Mirza Yawar Baig – Iman bil Ghayb #1 Rational or not
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My brothers and sisters, we remind ourselves because
Allah
to remind the reminder is beneficial for the
believers.
I want to remind myself and you and
this is the 4th in the series of,
Khatira that I'm doing
on
the issue of the authority of the book
of Allah.
Want to remind myself with you about the
meaning of Iman Bilhayb.
Iman Bilhayb
believe in the unperceivable.
Now,
you might wonder at my translation because if
you read any English translation,
Iman Bilhayb
is
translated as belief in the unseen.
I submit to you that that is a
wrong translation.
It is not unseen
because there are many things which cannot be
seen,
but which
we know are there
because we use other senses. For example, do
we know can we see air? Can we
see oxygen?
Can we see love? Can we see any
emotion?
Can we see viruses?
Did we meet the coronavirus?
Can we see radio waves? Can we see
the
the waves that take our messages, on our
messages,
on the on phones and so on and
so forth.
And I can go on and make a
long list. I'm sure that's unnecessary. I'm sure
you all understand that.
And you can make your own list.
There are many, many, many things that we
that are unseen
and even cannot be seen. I mean, you
know, if you want to see air, you
can never see it.
But they are there. I mean, there is
they're certainly not in the right. They are
very much.
So right really means something which is unperceivable,
meaning which cannot be seen, heard, which cannot
be perceived by any of our senses.
Not only not perceived by our senses today,
but something which can never be perceived by
human senses
ever
till the end of
time.
For example,
what happens in the grave after we die?
For example, what happens on the day of
judgment when we are raised before Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
For example, the nature, the actual,
you know,
nature and the,
the scenes,
of Jannah,
the nature of Jahannam.
All of these and more are things which
are not just unseen, but unperceivable.
Yet
believing in them
is something that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
made
contingent
upon us and described as 1 of the
or the first quality, not just 1 of
the, but the first quality
of the believer.
Because Allah
Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, he be in
the beginning of Surah Al Baqarah,
said
the meaning of which only Allah knows and
Allah said,
Allah said
the Quran,
there is a book in which there is
no doubt.
This is guidance for the people of Taqwa
and then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala described the
qualities,
the characteristics,
the the distinguishing
features,
the way in which
you would recognize
a muttaqi,
recognize somebody, a person of taqwa. And the
first of them Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said,
These are the people who have belief and
faith in the unperceivable.
This is a fundamental quality
of being a believer.
Faith in the unperceivable,
not just unseen. So,
I'm spending so much time on this because,
this links directly
to our email,
and, therefore, it is something which is of
such great and critical importance.
These are the people who have iman in
the grave.
And then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
closed that
topic and that's that set of ayat
by saying,
And in the,
these people have complete
and total
certainty, complete and totally again.
They're absolutely there's no doubt
in their minds about the.
Now the is 1 of the things
which is from Al Raip.
So therefore, the belief in the Raib
is absolutely critical to Islam.
Somebody who does not have belief in the
Raib
ceases to be a Muslim because Allah
made this as a precondition
of iman as a distinguishing feature of people
of
faith and belief. Now
the reason I'm saying this is because,
there is a there is a tendency and
there is a trend, and this happens all
the time in in the world,
especially
among educated people, meaning western educated people like
myself for
them. Right? Majority of my education is western,
business school,
Applied Behavioral Science. I went to,
1 of the best English medium schools
in the country when I as a child,
and so on and so on and so
on. So,
total western,
education. But, alhamdulillah, to save my soul and
to save my grace, I also went to
a mother's side. I also studied under an
Ustad
and not 1 but several of them, you
know, series of very eminent scholars.
Alhamdulillah.
And so therefore, that that saved my iman.
And I come from a family which is
very,
you know, deeply practicing religious
people. My father,
the the thing that I remember about my
about my father, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
bless him and forgive him and fill his
cover with noor, is the fact that he
never in his life as far as I
know ever missed the Hajj. It is something
that was, you know, with him,
his entire life. So anyway, the point I'm
making here is that Iman Belhaib is absolutely
critical
to our, to, to being a Muslim. And
this is something which many of us who,
either grew up in the west or born
in the west or,
both or, are influenced by western thinking and
education,
we tend to,
some of some of us tend to have
a different view,
and we like to call that being rational.
Right? Being rational.
Now
I want you to think very carefully about
the words that we use in our
conversation because words have meaning, and I don't
just mean the literally dictionary meaning.
Words have
sociopolitical
meanings.
A word has a certain meaning. For example,
freedom,
has a very heavy and a very
powerful meaning. The opposite of freedom is slavery.
So freedom is also a good word within
ports.
If you take, for example,
rational, using the same word, rational is a
very good word. Right? Because the opposite of
rational is irrational, meaning crazy, meaning insane, meaning
being mad, meaning somebody who has no ability
to
to
to critically
understand and analyze,
any information. Right? So that's not a nice
situation to be in. So being rational has
a very powerful meaning.
And so also there are many other words,
moderate, for example. This is a wonderful word,
beautiful,
and therefore, when you say I'm a, I'm
a moderate Muslim,
we have to ask ourselves that what exactly
do you mean by moderately Muslim. Right? What
does it mean moderate Muslim?
Meaning I'm not completely Muslim. Does it mean
that does it mean that I'm not,
well, III practice some things, which are nice
and convenient, and I don't practice other things
which are not so convenient. What is it?
What is what is moderate mean? Because the
opposite of moderate is extreme.
So in an extreme be I'm an extreme
Muslim. I'm an extremist. No. I'm not.
But what would you call somebody who completely
ins who insists on completely following Islam,
in letter and in spirit without any change?
Right. So give it some thought and say,
well, what are they what are the meanings
of words? So be very careful what words
you use. So this 1,
rational that we are talking about here,
Allah
is saying that,
a believer is somebody who believes in
and not just believes in but believes in
to add the level of your kin, believes
in at the level
of total certainty
in things that he or she cannot possibly
perceive
using any of their senses
or using any instrument of any kind.
Right? Now ask yourself, is that rational?
Because if you are,
saying it is not rational, then you are
saying that you do not have this belief.
And,
if you are saying it is rational, then
the question to ask yourself is what is
the definition
of rational?
What is rational according to me? Now this
is not a matter of semantics. I'm not
trying to teach you, you know, English, semantics
or meaning of the grammar. I'm just submitting
to you and to myself. I'm asking the
same question which is that it is essential
for us to believe with
understanding,
not blind faith. There's no blind faith in
Islam. In Islam, it's it's faith with knowledge,
with understanding.
So is my faith with knowledge and understanding?
And if it is with knowledge and understanding,
how do I reconcile
the issue of believing
something believing in something which is not just
perceived
by me today, but which is unperceivable.
Let me leave this with you,
and,
in the next,
we will develop this further,
But for the moment, just think about this
and say,
is my belief,
first of all, do I believe
in Allah? Do I believe in
the
the divine,
messenger,
Muhammad,
was human. He was not divine, but the
messenger his messengership
is divine,
divinely guided,
divinely
ordained for him.
Do I believe my my belief in the
the on the day of judgment,
my
belief in belief in,
Jannah and Jahannam,
my belief, before that day in what happens
in the grave and so on, what happens
after death. All of these beliefs, are they
rational or not? So let me leave you
with that.