: Summary ©
The importance of understanding the Book of Allah and the Q parables in shaping the world is emphasized, along with the need for people to make a conscious decision and avoid overwhelming expectations. The deeds of various people during the pandemic, including those with long history, are also discussed. The importance of balancing life and balance, having a strong faith to live by the light, and control over God's bounty are emphasized, along with the need for control over God's light. Pr practically walking with light is encouraged, and control over God's light is emphasized as a way to live by the light.
AI: Summary ©
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
We're good?
Alright.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
Peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of
Allah, and upon his family, his companions, and
those who follow him.
O Allah, we ask You for Your love,
and the love of those who love You,
and the love of deeds that bring us
nearer to Your love, O Most Merciful.
We ask Allah SWT to give us His
love.
We ask Allah SWT to give us the
love of the actions that will gain His
love.
And one of those actions that gains His
love is understanding the Book of Allah, understanding
the Qur'an, connecting to the Qur'an.
And what we try to do through this
surah is connect it to our hearts.
So that we understand that Allah SWT is
talking to us when we recite the Qur
'an.
He is speaking directly to me and you.
And that's how you should understand it.
You're the one being addressed when we listen
to the Qur'an.
And this surah is a beautiful surah.
I wanted to start with this surah just
because the middle of the surah is such
an eye-opener.
It really wakes us up to the reality
of life and reminds us that it's never
too late to turn back to Allah SWT.
And it's about waking someone up from what's
called ghafla.
And ghafla is heedlessness.
Just lost in the dunya, lost in the
rat race.
And the Qur'an came as that reminder
to wake everyone up and bring them back
to that reality.
And so tonight, inshaAllah ta'ala, we're going
to read this last section of surah al
-Hadeed.
And subhanAllah, last week, the verse that we
read, verse number 25, Allah SWT began that
verse by saying, وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا رُسُلَنَا That we
sent prophets.
Meaning every nation got prophets.
Every nation had prophets sent to them.
And these prophets serve as a guide for
humanity.
So that we don't have to figure out
our own way to God.
So that we don't have to wing it,
so to speak.
So that we have a manhaj, a way
to get to Allah SWT.
That's the function of the prophets.
And so Allah SWT said that we sent
our prophets with signs.
And there were three things that every prophet
came with.
They were given books.
Scripture by which to live by.
And that's big.
So that we know how to live and
what to do.
What He wants from us.
What will bring Him pleasure.
What will upset Him.
وَالْمِيزَانِ SubhanAllah.
The mizan is the scale.
By how you judge what's not just right
and wrong.
But how you judge what will bring God's
pleasure or not.
What will bring God's pleasure.
The anbiya, the prophets are the one who
teach us that.
Society doesn't tell me that.
And justice as the prophet taught us, comes
through the anbiya.
That scale of justice, right and wrong, is
through the prophets of Allah SWT.
وَالْمِيزَانِ لِيَقُومَ النَّاسِ بِالْقِسْرِ And the reason why
these prophets came with the scales, is so
that justice could be upheld.
وَأَنزَلْنَا And then Allah SWT He said, وَأَنزَلْنَا
الْحَدِيدَ فِيهِ بَأْسٌ شَدِيدٌ And Allah SWT says,
And we also blessed humanity with iron, forged
iron, which has power.
And we spoke about the prophets came with
compassion.
But it's the strength of the prophets that
protected so much of society.
And the role of the prophets was to
push back against oppression.
The role of society was pushed back against
oppression.
And that's what that hadith is speaking about,
the strength to push back.
And then Allah SWT said, وَلِيَعْلَمُ اللَّهُ مَنْ
يَنْصُرُهُ وَرُسُلَهُ بِالْغَيْرِ And Allah SWT wants to
see from us, who is the one that's
going to help the deen?
Who's going to help propagate the message of
the anbiya?
Who's going to give dawah to others?
Who's going to live by this?
Who's going to spread this message?
And so tonight we continue with verse number
26.
You have to understand that the first person
listening to these verses was Rasulullah himself ﷺ.
And you have to understand that his heart,
it wasn't impenetrable.
He would hurt due to what people did
to him, due to the rejection he faced,
the Prophet ﷺ felt a lot of pain.
Because he was giving dawah, he was calling
people to this message, this message that would
uplift them, but they were pushing him away.
And so many times in the Quran, Allah
SWT is speaking to him ﷺ to console
him.
To console him.
There are so many verses where Allah SWT
is speaking to him to lift his spirits
up.
And this verse is kind of like that.
Verse number 26 begins, وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا نُوحًا Indeed,
we sent Noah وإبراهيم and we sent Abraham.
وَجَعَلْنَا فِي ذُرْيَتِهِمَا النُّبُوَّةَ وَالْكِتَابِ And we put
amongst their progeny, prophethood and books of guidance.
فَمِنْهُمْ مُحْتَدٌ Some of them were guided.
Some of the progeny of these great prophets
were muhtad, they were guided.
وَكَثِيرٌ مِّنْهُمْ فَاسِكُونَ The last verse that we
read last week was general about all the
prophets.
But this verse specifically talks about two prophets.
And it talks about how these prophets had
in their progeny prophethood all the time.
And this is interesting because Bani Israel, the
children of Ibrahim, there was a prophet one
after the next, one after the next, one
after the next.
And the books were also given to them.
But here's the crazy part.
Allah says, oh, because they were given the
books and they had prophets in their family,
then all of them must have been guided,
right?
Like every one of them must have been
on the right track.
Allah says, no.
فَمِنْهُمْ مُحْتَدٌ وَكَثِيرٌ مِّنْهُمْ فَاسِكُونَ Some were guided,
but many of them went off the track.
The reason I think this is so important
is because it's comforting the prophet.
He's being told that you're very upset because
these people are denying you.
Now here's what's crazy about the Quraysh.
The Quraysh, the people who he was sent
to, they hadn't seen a prophet for a
long time.
And they didn't even know what the book
was.
They hadn't seen a prophet for so long.
You gotta move over, move over a little
bit.
Thank you.
They hadn't seen a prophet for so long.
And they were umni, they were illiterate.
They didn't read and write.
So here's what I find so interesting about
this.
One could think that the reason why the
Quraysh didn't accept it is that they didn't
have a familiarity with this concept.
They didn't have a familiarity with prophethood and
religion and resurrection and the day of judgment.
And they didn't have a familiarity with these
books.
And so one could think that maybe it's
because of the fact that they didn't have
familiarity with this deen is the reason why
they rejected it.
And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
begins this verse by saying, hold up, we've
sent Noah and we sent Ibrahim and we
sent amongst their progeny, prophets and books one
after the next.
But guess what?
Just being close to Hidayah doesn't guarantee that
you're gonna be guided.
I'm gonna say that again.
Just being close to the sources of guidance
doesn't guarantee that you're gonna be guided just
like that.
Everyone has to struggle.
Everyone has to make that conscious choice that
I'm going to believe in this message, I'm
going to accept it.
And if we look at the lives of
the prophets, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la,
this is crazy because the prophets being mentioned
in this verse are Noah and Ibrahim, Abraham.
What's amazing about Noah and Abraham, Noah, do
you realize what Noah went through?
For a thousand years, he gave dawah.
He was called crazy, he was called insane.
He was mocked, he was ridiculed, he was
abused.
You know what the prophet is also being
taught here?
Like look to those who came before you,
they never stopped grinding.
See, all of us in life need people
to look up to because by looking at
their example, it keeps us going, it keeps
us moving.
But the same is true about Prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Do you think some days he woke up
a little less like, man, how am I
going to do this?
The whole world is against me, how am
I going to get this message out?
So how did Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la keep him going?
There's a verse where Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la says, وَكُلًّا نَقُصُ عَلَيْكَ مِنْ
أَنْبَاءِ الرُّسُلِ مَا نُثَبِّتُ بِهِ فُؤَادِكَ Beautiful verse.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says
that, O Muhammad, we tell you these stories
about prophets, why?
مَا نُثَبِّتْ بِهِ فُؤَادَكَ To make your heart
strong.
Meaning in those tough moments when Abu Jahl,
when all of these haters are hating and
they're coming against you, in those moments, when
you have the examples of Joseph, when you
have the examples of Noah, when you have
the examples of Abraham, you're able to tap
in and say, if they did it, I
could do it.
Do you know what this tells me?
Even the best of us need inspiration and
to look at people before us.
Even the best of us need inspiration.
We need to look to people higher than
us or that came before.
And you know what else it tells me?
Now this is deep.
We know that the Prophet ﷺ is the
best of all the prophets.
That's his position.
He's the top of all Anbiya.
But the one who is at the top
used to look at people who came before
him to get through his struggle.
Meaning just because you gain inspiration from someone
doesn't mean you might not outstrip them in
the long run.
Doesn't mean you might not go further than
them in the long run.
So what's happening in this verse?
Allah is telling the Prophet, I know it's
hard right now, but you're not the first
one.
Okay, check this.
See the Ahmad Zaruk.
He wrote this book on how to reform
yourself.
He wrote this book on how to reform
yourself.
Like when you want to just, you want
to turn back to Allah.
You're tired of living the life of sin
and you want to turn back.
One of the things he says you should
do, you know you try to do tawbah,
you try to be around the right people.
You know what else he said do?
He said study the lives of people from
your progeny who were like up there in
spirituality.
So you're from Palestine, study some of the
Awliya of Allah from Palestine.
You're from Algeria, study.
Oh man, you got tons of them.
Study their lives.
Why?
Because you'll see yourself in them.
And so the Prophet, he's being told, yes
it's hard, but look at Noah.
Look what he went through.
And then he's being told, look at Ibrahim.
Ibrahim, his father, kicked him out.
His whole tribe comes against him to throw
him into the fire.
Everything against him.
He has to leave everything he knows for
the sake of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la.
The point here that we're being told is
that yes, all of us are going to
grind, but in order to keep pushing, you
have to have examples in front of you
that you look up to and you say
I could be like that right there.
I could be like that.
And if the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam needed
those examples, then what about me and you?
What about me and you?
وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا Allah says indeed we sent Noah
and Abraham.
وَجَعَلْنَا فِى ذُرِيَتِهِمَا النُّبُوَى And their whole progeny
had prophets amongst them.
All of them.
And they had the books with them.
But did that guarantee that they would be
guided?
No, it's not like that.
All of us, regardless of the environment we're
in, we're all going to have this struggle
to accept, this struggle to make a conscious
decision that I'm going to believe in Allah
and I'm going to live my life for
the sake of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la.
That's the conscious decision that we're going to
have to make.
And don't feel bad, O Muhammad, that your
people never heard of a prophet before, your
people never knew what a book was.
One of my favorite verses, because I used
to read this verse and think, you know,
okay, so let me just share this with
you.
So when I was first learning Quran, this
is like 20 years ago, right?
I would be reading the verses and when
Allah says in the Quran, like, you did
not know.
I used to think like, you know, Allah's
talking to me.
So I went to my teacher one time
and I was like, you know, I said,
Sheikh, is it okay for me to think
that Allah is talking to me?
And he's like, no, no, no.
First thing, first thing, know that Allah is
talking to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam first.
He's talking to him first, but then you
relate to the Prophet's life and see yourself
in the Prophet's life.
So one of the verses that I've always
loved is Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la, He says, وَكَذَارِكَ أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ We have
sent this revelation to you.
مَا كُنْتَ تَدْرِي O Muhammad, you didn't know
what a book was before this.
وَمَا الْإِيمَانِ You didn't know what faith was
before this.
Like you had no idea these concepts of
revelation, the day of judgment, you know, the
pool of seerahs, walking over the bridge, over
hellfire.
You didn't know any of that.
You didn't know what a book was.
وَلَكِنْ جِعَلْنَاهُ نُورًا نَهْدِي But we gave you
this light to live by.
My point in bringing this up is that
the Quraysh didn't have it, but that wasn't
the reason why they went astray.
The same reason why there was prophecy and
books amongst the people of Noah, amongst the
people of Abraham, but that didn't mean they
were all going to accept that easy.
Everyone has to make that choice.
Everyone has to accept on their own.
So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
says, فَمِنْهُمْ مُحْتَدُ وَكَثِيرٌ مِّنْهُمْ فَاسِقُونَ But so
many of them chose a life of transgression.
ثُمَّ قَفَّيْنَا Next verse.
ثُمَّ قَفَّيْنَا The word قَفَّيْنَا is like, yo,
the back of your neck, the nape is
called the qafa.
So قَفَّيْنَا is like one after the next.
Allah says that we sent prophets one after
the next.
This is beautiful because every people got a
prophet.
In another verse Allah says, وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِنْ
رَسُولٍ إِلَّا بِلِسَانِ قَوْمِهِ That we never sent
a prophet except they spoke the language of
the people.
They related to the people.
They understood their people.
So this verse is saying the same thing.
ثُمَّ قَفَّيْنَا عَلَىٰ أَثَارِهِمْ And then we sent
in their footsteps, meaning following the same footsteps
of those before, Abraham and Noah.
ذِي رُسُلِنَا We sent all of our prophets.
One after the next, one after the next.
Meaning Muhammad, you're not alone.
You're not alone.
You're not alone trying to hold on to
your deen.
You're not alone trying to give this message.
وَقَفَّيْنَا بِعِيسَ بِنِ مَرْيَمِ And Alhamdulillah.
Allah says in after those prophets, we brought
Jesus, the son of Mary.
We brought Jesus, the son of Mary.
وَآتَيْنَهُ الْإِنْجِيلِ And we gave him the Injil.
It's so beautiful here because Jesus is the
closest prophet to Muhammad ﷺ.
And Jesus is the one who comes and
he says, after me the comforter is going
to come.
That final messenger, مِنْ بَعْدِ اسْمُهُ أَحْمَدٍ He's
going to come.
And so Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, He
brings us through all of these prophets and
then He makes us pause at Isa.
And He brings him out by name and
He says, I want the Ummah of Muhammad
to focus on Jesus.
I want you all to understand how clutch,
how critical Jesus is here.
And we gave him the Injil.
We gave him the Gospel.
The son of Mary.
He's being mentioned specific, why?
Because he's so close to this Ummah.
But there's another reason.
This surah talked about the Yahud.
And the Yahud, the Jews, right?
Of the time of the Prophet ﷺ.
The Yahud were known for something.
Hard hearted.
Hard hearted.
And the reason they were hard hearted was
because they had the book so long.
See, when you walk around with the book
so long, you get used to it.
And because they got so used to it,
it was عادي.
You know عادي.
It wasn't a big deal.
It was whatever.
I told you the Prophet ﷺ, he said
the worst job to have is the grave
digger.
But he told us to visit the graves
often.
Because doing it seldom keeps you fresh.
Doing it all the time, heart gets hard.
So the example of the Yahud was they
were very hard hearted.
And so this is so deep.
Why was Isa sent?
And why is Isa being mentioned right now?
It's because Isa is known for compassion and
being gentle.
Compassion and being gentle.
And Allah ﷻ sent Isa to Bani Israel,
the Yahud, Bani Israel, the children of Israel.
Why?
Because you guys are so harsh now.
You need someone soft.
You need someone compassionate.
You need someone gentle.
That was the sickness.
Hardness of heart.
The Prophet ﷺ, he taught us to seek
refuge from having a hard heart.
You ask Allah, O Allah, keep my heart
soft.
O Allah, keep my heart soft.
A person once complained to the Rasul ﷺ
of having a hard heart.
The Prophet ﷺ, he said, امسح رأس اليتيم
A yeteem, who's a yeteem?
Someone that lost their father, lost their mother,
alone in the world.
The Prophet ﷺ said, go and touch the
head of an orphan.
Someone who lost everything, go touch, be with
them.
Soften your heart by being with those who
don't have so much.
But the Prophet ﷺ used to make du
'a, O Allah, protect us from having a
heart that's hard.
And the problem with a hard heart, as
Ibn Ajeeba, he says, اذا قس القلب When
the heart becomes hard, لم تنفعه موئضة Reminders
don't benefit it.
That's the scary thing about a hard heart,
is that you can hear the best lecture.
You can hear the best amazing, like, and
the heart is just bouncing off.
Like, yo man, I don't even know what
my man is talking about today.
Everybody else is like, yo, it was flapping.
I was like, yo.
He's like, nah, yo.
Yeah, I wasn't, I couldn't feel it.
Gotta ask Allah, O Allah, give me a
soft heart.
Give me a soft heart.
Man, our teacher used to tell us stories,
right?
Our teacher used to tell us stories about
people who used to sit in the gatherings
of their teachers, and the teacher wouldn't speak.
They would just be sitting there quiet.
And a dude would be in the corner
just breaking down like crying.
Not saying nothing.
And then our teacher would be like, but
now we gotta speak for hours.
We gotta speak for hours and still nothing
happens.
Hearts used to be soft.
Soft.
And how do you get your heart soft
again?
Remembrance of death and a lot of zikr.
So remember, remembrance of death, it's not morbid.
It gives beauty to the moment, as we
always say.
Remembrance of death gives beauty to the moment
because it makes you value wifey when you
go home.
Makes you value mom when you go home,
right?
It prioritizes things instantaneously for you.
Remembrance of death and remembrance of God soften
the heart.
Soften the heart.
And this whole surah has been focusing on
soft hearts.
This whole surah was talking about soft, soft,
soft hearts.
How to cultivate that, how to make that.
So beg Allah, ask Allah, oh Allah, give
me a soft heart.
And of course, something that makes the heart
hard is sins, yo.
And I know it's something we're trapped in,
but that's what we have to fight against.
So what's going on?
Earlier in this surah, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la, He says, وَلَا تَكُونُ كَالَّذِينَ
أُوتُوا الْكِتَابِ Now listen closely.
In the beginning of this surah, a few
halaqas ago, Allah said about the Yahud, Oh
Muslims, don't be like those who were given
the book before.
فَطَالَ عَلَيْهِمُ الْعُمَدُ They had the book for
a long time.
فَقَسَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ So their hearts got hard.
Their hearts got hard.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says,
وَكَثِيرٌ مِّنْهُمْ فَاسِقُونَ Allah is telling us in
this verse, don't be like those people.
But what was the solution?
What happened next?
We learn about Isa.
And Isa's quality was the gentleness.
Isa's quality was the compassion.
And so Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la speaks about that as a corrector of
the hard hearts.
To be around, they were sent someone with
that soft heart.
May Allah give us that.
And when we say soft heart, this is
the same Isa that when he got to
Jerusalem and he saw the rabbis selling goods
in the synagogue, he turned the tables over.
He came in turning the tables over.
I mean like this is the economic spot.
This is Wall Street.
And he's coming in turning the tables over.
That's the same Isa that's compassionate.
Because being strong and being gentle are not
contradictions of one another.
And that's what our Prophet taught us.
So he was gentle.
He was compassionate.
He was compassionate.
But he was strong.
And that's what Bani Israel needed.
But look what Allah says next.
وَجَعَلْنَا فِي قُلُوبِ الَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُوهُ رَأْفَةً وَرَحْمَةً See,
there's an impact, there's an effect of us
following Muhammad ﷺ.
Because we love Muhammad and because he's our
Prophet, we love all Prophets, but he's our
Prophet, we follow his way.
And because we follow his way, we start
to inshallah become like him.
Okay, let me give you an example y
'all.
Let me give you an example.
So when Khadijah رضي الله عنها comforts the
Prophet Muhammad after Revelation, he comes down, he's
out of breath, he goes, I'm scared.
She goes, No, Allah will never disgrace you.
And then she mentions four or five things
that he does.
All of these things, you help the poor,
you support someone, you carry the burden of
someone.
She told him all of his qualities.
Eight years later, Abu Bakr Siddiq رضي الله
عنه, he's migrating out of Mecca.
He's done.
I need to go somewhere to worship Allah.
I'm tired of this city.
I need to go.
I'm leaving.
The Prophet said, go ahead.
It's too rough right now.
You can leave Mecca.
He starts to leave.
And Ibn Duhunna stops him.
Ibn Duhunna stops him.
And he goes, Yo, Abu Bakr, where are
you going?
You got your U-Haul packed up.
Like, I mean, like, you moving.
I can tell you're moving.
He goes, I'm out.
I need to work.
I'm roaming the earth to worship my Lord.
You guys kick me out.
And he said, No, no, no, no, no,
no, no.
مِثْ لَكَ لَا يَخْرُجْ وَلَا يُخْرَجْ Somebody like
you shouldn't be let to leave nor forced
out.
And then he started to tell him about
himself.
He said, you help the one that is
down.
You carry the burden of the one who
can't.
You help in the hardship.
He said the exact same qualities that Khadijah
said to Rasulullah eight years later.
You know what the scholars say?
They say that he spent so much time
with them, they became one another.
Now y'all don't feel me.
Like wifey ends up knowing you so well.
Y'all start talking the same.
Somebody asked my wife, you from New York?
She's like, no, I'm from Maryland.
You sound like you're from New York.
Yeah, my husband is and we spend too
much time together.
That's what happens, that time together.
So the effect of us loving Rasulullah, the
effect of us following Rasulullah is that we
start to inculcate those qualities within us, inshallah.
Inshallah.
But what does Allah say about the followers
of Isa?
Allah says, وَجَعَلْنَا فِي قُلُوبِ الَّذِينَ تَبَعُوهُ رَعْفَةً
وَرَحْمَةً Allah says, and we placed in the
hearts of those who follow Jesus, ra'fa,
you know what ra'fa is?
Complete compassion, gentleness, extreme.
It's extreme rahma, extreme rahma, extreme mercy.
We've placed compassion in the hearts of the
people who follow Jesus.
وَرَحْمَةً What's amazing about this is when you
describe the Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the Quran
says, لَقَدَ جَعَكُمْ رَسُولٌ مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ A prophet
has come from you, for you.
Allah.
عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَا عَنِتُمْ He hurts by what
hurts you.
It pains him when something hurts you.
حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُمْ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَأُوفٌ رَحِيمٌ Allah says, and
with the believers, he's ra'oof, same word
as ra'fa.
He's compassionate, rahim, gentle, rahma.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he taught us,
and this is important, and this goes with
today's lesson so much.
He ordered us gentle is all this deen
is about.
Being gentle, being gentle.
This is what our Prophet taught, and this
was, now, what's interesting is not all prophets
were the same.
One of the things they mention about Noah
and Abraham is Noah was known for strength.
Abraham was known for gentleness.
The Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam had this quality
as well of ra'fa, compassion, and gentleness.
This was one of the prophetic qualities.
But what did he teach us?
He taught us, إِنَّ هَذَا الدِّين مَتِينٌ This
deen is tough.
Mateen means hard.
فَأَوْغَلُوا فِيهِ بِالرِّفْقِ So enter gently into it.
Beautiful hadith.
The hadith tells us, take it easy.
I heard, subhanAllah, something similar.
When you want to give advice, you have
to be gentle, y'all.
Advice has to be done gentle.
One of my friends here, he shared with
me, Shaykh Albani says, that the deen is
heavy.
Don't make it heavier with your akhlaq.
The deen is heavy already.
We don't need you to make it heavier
with your akhlaq, habibi.
How you present it to people, how you
talk to people about it.
And here's the crazy part.
They say about, the Quran tells us that
Allah told Moses that when you go to
Pharaoh, قُولَ لَهُ قَوْلًا لَيًّ رَعْفًا لَيًّ means
soft, gentle.
Speak to Pharaoh in a gentle manner.
I heard a scholar say, I don't care
who the person you're talking to is, they
ain't as bad as Pharaoh.
And Moses was told to talk to him
with gentleness.
So what about me, y'all?
Can I get a little compassion?
Nah, you my brother, so whatever.
Nah, I know you.
You don't respond to the softness.
You know what I mean?
Nah, stop, stop, stop.
Moses was told to go to Pharaoh with
gentleness.
And then the Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was
taught, وَلَوْ كُنْتَ فَضًّا غَلِيدًا الْقَلْبُ لَنْ فَضُّ
مِنْ حَوْلِكِ If you were rough, if you
were staunch, hard, rough, the people would flee
from you.
The people would run from you.
And so the Prophet is being told to
have this quality.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us
about the Christians that follow Isa, that this
first generation was blessed with two qualities, gentleness
and compassion.
رَعْفَةٌ وَرَحْمَةٌ And the reason is because that
trickled down from Isa to the disciples, to
the teachers, to the followers.
And if we follow the Sunnah, then slowly
the Muhammadan qualities will trickle down into us
as well.
But look how the Qur'an speaks of
the followers of Isa.
Look how the Qur'an addresses and highlights
the beautiful qualities that they have.
But that's not all.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala talks to us
about the previous generations, the previous nations, so
that we could take less sin.
So that we don't fall into the same
holes that they fell into.
So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, He says
about the followers of Isa, He says, وَجَعَلْنَا
فِي قُلُوبِ الَّذِينَ تَبِعُوهُ رَعْفَةٌ وَرَحْمَةٌ We gave
those who followed Isa, those who followed Jesus,
رَعْفَةٌ, extreme compassion.
وَرَحْمَةٌ You know what some scholars say, let
me just share something.
They say رَعْفَةٌ, the first one, is when
you wanna bring goodness to someone.
And رَحْمَةٌ is when you wanna remove harm
from someone.
I wanna bring good to you and I
wanna remove harm.
Both of those qualities in those words.
And then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, He
says, وَرَحْبَنِيَّ اِبْتَدْعُوهَا مَا كَتَبْنَاهَا عَلَيْهِمْ All right,
this part of the verse actually highlights something
that the Christian tradition adopted that Allah says
in the Quran, this wasn't from me.
One of the most beautiful things, there's a
sister taking shahadah today, Mashallah, by the way.
Mashallah.
One of the beautiful things of our deen
is that it clarifies misunderstandings about the anbiya.
It brings clarity on the lives of who
the anbiya were.
And it's familiar but clarifying at the same
time.
And so Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, He
speaks about these beautiful qualities of course, Isa
and of course, the followers of Isa.
But he says, but there's something I need
to warn you, O Ummah of Muhammad about
that some of them adopted.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala speaks specifically
about something called رَحْبَنِيَّ رَحْبَنِيَّ is typically translated
as monasticism.
But who knows what that is, right?
What's that got to do with me?
Monasticism was this concept of leaving society, going
off into a monastery, never getting married, giving
up life, avoiding people altogether, devoting my life
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in this verse,
He goes, وَرَحْبَنِيَّ In the life of monasticism,
meaning I'm not going to mix with people.
I'm never going to get married.
So you got to understand, I'm coming from
Christianity, right?
And so the peak, the highest you could
become is the Padre.
Y'all know the Padre, right?
We in Texas, you got Padre, right?
I was at this spot yesterday, and this
guy was trying to talk to me.
He's like, so you're the, because he couldn't
know what the word, right?
So he's like, you're the, I was like,
Padre, Padre.
He's like, ah, yeah, Padre.
I was like, yes, I'm a Padre.
Yeah, exactly.
So, subhanAllah, the idea of the highest peak
of righteousness that was adopted amongst the Christians
was, I'm going to give up connection with
the world.
Now part of that is because Isa never
got married.
But the, this part two, the sequel's coming.
You know, Isa the sequel, you know what
I mean?
The sequel is when he comes back.
He's going to kill Dajjal.
He's going to break the cross.
Sorry.
No, that's the hadith says.
And then he's going to get married.
He's just going to come back.
So the sequel is like, yo, this is
who I am.
And what's crazy is most of us don't
understand.
I mentioned this before when we were studying
Sira, because I wanted us to appreciate what
we know about Rasulullah.
We have details on who Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam was.
I mean, how he talked, how he walked,
how he carried himself.
When I was a Christian, David might remember
this.
When I was a Christian, we used to
have these bands, right?
It would say WW, what would Jesus do?
Whatever, right?
WWJD, whatever.
I don't know.
And the question is, what would he do?
You don't know.
No, I ain't even hating.
I'm just saying, you don't know what he's
like as a father.
You don't know what he's like as a
husband.
You don't know what he's like as a
son.
You don't know what he's like on a
military campaign.
You don't have those details because the entire
life of Isa as a prophet was for
about two and a half years before he
was lifted up.
And in that time, he never got married.
He never settled down.
And his life was all about softness and
giving up the dunya.
And in our tradition, Isa is known for
one quality, zuhud.
You know what zuhud is?
Giving up dunya.
But we know when he comes back, the
sequel.
The sequel of Isa is different.
The sequel of Isa is, I gotta get
married.
I've been up in heaven.
Subhanallah, he's been up in heaven for so
long, gonna come down and get married.
Y'all boys trying to wait for Jannah.
He's like, I'm coming back to get married.
Subhanallah.
Subhanallah.
That's deep.
So the Quran is speaking about something that
the Christians adopted.
And Allah says, in this monasticism, giving up
connection with the world, never getting married.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said in
a hadith that I'm proud of.
Because it's a beautiful hadith.
He says, there are three things of the
dunya I love.
Haytham.
Yo, Haytham, I gotta stop saying your name.
You know why?
I be going weird places and somebody will
walk up to me and be like, yo,
can you tell Haytham we love him?
For real.
Yo, you don't know how many people I've
met that be like, yo, tell Haytham that's
my guy right there.
So we need somebody else to sit up
front so I could use your name.
Yo, I forgot what I was about to
say.
Subhanallah.
Huh?
The hadith, Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said,
there's three things that I love.
And see, if you have a clean heart,
you understand the beauty of this hadith.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, I love prayer,
I love itik, and I love women.
Oh, see, see, how'd you hear it?
He loved his mother.
He loved the women in his life, Umm
Aiman.
I love, I don't look down upon, you
don't get it, hold on.
The whole Christian religion blames women for everything
wrong.
The whole Christian religion blames women for everything
that went wrong.
Bahshiba is the one that pulled David off
the track.
Dalala is the one who pulled Solomon off
the track.
Eve is the one who pulled Adam off
the track.
The reason why priests stay away from women
is because women was the source of evil.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, stop, I'm not
about that life.
I love women, the women are good.
Oh, now we hear it differently.
Not through the Western perverted over-sexualization of
everything.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam taught us a balanced
life.
He said, My sunnah is I get married.
There are scholars that used to say, if
I was on my deathbed and my wife
had passed away and I wasn't married, I'd
get married on my deathbed, just so I'm
resurrected, married and follow the sunnah of Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Ajeeb, crazy hadith.
It's wild.
Because it wasn't about anything except the sunnah.
It wasn't about anything except it being sunnah.
That's it.
Like, I'm good, low key.
It's just about the sunnah of this.
Because that foundation of family and everything.
So Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he taught us
that there's no rahbaniya in our religion.
We don't have this concept.
And if we, I want to go into
this more in more detail.
The sunnah of Rasulullah is the middle ground.
The sunnah of prophets is the middle ground.
It's the ultimate.
It's the extreme.
I call it the radical middle, the radical
middle.
It's the extreme middle.
And if a person lives with that sunnah
in front of them, they won't be extreme.
They'll be in the middle.
And that method that and what the prophet
taught us about society was the peaks of
righteousness are not to cut yourself off.
The peaks of righteousness are not to cut
yourself off.
But rather the peaks of righteousness are to
be with the people.
Are to be with the people.
And there's so many ahadith.
I just want to share with you on
this.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam regarding the virtues of
being in society.
It's a beautiful narration.
Abu Umama, he says, One day we went
out with Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam on a...
We went out with Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
on a journey.
And a man, one of us, amongst us,
he walked past a cave that had some
like water in it.
And it looked like a nice little like
spot basically.
It was a cave.
It was shaded.
There was grass there.
There was water there.
But it was just in the middle of
nowhere.
So he comes back over and he thinks
to himself, لَوْ أَنِّي أَتَيْتُ النَّبِي I'm going
to go to the Prophet and I'm going
to ask him that, Ya Rasulullah, I just
want to move into this cave.
I'm going to drink the water.
I'm going to eat the vegetation around here.
And I'm going to stay away from the
dunya.
See, we talked so much about the dunya
in this hadith that a person could leave
in this surah, that a person could walk
away saying like, you guys just want to
shun the world.
We got to see the other side of
the sunnah.
He goes up to Rasulullah and he says,
Ya Rasulullah, I found a little spot off
in the cut.
It's got water in the cave.
There's grass around it.
Can I just move here and not go
back to the city?
That way I don't have no fitna.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he says, I have
not been sent.
I was not sent.
باليهودية والنصرانية Meaning I wasn't sent with this
monasticism.
That's not our deen.
وَلَكِن بُعِثْتُ بِالْحَنَفِيَ سَمْحًا I have been sent
with this pure, simple deen.
And then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said,
Spending one day in the path of God
is better for you than the whole world.
And getting the first saf is better for
you than two years of prayer by yourself.
First saf means you're with the people, yo.
What's the most beautiful thing about our deen
is one of the top ibadahs is hajj.
There ain't nothing but people there.
The top ibadah got like millions of people.
And you think you're gonna get this isolated
moment with you and Allah, and then the
Turkish aunties be like, boom, boom.
Elbowing you.
If you ain't been, you don't know what
I'm talking about.
You know what I mean?
They be locked up.
See, those who know, they just have flashbacks.
Like, oh my God.
No, you would expect that the pinnacle, the
pinnacle of righteousness would be just by herself.
And Allah's like, uh-uh.
I need you with the ummah.
I need you with people.
That's what our deen is about.
It's about being with the people.
Think about five daily prayers in jama'ah.
I'm seeing my man Akram all day.
Seeing him at Fajr, seeing him at Dhuhr,
seeing him at Asr, seeing him at Maghrib.
If he misses one, I'm like, what happened,
bro?
You all right?
Our deen is so inclusive.
It's about being with the people.
And there's a hadith where the Rasul sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam, remember this hadith.
Remember this hadith.
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, المسلم إذا
كان مخالط الناس و يصبر على أذاهم خير
من مسلم الذي لا يخالط الناس ولا يصبر
على أذاهم Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he
said, the Muslim who mixes with the people,
now people get on your nerves.
So look at the next part of the
hadith.
و يصبر على أذاهم And they're patient with
them.
It's better than the Muslim that just goes
off to West Texas, finds a ranch, and
is not dealing with nobody.
That's easy, habibi.
That's easy.
What's hard is to be righteous, be good,
be a model of akhlaq and goodness amongst
the people.
It's easy to never get married and be
righteous.
No kids ever, solo life, yo, whatever.
I don't know, whatever.
Is there a word for it?
No.
What's hard is to manage that and then
show the excellence of character.
That's what Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is
teaching us.
Now, I will say this.
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, right before
qiyamah, it's going to get crazy.
And when that happens, dip.
Hadith Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said,
we studied this hadith today in Mishkat upstairs.
يوشك أن يكون خير مال مسلم غنما يتبعوها
شغف الجبال و مواقع القتل يثر بدينه من
الفتن The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
يوشك سون الوقت ستأتي Now, typically they say
this is before the Day of Judgment.
The time will come where the best wealth
a Muslim can have is sheep that they
just take on the farm, graze them.
You know homestead in life, Instagram homestead, right?
Just sheep that you graze and you run
away from society.
Why?
يثر بدينك You run away to protect your
deen.
The scholars say, when that time comes, you'll
know it's that time.
But right now, the time is to be
with the people.
And so I just wanted to highlight that
what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught
us here is this idea of mixing and
being with the people.
And now let's finish this verse.
It's so powerful.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, وَرَهْبَنِيَّ ابْتَدَعُوهَا
And this monasticism of giving up life, giving
up connection.
I don't want anything to do with anyone
because the pinnacle of righteousness is to avoid
women, avoid the opposite gender.
The pinnacle of religion is to stay away
from any sensual feeling whatsoever.
No, that's not what the deen taught.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam did not
teach that.
There's a balance there.
But he taught it so beautifully.
And to create that balance, you have the
sunnah.
Now, how do you keep that sunnah in
front of you?
Well, sometimes you need friends that keep you
on track.
Or a friend.
How about that?
It's getting hard out there, yo.
You need a friend.
I want to share a story with you.
Salman al-Farsi.
He was made the brother of Abu Darda.
Now, this is in the early Medina phase.
Now, the brother meant, like, I'm responsible for
you financially.
But more than that, it actually meant, like,
religiously we're supposed to guide each other.
Got it?
So Salman al-Farsi, he comes over.
Now, Salman al-Farsi, he's been Muslim for
a minute.
He came and migrated.
Abu Darda has been Muslim for a long
time, too, though.
So the narration says that Salman comes to
visit Abu Darda.
They're brothers.
They've been made brothers.
And he sees Ummi Darda, Abu Darda's wife.
With, like, really tattered clothes.
She's not, like, you know, not kept up.
Salman goes, What's going on?
What's good?
What's up?
What's going on?
So she says, He don't care about the
dunya.
He has no care about the dunya.
So she's saying, like, me?
He ain't worried about me.
He's at the masjid all day.
It's just Allah and the Rasul.
That's it.
So she, SubhanAllah, Do you have someone in
your life who your wife can text and
be like, Get your brother.
He tripping.
Some of us ain't nobody that can talk
to us.
There's no one that can be like, Yo,
yo, Yezzin.
Yo, chill, bro.
Chill.
Yo, you tripping.
Some of us, there's no one that can
talk to us.
No one.
So she says, Your brother, he has no
feeling for the dunya.
So Abu Darda cooked some food.
Because his brother's there.
And Salman's about to eat.
And he sees Abu Darda not eating.
So he goes, Why you ain't eating?
He goes, I'm fasting.
He goes, I ain't gonna eat till you
eat.
He goes, Man, you know I'm fasting.
He's like, I ain't eating till you eat.
I'm at your house, food in front.
I ain't eating your food.
For them, that was disrespect.
He goes, Alright, I'll break my fast.
He started eating.
He was about to leave.
So he's like, No, I'm gonna spend the
night.
I'm gonna spend the night.
Alright, yeah, you can spend the night.
Salman laid down.
Abu Darda got up to pray tahajjud.
He goes, What you doing?
He goes, I was about to pray tahajjud.
You going to sleep.
He said, No, I ain't going to sleep
unless you go to sleep.
Man, this man really messing up my day.
He's messing up my day.
So then he tried to pretend.
Like a little bit of the night passed.
He tried to get up.
He's like, Ah, ah, ah, ah.
No, for real.
It's hadith.
One third of the night remained.
He said, Now you can get up.
I'm getting up too.
Got up.
They prayed tahajjud.
Now Abu Darda's high, angry.
Next morning, he goes to the Prophet.
They both go.
Fajr time.
Prophet's there.
And then they complained to the Prophet.
And the Prophet asked Salman, Why'd you tell
him?
He said, Ya Rasulullah, I told him, Your
Lord has a right on you.
Your body has a right on you.
Your family has a right on you.
See, this monasticism is easy.
Give up everything.
Give it to God.
What's hard is balance.
What's hard is balance.
And for the rest of your life, you're
going to be trying to balance life with
God.
And that's what Allah sees is we're constantly
balancing, balancing, balancing, balancing.
And just when you think it's good, another
kid comes in.
And we're like, Where'd you come from?
But we was done having kids.
You thought, Yassin, wait, next dude coming through.
No, always struggling for balance.
Always struggling.
Always struggling.
And then the Prophet looked at Abu Darda
and he said, Sadaqah Salman.
So what's going on here?
The Quran is saying, This monasticism, They made
it up themselves.
Now, this is an interesting conversation.
What does mean?
It means that it comes from the word
bid'ah.
Here we go.
The word in Islamic halakas, right?
It comes from the word bid'ah.
They made it up themselves.
Now, you have to understand why bid'ah
or innovation is so bad.
Prophets are our way.
And someone who changes that way is changing.
It's like changing the Quran.
It's like changing the guidance given to you.
But I think some of us don't ever
truly understand what bid'ah is.
And I wanted to take just a few
moments to break this down because this is
important.
Bid'ah doesn't mean doing something the Prophet
didn't do in his time.
Sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
It doesn't mean that.
There are so many things the Prophet didn't
do in his time just because of changes
in technology, changes in everything that's around us.
What bid'ah technically means is when you
change something in the religion.
So, let me give an example.
Like, something is sunnah, right?
Something is sunnah to do.
But now, you start doing it so much
or teaching that this sunnah is hard.
You have to do it.
You have to do it.
So, now you just took sunnah and made
it hard.
Guess what?
You changed something in the religion.
That's why some scholars, they classify bid'ah
two ways.
Y'all ready?
Bid'ah fi deen, bid'ah li deen.
Changing something in the religion and changing something
for the religion.
See, see, let me give an example.
Here's a good example.
Y'all see this Quran?
Y'all see this Quran, right?
It's a Quran like it's a book of
Allah, right?
It got colors, yo.
You see those colors?
Those colors weren't there when the Prophet, his
Quran didn't have colors in it.
It's a Quran.
You should read Quran.
Because the Prophet told us to read Quran
and he taught us to read the Quran.
But this Quran has colors.
Why it got colors in it?
The reason it has colors is because the
author said, you know what, if I put
colors to break down the topics, it will
help people understand the Quran.
Now, here's the thing.
If you think it's fard or wajib to
have colors in the Quran, yeah, that's a
bid'ah, yo.
If you think, oh, your Quran don't have
colors.
Astaghfirullah.
Then yes, that's a bid'ah.
Because you just changed it.
But if someone does something to facilitate and
you understand that this is to facilitate, so
be it.
So be it.
It's to facilitate the objective.
That's deep to understand.
And I wanted to clarify that because so
many people get caught up on that bid
'ah.
They don't understand that there's bid'ah people
do for the deen.
And then there's bid'ah in the deen.
These people changed monasticism and made it part
of the deen.
And Isa never taught it.
Jesus never taught it.
So that's what the concept of bid'ah
is.
So what does the Quran say?
Warahbaniya.
Let's just finish off this verse, inshallah.
And monasticism.
They wrote it.
They invented it themselves.
Allah says, Allah says, I never wrote that
upon them.
I never told them to do that.
I never told them to break off from
marriage.
I never told them to break off from
society.
That wasn't my way.
I never taught that.
And we talked about the importance of mixing
and the importance of being with people and
the sunnah of the Rasulullah ﷺ and where
those breakdowns came from, where they saw the
source of evil at.
Illa batigha aridwani la Why did they do
this?
They did this trying to seek out the
pleasure of God.
But guess what?
And this is important.
When you are trying to get on your
deen, take it slow.
Take it slow.
Because the Prophet said, No one is extreme
in the deen except that it overtakes them.
And shaitan is brilliant.
We talked about this in Know Thy Enemy.
One of the tricks of shaitan is when
you want to change, he goes, Great idea.
Tomorrow to hajj.
Great idea.
Yes, we need to change now.
Change everything right away.
Why does he push you towards that?
Because quick change, sudden change never stays.
All change for it to last must be
gradual and slow.
That is textbook.
My trainer taught me that.
You don't think shaitan doesn't understand that?
My doctor taught me that too.
She's here.
Change is gradual and slow.
My trainer is here too.
Dang.
Okay.
That way.
That way.
Y'all all know me too well, low
key.
True.
Facts, as y'all say.
No, the point I'm trying to make, the
point is, They made this change upon themselves,
but then they themselves didn't uphold it.
They said they would separate from women, and
then what happened?
I ain't going to say nothing.
I'm just going to leave it there.
Y'all know.
Another example, the Prophet, peace be upon him,
a man came up to him, he said,
Ya Rasulullah, I want to fast.
The Prophet said, fast three days out of
the month.
He goes, no, no, no, I can do
more.
See that mentality?
I can do more.
He said, okay, fast every Monday and Thursday.
He said, no, no, I can do more.
The Prophet said, well, there's nothing more you
can do but the fast of David, but
that's every other day, and I don't recommend
that.
He goes, no, I'm going to do it.
The Prophet said, I don't recommend it.
He said, I'm going to do it.
When he got old, see, the Sahaba, once
they started, they never quit though.
Once you start something, they never gave it
up.
They would always do it.
He got old.
He said, I wish, I wish, I wish
I had accepted the Prophet's advice, because I
have to do this my whole life now,
and I'm old now, and it's hard.
I wish I had taken his advice.
His advice was fast a little less, but
be consistent on it.
They put these hard, stringent rules on themselves,
and they themselves didn't even uphold it.
And those from the Christians who believed in
God, we gave them their reward.
But so many of them, so many of
them were fasiqoon, meaning they went against the
teachings of the Prophet.
One last verse, we're done.
Okay, you ready?
Alhamdulillah.
Now this is my favorite verse, okay?
Well, I always say that, but okay.
O you who believe in Moses and Jesus,
believe in Muhammad.
Let me say that again, hold up.
O you who believe, the scholars say, this
is talking to those who believe in Jesus
and Moses already.
O you who believe in Jesus and Moses,
be conscious of God.
That's the key to everything.
Ask Allah, O Allah, give me.
O Allah, give my soul its taqwa.
And believe in his Prophet.
Believe in Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
You already believed in Moses, you already believed
in Jesus, now believe in Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
Check this.
You will receive double reward.
Now this is based on a hadith, hold
up.
Yo Qasim, you're disturbing the people.
Turn around, listen.
That's my boy, that's my son.
Look what Allah says.
I will give you double reward.
This is based on a hadith.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said there are
some people that get double reward on the
day of judgment.
Double.
Who, one of them, is a person who
believed in Isa, or believed in their Prophet,
and then when they found out about Muhammad
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, they believed in Muhammad too.
Because they believed twice, they get double the
reward.
Yeah, they believed twice.
They believed in the Injil, they walk around
with the Bible, they're like, uh, uh, uh,
hallelujah, right?
And then all of a sudden, they hear
the message of Isa, they hear the message
of Muhammad, and they're like, I believe there.
I believe again.
They believed twice.
And because of the difficulty of that transition,
the difficulty of letting go and then accepting,
Allah in this verse, this is a sister
taking shahadah today, this is crazy.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says they get
double reward.
Alhamdulillah, I'm good.
Now, let me share something.
Let me share something.
Let me share something.
The scholars, they actually say, this hadith teaches
us something.
That it's not just about those who accepted
one and believed in the next.
The principle established is that those who go
through extra difficulty to believe.
See, some of y'all was born Fatima,
but you didn't grow up Fatima.
Oh, when you accept Islam, when you come
into it, you think you don't get double
reward.
You feel me?
The double reward isn't just based on technicalities.
It's based on the effort.
It's based on the struggle.
It's based on the grind.
You think Allah doesn't see your grind?
You think Allah doesn't see that?
Yes.
Those who have to struggle to believe in
Allah, they have to grind.
And it's not just about converts.
Yes, there is a hadith that supports that
this is about converts.
But Imam Nawawi and others say it's not
about the convert, it's about the struggle.
And there are so many in this room
that learned from scratch, man.
Learned from scratch.
You think Allah doesn't know that?
You think Allah doesn't know that?
Of course Allah knows that.
You think you don't get double reward?
وَمَعْذَارِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ بِعَزِيزٍ That's easy for Allah.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says,
He'll give you double reward.
وَيَجْعَلْ لَكُمْ نُورًا تَمْشُونَ بِهِ And He's going
to give you light to walk with.
Light to walk with.
In this dunya, light to walk with.
See, when you get this Qur'an, you're
not sitting.
You know, I thought of it this way.
Anyone from the north, you ever been in
a whiteout?
With snow, you can't see in front of
the car?
You pull over.
And you wait for it to clear up.
But when you can see, you don't stop,
you keep going.
This says, Allah says, if you believe, if
you have taqwa, I'm going to give you
a light.
You're not going to be sitting in the
dunya.
You're going to be standing.
And you're not going to be standing in
the dunya.
You're going to be moving in the dunya.
You're going to be walking.
تَمْشُونَ بِهِ I also look at it this
way.
يَمْشِي بِهِ فِي نَاسِ Allah says, you walk
amongst people, but I'm walking different now because
I have a light by which I guide
myself.
Like when I drink, I drink with my
right hand.
I have a light.
I sit down.
I have a light.
There's a bidet in my bathroom.
I have a light.
You know what I'm trying to say?
Like, I got light to live by.
I'm not on YouTube trying to figure out
at the age of 40 how to live
my life.
You have light to live by.
That light is what the Prophet brought.
If you just realize how dark it is
everywhere else, then you'll realize what this light
is.
يَمْشُونَ بِهِ You walk with that light too.
And what's crazy is earlier in this surah,
we know we needed light somewhere else too.
In the akhirah.
The Prophet ﷺ told us on the Day
of Judgment it will be extremely dark.
And at that point, everybody will be given
their light.
But every light in the akhirah will be
according to the light you acquired in the
dunya.
The Prophet ﷺ said some people's light will
just be shining in front of them miles
ahead.
And then the Prophet ﷺ said some people
will have light the size of their pinky
fingertip and it will flicker.
Because their iman flickered in the dunya.
May Allah protect us.
Allah protect us.
So you want that light, you got to
ask Allah for that light.
Oh Allah, give me that light.
I want to live by that light.
Make me strong enough to walk in that
light.
You know what about light though?
Light walking too fast is hard to see.
Remember my mom turned on the lights for
fajr.
Yo, what you doing?
So you got to walk into that light
gradual too.
Or it could be blinding.
We give them light by which they walk.
Carry yourself.
Conduct of character.
Rasulullah ﷺ.
وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ And Allah will forgive you.
All your sins, don't worry.
What are sins for Allah?
Nothing.
You chose Allah.
You chose taqwa.
You took the light.
Allah says your sins, I don't care about
those.
وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ وَاللَّهُ غَفُورٌ رَهِيمٌ لِيَعْلَمَ لِيَلَّا يَعْلَمَ
يعني لِيَعْلَم لِيَعْلَم We tell you all of
this.
So that the people of the book know
that they don't have any control over God's
bounty.
Let me explain this and we'll conclude because
this is the last verse.
The Yahud in Medina, they used to flex
on the Arabs of Medina.
And they used to say to them, you
know a prophet's coming one day.
And when that prophet's come, we're going to
slaughter, y'all.
We're going to take control again.
The Yahud used to say, the Jews of
Medina, they used to say this to the
Arabs of Medina.
The day is coming because they had the
book, y'all.
They had the prophecy.
And they're reading, they're like, man, he's coming
soon.
But they thought he would be from the
progeny of Ishaq.
They didn't think he would become from the
progeny of Ismail.
So they used to say to the Arabs
who were from the family of Ismail, they
used to say, the prophet's coming and just
watch what we do when he comes.
But when he came, he wasn't from Bani
Yaqub.
He wasn't from Bani Ishaq.
He was from the Arabs.
And they couldn't accept that.
You're not our skin color.
How can we accept it from you?
You're not from who we are.
You're third world country.
How can we accept?
Sorry.
How?
Uh-uh.
So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
in this verse is responding to this concept.
He's responding to this.
And what is he saying?
He goes, I just want the Ahlul Kitab
to know they don't have any control over
God's bounty.
I know it says, But Mufasireen, they say,
The bounty is from God.
He gives it to whoever he wants.
And indeed, Allah's bounty is vast.
Nothing is diminished.
Whenever you hear of God's bounty, in that
moment, beg Allah for something.
His bounty is vast.
And right when you hear a verse that
says, Allah's bounty is vast, the thing you
do in that moment is ask God.
That's what you do in that moment.
Because it's the timing.
You know what I'm trying to say?
Somebody walk up to your dad and they're
like, yo, I heard your dad's mad generous.
And right at that moment, you're like, yo,
dad, can I get a few bucks?
He's gonna be like, yeah.
You know what I mean?
Of course.
Right moment.
Right now, you just heard a verse.
Recite it.
You're hearing it.
Allah's bounty is immense.
Right in that moment, you go, ya Allah,
I just heard about you.
And I believe.
Oh, Allah bless me.
And ask for whatever your heart needs.
Alright, we're gonna stop here.
This surah is done.
We're gonna announce the next surah too.
I think I know what it is though,
inshallah.
But there's a sister who wants to take
her shahada.
I don't know where this person is.
Are you still here?
Is she still here?
Okay, so we're gonna ask her to come
and just sit up here by the other
sisters if possible.
You can walk with her a few so
she's not on the spot.
If a few people walk with her, that'll
be easier.
Or she can stay there.
You can stay there, low key, if you
want to stay there.
You want to stay there?
Okay, perfect.
I'm trying to put you on the spot
if you don't want to be on the
spot.
Okay, sister.
You're gonna repeat after me, okay?
This is truly the most beautiful day of
your life.
This is a day of light.
This is a day of blessing.
This is a day of establishing this beautiful
relationship with God.
And there is nothing more beautiful than this
day that you're going to experience and all
of these people here are your brothers and
sisters.
They will help you on that journey to
God.
You're gonna repeat after me, okay?
Alright.
If she can't hear me well, then someone
there can say it too, okay?
Ashhadu alla ilaha illallah wa
ashhadu anna muhammad rasool Allah I bear witness
that nothing is worthy of worship except Allah.
And I bear witness that Muhammad is the
final messenger of Allah.