Mohammad Elshinawy – Divine Parables #08 Water – The Source Of All Life 10-24
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We continue
with the divine parables.
And the parable for tonight is actually
a repeated
parable throughout the Quran
that depicts for us the worldly life, the
dunya,
as being akin or very similar
to rainwater.
You find this in Surat Yunus. You found
this in the Salatul Esha. We heard it
in Surat Al Kaif. You find it in
Surat Zumr. You find it in Surat Al
Hadid.
But before we sort of make a few
stops on some of these
phrasings and their
their difference between them is subtle and nuanced
and each gives you more and more value.
But before that,
why is this world being compared to water?
The scholars have mentioned over ten reasons.
That water is unstable,
topsy-turvy like the waves of the ocean, like
the unpredictability
of the rain, and likewise this world who's
rich today is broke tomorrow, who's broke today
is rich tomorrow,
who's alive today is dead tomorrow.
Un unpredictable, unstable. The second reason he said
is that water is limited.
Yes, it is the most abundant natural resource
but it is transient still. It is passing.
And likewise with this world, you can't trap
it.
The beautiful doesn't stay beautiful forever. Impossible.
The healthy cannot retain their health forever. Impossible.
Right? That's the second reason. They said the
third reason
is because
you can't be surrounded with water, this life,
this world, right? And not get wet.
You're gonna get wet
because you're being entangled in this dunya.
And that means you have to make sure
you only get wet, and you don't drown
altogether.
You need direction, you need discipline to survive
it because you're not gonna be able to
avoid it.
So you will get wet, number 3.
They said number 4,
just like with water,
a little bit of this world is useful,
so useful.
But a lot of it is destructive.
It is doom.
Now bring us to some of the parables.
In Surat Yusuf Yunus, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says,
the example, the method of the life of
this world
is like water
and
that we send down from the skies.
And so the
plants of the earth pull it in. They
soak it up. They absorb it.
Plants that humans eat from and plants that
animals eat
from. In other words, this world produces different
things at different levels. The scholars said this
could also be hinting at the fact
that there are
huge distinctions
in
economic levels, in
wealth levels.
Some people
eat the highest levels of even human food.
Right? The fine diners. Right?
And then others eat less than that. And
then there are foods that no human being
would accept to eat unless he's desperate. The
scraps,
right?
This is the example of this world.
And that is why you know a person
needs to not be jaded or not jaded
is not the right word. Not be distracted
by this disparity.
It's all dunya. From the top to the
bottom, it's all really
one category.
You know, as one of the scholars would
say, a person is utterly foolish
if they are, you know, spending their flight
wishing they could be like the guy on
1st class. At the end of the day,
it doesn't matter who's 1st class and who's
economy. What matters is
when the plane lands, where are you going?
Yes? That's what matters.
And so this is the journey of life,
and we will all have different but
it's all the same dunya. It's all classified
as the same level.
Then Allah
says in the same ayah,
And then after everything is being produced here
by the rainfall,
and the earth takes on its full beauty.
It's mesmerizing. It's sort of appealing. It is
it draws you in.
Once it does that,
it decorates itself like a bride decorates itself.
Here's the challenge.
And its people
begin to assume
that they are fully capable over it. They
have it under their full control. That's the
problem.
The problem is when you think you got
it all under control.
And this is a problem in our age
more than anything else, that we have this
obsession with exercising control.
I'm gonna decide what's right and wrong.
I'm going to decide, Let me throw some
genetic engineering in there, whether my baby is
gonna be a boy or a girl, and
what color their eyes will be. Look how
far it's gotten.
This obsession with control
as if you can ever fully control life,
that is the most dangerous moment. Because he
says,
and its people assume they have full control
over it. What happens?
At that moment,
our command comes to it.
By night or by day. And that means
unexpected, catches them off guard. It also means
quickly, it also means intensely.
By night or by day.
Our command comes to it meaning it falls
apart.
And you know everyone as individuals, there's a
moment when they fall apart.
There is not a person that dies today
except that he dies with text messages that
are unread,
and emails that are not responded to, and
errands, and plans, and schedule that will not
be fulfilled.
But also the demise of civilizations.
This has happened with tens of 1000 of
generations.
Like think about like the Roman Empire, the
Persian Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Aztec Empire,
Adan Thamud who used to cut, you know,
their homes out of mountains, carve them out
of mountains. We don't even know anything about
them anymore. Just traces, they're placeholder names.
They are news that has vanished and just
barely know
what direction to point to, what the a
100 or 1000 years we're talking about. Atahum
Amrunah, our command comes to them. And so
this notion of never being secure with this
world, every time by the way This is
a beautiful gem regarding this set of parables.
Every time Allah speaks about how you should
never put your guard down to this world
that sort of flexes for you and then
crumbles in front of you, cycles.
He always
pivots you over to the correct mindset.
So in Surat Yunus, this example that is
given, the verse right after it is what?
And Allah invites you to the world of
security. This is not a world of security.
Don't ever get secure. Don't get too secure.
In Surat
Al Kehf, Allah says, it's like rainfall that
come And then it collapses again. What's the
next verse?
Wealth and children are things that you grow
in this world. Right? Are the decor of
this life,
and the only things that remain are
Hopefully our wealth is also of our righteousness.
Hopefully our children are of our righteousness but
only if it's classified as righteousness, that's the
only thing that remains.
Likewise, Surah Al Hadid, when Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala says, this world is nothing but something
that flares and you boast of it, and
then all of a sudden it disappears, the
next verse is what? Same pattern.
Now compete for what's worth our competition.
Compete towards the forgiveness of your Lord and
the paradise that is as wide as. Right?
And speaking of Surah Al Hadid,
just to bring this full circle, Surah Al
Hadid has
the parable of this world being like water
or rain water. And Surah Al Hadid,
there's a lot here.
But
I'll mention to you one very quickly,
is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in
Surah Hadid,
this world is a world where people boast
and flex,
and it is like the plants that get
very vibrant and then quickly they
become yellow and then they become rubble.
They fall apart. You guys ever seen You
all outside in the fall, every year, the
corn fields after they go through them post
harvest, it's just rubble to the ground. Right?
Yellow, then rubble.
Some of the scholars said this isn't even
a metaphor anymore.
This is literal
because the water becomes a part of you
as well.
And every human being, as life progresses, if
your death is not sudden,
you can actually show watch yourself dry up
like the leaf dries up. Your season, you
can see it progressing.
You look at your skin, if you give
yourself pause, I have less water in my
skin than a baby,
and a little bit more water in my
skin than the elderly. And so Allah is
telling you, benefit from these treasures, benefit from
these parallels,
and see that you are like this rainfall
and the vegetation.
You too have a season, so make the
best of it. May Allah enable us all
to benefit from these words and make the
best of our season on this earth.