Mohammad Elshinawy – Lessons From Surat Al-QariAh & Al-Takathur
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Surah Al-Baqarah, Verse 1 ...and
his family and his companions, and all those
who adhere to his guidance.
We ask Allah Azza wa Jalla at the
onset of this gathering, as we study the
verses of His glorious Qur'an, that He
make His book, that He make His Qur
'an, رَبِيعَ قُلُوبِنَا The spring that waters, irrigates
our hearts, and causes them to blossom.
وَنُورَ صُدُورِنَا And the light of our chests,
that which illuminates and enlightens our chests.
وَذَهَبَ هُمُومِنَا And the departure of our أحزانِنَا
The departure of our sadness, and the dispeller
of our anxieties and worries.
اللهم أمين So we welcome everyone back to
lessons from the short or brief surahs of
the Qur'an.
Inshallah, tonight we will cover Surah Al-Qari
'ah, and then Surah Al-Takathur.
Surah Al-Qari'ah, Al-Qari'ah means
the striking blast, or the great blast, or
the deafening blast, that which deafens.
And before we proceed into the surah, the
surah that came down in Mecca, we have
to recall the atmosphere in Mecca.
We have to put ourselves in a place
as if we haven't heard the surah before.
And you know, the people around the Prophet
ﷺ are initially rejecting him, mocking him, refusing
to believe that God can actually, you know,
pull us out of our graves, recreate us
anew, after we've disintegrated and turned to rubble,
this is all a hoax, God doesn't know
and God cannot.
To the end of it, there will be
no judgment, there will be no day of
judgment.
And in the middle of that whole atmosphere,
the Prophet ﷺ steps forward, you can imagine,
in the middle of this, and he says,
القارع.
القارع means the deafening blast.
It almost comes off as an incomplete statement.
And that's part of the point.
What exactly does that mean?
To call their attention to it, like the
deafening blast.
So, let me give you a...
The Arab, when something is about to humiliate,
when someone humiliates someone, they say, he says
قارعه, like he blasted him.
You know, you say you blast someone, like
when you yell at them and put them
in their place.
It's called قارعه.
He whacked him, blasted him, but verbally, right?
He gave it to him, yes?
He made him hear something, hear something that
stopped him dead in his tracks, put him
in his place.
Likewise, when war is about to start, there
is قرع طبل.
When you smash, you cause this very loud
sound on the drums, the war drums.
You beat them, right?
This means the army is approaching, yes?
And it's interesting, because the Prophet ﷺ in
other contexts, he used to also say to
them, أنا النذير العريان.
I am the naked warner.
What does the naked warner mean?
The Arab knew that they would...
when they had no time to sort of
like explain to people what's happening, it was
known, it was just like a...
even if it was something known in their
literature, even if they haven't seen it in
their own lives, the notion of a naked
warner is basically the way that they would
alarm, signal the alarms, when one tribe is
about to raid another tribe.
So when someone would be able to warn
his people, he would strip out of all
of his clothing, and like cut off the
nose and ears of his animal and zip
through town.
So they'll realize this is not a joke,
this is not a drill, this is, right?
And war is upon us, we're about to
get massacred.
Yes?
And so it is that notion of an
apocalyptic warning, we're all about to be finished.
This is what القارعة creates, that sort of
notion like, what's happening, is this a war?
Are we all dead?
Is this the day of judgment?
Because القارعة is one of the names of
the day of judgment, or it's one of
the references to the day of judgment.
So he says القارعة, the deafening blast.
So they're now hearing him say that, and
what about it?
Is it here?
Is it almost here?
Did God tell him that it's about to
start?
And that's what he's trying to tell us?
It's drawing their attention.
And he says, مَلْقَارِعَةِ What is القارعة?
What is القارعة?
What is it that's going to cause everyone
to stop dead in their tracks?
What is going to deafen them, the sound
of this blast, the sound of this news,
right?
It could be the volume, or it could
be the subject matter.
What is it?
You know like even, I'll give you just
one more, like the Arab, the scholars of
tafsir mentioned, that if someone is sort of
like, receiving bad news after bad news, imagine
Allah forbid, may Allah protect us all, you
just lost your car, and then you just
lost your house, and then you just lost
your family, and then something happens, that eclipses
all of this, and causes you to forget
about all of this, and demands your undivided
attention, right?
What is this thing that's like, no matter
what, it's going to paralyze us, paralyze our
thoughts, paralyze our minds?
That's what he's talking about.
He's building up to this.
وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَلْقَارِعَةِ The third verse now.
And what can I possibly say?
What can make you realize what القارعة is
really about?
So all of this build up is about
just the sound, that's going to happen on
or at the beginning of the resurrection and
the judgment.
That's what it is.
You know what it's like?
One of the scholars, I heard him give
an awesome example.
It is like, and maybe you think it's
a horrible example, but I think it's an
awesome example.
You know like, when someone in like, in
cinematic terms, in movie terms, I'm not promoting
you to watch mainstream movie, but like in
movie terms.
When there is like, a huge sound, right?
Screams, people screaming, right?
Or a huge blast, maybe a flash in
the dark.
And then another huge blast, but the movie
didn't start yet.
It's just a black screen right now.
And you just hear in these sounds, the
more and more it flashes or it rings
that sound, you're wondering like, show me, what's
happening already?
It builds up the suspense for the veil
to be removed and for you to actually
see what these sounds are about, what they're
coming from, what they're referring to, bombs exploding,
people screaming.
This is the effect of القارع.
ما القارع؟
وما أدراك ما القارع؟
It demanded of them to pay attention to
it.
What's this about?
No matter what I tell you, وما أدراك
ما القارع؟
No matter what I tell you, you won't
realize.
Whether you're convinced or not.
One of the beautiful things about سورة القارع
also, is that he's not even talking to
them.
Which is also frightening.
Like سورة القارع, it's not like other surahs
where he's addressing them.
You have been distracted.
الهاك ومتكاثر You've been distracted by your chase.
The next surah we will cover.
None of that.
From its beginning to...
It's talking like in the third person.
As for those whose deeds are this, as
for those whose deeds are that.
It's not addressing them in the second person,
you, anymore.
Like, you're convinced or not, I'm proceeding.
It's happening.
It's on route.
So what is it?
Once the gripping, suspenseful, frightening sound keeps being
mentioned to them, what is it?
يوم يكون الناس كالفراش المبثوث It is a
single day, a يوم.
يكون الناس, in it, the people, الناس, humanity
will be كالفراش, like butterflies, like moths or
butterflies, مبثوث بثة means to scatter something.
Scattered butterflies.
فراش مبثوث And of course, you know, like
butterflies, moths, these are symbols of what?
Intelligent beings?
Strong beings?
What is it?
When you see a whole sort of like
group of butterflies fluttering.
Weakness, foolishness, right?
And this is what people will be like
on the day of this deafening blast.
People will be scrambling in every direction.
So like all of humanity, for the most
part, the intellectuals among them, the geniuses among
them, the billionaires among them, this will be
the norm.
Everyone just bouncing around aimlessly in every direction,
and nowhere to run, and no idea what
they're supposed to do.
Aimlessly flying, foolishly behaving.
And the scholars said, you know, the parallel
here also is that, the butterfly is deceived
by the assumption of light, deceived by any
image, right?
Light means good, go towards light, then they
die in the campfire, right?
And they didn't just get this from sort
of their own personal reflections.
They drew this from the fact that the
Prophet ﷺ said in one hadith.
It's an important hadith in Sahih Muslim, that,
اِنَّ مَثَلِي وَمَثَلُكُمْ كَمَثَلِ رَجُلٍ أَوْقَدَ نَارًا فَجَعَلَ
الْجَنَادِبُ وَالْفَرَاشُ يَقَعْنَ فِيهَا وَهُوَ يُذْهِبْ هُنَّ عَنْهَا
وَأَنَا آخِذُمْ بِحُجَزِكُمْ عَنِ النَّارِ وَأَنْتُمْ تَفْلِتُونَ مِنْ
يَدِي That the example of me and you
is like the example of a man who
kindled a fire.
Someone lit a campfire.
And then the moths and the butterflies are
diving in.
And he's trying to shoo them away.
He's trying to keep them away from the
fire.
It's not good for you.
Go away, right?
It's not what you think.
This is death.
So he's trying to chase them away from
the fire.
He said, and me too ﷺ, أَنَا آخِذُمْ
بِحُجَزِكُمْ I'm trying to grab you by your
waistband.
I'm grabbing you by whatever I can reach.
وَأَنْتُمْ تَفْلِتُونَ مِنْ يَدِي And you are slipping
from my hands.
Meaning you're insisting on heading in a destructive
direction.
And so subhanAllah, he says, this is the
relationship of me and you.
I'm trying to keep you all away from
the fire.
And you're just randomly diving in headfirst.
And then the ayah says, يَوْمَ يَكُونُ النَّاسُ
On that day, people will be كَالفَرَاشِ المَبْثُوثُ
Like scattered butterflies in every direction.
And then it is as if a person
reads that, القارع, this blast, and everyone's scrambling
in every direction.
And like you're almost trying to pacify yourself
or calm yourself a little bit.
As a listener you say, okay, maybe it's
because people are feeble-minded.
People are, we're weak creatures, we're fragile.
How about the mountains?
The mountains are not like humans.
Then the next verse comes and says what?
وَتَكُونُ الْجِبَالُ كَالْعِهْنِ الْمَنْفُوشِ And on that day
the mountains will be like this fluffed up
wool.
You know, المنفوش, some scholars said like colored
wool, and some scholars said like fluffed up
wool.
And these are not different answers.
It's basically the wool when it is in
its lightest state is after you take it
off of the animal and you color it,
right?
And you fluff it up light, so you
can start making textile with it, you can
start making with it a fabric.
So that wool that they can recognize as
people of this sort of context, this reference
point the Arab understand, fluffed up wool or
the colored wool, right?
Meaning that wool when it's in its fluffiest
state, in its lightest, physically lightest state, the
mountains that you think are so stable are
so huge.
You know, they represent, they are the symbol
of all things massive on this earth, right?
And now we know what's beneath the earth
is even 10 times greater than these towering
mountains on top of the earth.
Their root goes so much even deeper.
All of that will be like this, will
be weightless, nothing will have any weight.
Won't just be human beings bouncing around like
nothingness, even the mountain itself will be like
nothing.
You know the other ayah says, وَتَرَى السَّحَابَةَ
تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدًۭا وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابَ الجِبَال تَرَى
الجِبَال And you see the mountains on that
day, تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدًۭا you presume of them to
be well established, to be fixed in their
places.
وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابَ And they pass like
these light clouds, these fluffy clouds, they're just
passing along, disappearing out of their place.
So nothing has any weight on that day,
after the striking blast comes.
So where do I find stability?
Where do I take cover?
Where do I find safety?
The next verse comes and says, فَأَمَّا مَنْ
ثَقُلَتْ مَوَزِينُ It's profound.
As for the one whose deeds are heavy,
that's the only thing that's gonna hold you
down, that's the only thing that's gonna keep
you in that day.
As for the one whose deeds are heavy,
these are the ones that have security, these
are the ones that have cover, these are
the ones that have safety.
The deafening blast frightens everyone, this explosion of
the day of judgment.
But other verses do tell us that other
people, وَهُم مِّن فَزَعِي يَوْمَئِذٍ آمِنُونَ They will
be from the terror of that day, fully
secure.
There may be a moment of fear for
everyone, but by and large, they will feel
secure on that day unlike everyone else.
And everyone will recognize that we should have
gotten in on this, on the good deeds.
That's when people's scales get flipped in the
right direction.
You know in Surah Al-Waqi'ah, when
Allah Azza wa Jalla speaks about Al-Waqi
'ah, which is like Al-Qari'ah.
Al-Waqi'ah is the inevitable reality.
Allah calls this inevitable reality, this inevitable major
event.
He says, خَافِضَةٌ رَافِعَةٌ خافضة means to lower,
رافعة means to raise.
In other words, the scales get reversed.
Everything gets reversed.
You know the Prophet ﷺ says, for example,
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَيَأْتِي بِالرَّجُلِ أَثَّقِينَ أَسَّمِينَ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ
فَيُوضَعُ فِي الْمِيزَانِ فَلَا يَعْدِلُ عِندَ اللَّهِ جَنَاحَ
بَعُودَةٍ That Allah will bring about an overweight,
heavyset man, and place him in the scales,
and he will not weigh the wing of
a mosquito on that day.
Right?
Or the other hadith now, the opposite.
When the Sahaba saw Abdullah al-Mas'ud
radiyallahu anhu, who had a very frail body,
right?
He didn't have much weight to him.
Some would even say that when the wind
would blow heavy, he would struggle to like
walk against the wind.
He may even fall over.
He may lose his balance.
You know, like a sandstorm or a windy
day.
When the Sahaba saw him climbing up a
date palm tree, scaling the tree, and they
saw how thin his legs were from below,
they began to like smirk, laugh.
And so the Prophet ﷺ said, أَتَضْحَكُونَ مِن
دِقَّةِ سَاقَيْ You're laughing from how slender his
legs are?
I swear to you they are heavier in
the scale of Allah, in the sight of
Allah, on the day of judgment, then Mount
Uhud.
Then Uhud, the great mountain of Uhud.
That's what will have weight.
People that were peasants in this world will
be kings in the Akhirah, right?
And people that were high and mighty in
this world, يَبْعَثُهُمُ اللَّهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ أَمْثَلَ الذَّرُ
Prophet ﷺ said, the prideful arrogant people will
be resurrected like ants.
يَطَأُهُمُ النَّاسُ بِأَقْدَامِهِمْ People will trample them under
their feet.
So this is the only place where a
person will have anchorage, a person will have
weight.
The storehouses of good deeds, whoever came with
good deeds.
You know, similarly, some scholars connected, like where
do you find weight on the day of
judgment?
They pulled in the ayah of Surah Al
-Muzzammil, إِنَّا سَنُلْقِ عَلَيْكَ قَوْلًا ثَقِيلًا We will
reveal upon you a heavy statement.
That is what stabilizes you.
That is what anchors you.
That's what keeps you there.
It doesn't leave you in this dunya fluttering
like a butterfly.
Just in every aimless direction.
With every wind, with every fashion trend.
With every desire.
Not like that.
With every weird criteria.
The whole world sees this person as desirable
because she's pretty, or he's muscular, or they're
wealthy, or they're wearing this brand or that
brand.
The Quran keeps you stabilized.
No, no, no, no, no.
There's a very different scale that we ought
to use.
The scale of righteousness and wickedness.
That's the true scale.
That's what will show up on the day
of judgment.
So, فَأَمَّا مَنْ ثَقُلَتْ مَوَازِينُهُ فَهُوَ فِي عِيشَةٍ
رَاضِيَةٍ Whomever's deeds are weighty, then he will
be فِي عِيشَةٍ in a lifestyle, in a
life that is راضية, that is most pleasing.
He pleased Allah.
And Allah became pleased with him.
And so Allah will please him in ways
he can imagine, in ways he cannot imagine.
In things that he asks for and things
he would not think to ask for.
وَأَمَّا مَنْ خَفَّتْ مَوَازِينُهُ And whoever's deeds were
light.
And this is, may Allah protect us.
This is like the irreversible catastrophe.
You know, any like dilemma, any catastrophe we
have, right?
If you're in debt, maybe someone will pay
off your debt, right?
You'll find some good friends one day, right?
If you're sick, maybe you can like go
to another country and find a physician.
Maybe a cure will get solved.
Maybe you'll die and go to Jannah.
Everything can be solved.
Except the person who shows up on the
day of judgment, finding their deeds aren't heavy
enough.
And the deeds are being brought, and they're
being placed in the scale, and placed in
the scale, and they don't weigh anything.
Or they have some weight, but it doesn't
compare with the weight of their evil deeds.
This is the ultimate catastrophe.
The unresolvable problem.
وَأَمَّا مَنْ خَفَّتْ مَوَازِينُهُ And whoever's deeds were
light.
And whose deeds are light.
فَأُمُّهُ هَاوِيَةٌ فَأُمُّهُ هَاوِيَةٌ فَأُمُّهُ هَاوِيَةٌ Then his
Umm will plummet, or is Al-Hawiyah.
So both Al-Umm and Al-Hawiyah have
been interpreted in different ways.
Umm here is not your mother.
The Umm is either your head, your head,
or it is your home.
Like the place you go back to is
called, like it's Umm Al-Qura.
Mecca is called Umm Al-Qura.
The mother of all towns.
Because all of the towns sort of branched
out, emerged from Mecca.
It all comes back to Mecca, for instance.
The preserved tablet is called Umm Al-Kitab.
The mother of all books.
The master record.
Because that's the preserved tablet.
And so Ummuhu refers to your head.
It all goes back to here.
Were you thinking?
Were you not thinking?
Were you mocking?
Were you not mocking?
Were you ignoring the message or not ignoring
the message?
Right?
It all comes back here.
It's not really your finger's fault.
It's your mind told your finger to do
it.
Yes?
That sort of thing.
And so his head, Hawiyah will plummet.
Hawa means to fall.
يهوي به في نار جهنم He will plummet
with it or because of it into the
fire of *, the hadith says.
So يهوي or Hawa means to fall down.
And so that means, that head of his
that committed all the crimes and thought of
all of the conniving acts, he will fall
headfirst.
May Allah protect us.
It will be headfirst heading down into the
fire.
والعياذ بالله The other...
I mixed them.
I'm so sorry.
But the other meaning is, Ummuhu meaning his
home, his destination, like Ummul-Qur'an, Ummul
-Kitab, where he comes back to forever is
Al-Hawiyah, this fire that people fall into.
Al-Hawiyah here is referring to the fire
because it is one of the names of
the fire that refers to the notion of
how it's depth.
It has great depth.
So it either means his head will be
falling, meaning before anything, headfirst he will be
falling, Ummuhu Hawiyah.
Or it means Ummuhu, his home is Al
-Hawiyah, this fire that people fall into.
Does this make sense?
Everyone clear?
وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا هِيَ And what can make
you realize what it is?
Al-Hawiyah.
Meaning nothing I say can actually get you
to realize what it is.
نَارٌ حَامِيَةٌ It is an intense fire, a
fire نَارٌ حَامِيَةٌ that is most intense.
May Allah protect us from the fire.
Of course, this is not redundant.
What do you mean an intense fire?
What fire isn't intense?
The meaning here, as the scholar said, is
that unlike your fire, this is actually intense.
And we said, in Surat Al-Humaza, the
fire of this dunya can melt metal, can't
it?
Think of volcanoes melting rock, right?
And the hadith that tells us your fires
are but one part of 70 parts of
the fire of Jahannam.
So when Allah says, نَارٌ حَامِيَةٌ an intense
fire, meaning compared to the fires of this
world, this is an intense fire.
Or compared to the hereafter, these aren't actually
intense.
This is more deserving of the name or
the adjective intense.
You know, these are very short surahs, before
I move to Takathur.
And because we repeat them so much, we
are more susceptible, we are more prone to
just like glossing over them.
But these were actually the surahs that changed
the sahaba altogether.
This is what changed their lives.
This is what transformed them into the best
nation brought out as a model community for
humanity.
And so there really is so much that
we can draw from this surah if we
try to refresh our relationship with it.
Surah Takathur.
Actually, I have this on my phone.
Didn't get to write it out in my
notebook.
So surah Takathur.
Takathur means mutual increase.
What that entails when you go through the
surah becomes clear.
But this surah also is very frightening.
This surah contains three times, one after another
after another, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
كَلَّ.
And كَلَّ is like a hammer in the
Quran.
كَلَّ means absolutely not.
It's there for negation, yes.
Absolutely not.
It negates what's happening before it.
But it's also there to strike for attention.
It's like the crack of the whip.
كَلَّ.
It's different than لا.
No, this is not the case.
كَلَّ, right?
As a wake up call.
So Al-Qari'ah and Takathur both have
this notion.
That we're gonna keep talking about this whether
you're convinced or not, whether you believe it
or not, whether most people will not wake
up or not.
We're still gonna talk about it.
That is the idea of these two surahs
and keep that in mind.
You know, it's like, oh, you don't believe
in this, so I'm not gonna continue and
describe the day of judgment for you.
No, no, no.
That's like you don't believe in the hereafter,
so let's not talk about it.
You gotta keep talking, right?
And so Takathur does that as well.
Takathur says, no, no, no.
And then right after that, Allah swears three
times.
And this is also unique.
This is rare in the Quran to find
this much sequencing of one after another of
Allah swearing, Allah swearing, Allah swearing.
So the first two verses of surah Takathur
is speaking about what is the crime that
has made Allah Azza wa Jal this angry.
And then Kalla comes three times and three
oaths come.
But let's work on it together inshallah.
There's a certain crime committed.
What is that crime that's committed?
Al-Hakum Takathur.
First verses of the surah.
Al-Hakum from Laha, which means to be
distracted.
Lahu, distraction.
Al-Hakum, you have been distracted by what?
Al-Takathur.
Takathur is from Kathir.
Kathura means something that's plenty, something abundant.
Takathur means competing with one another, against one
another on who has more, who has more
abundance.
Right?
It's the chase for more.
It's the rat race.
The rat race has distracted you.
Al-Hakum Takathur.
You've been distracted by the back and forth
competition, back and forth, meaning against each other.
So you've been distracted by social comparison.
You've been distracted by the rat race.
You've been distracted by this endless competition between
you.
This is the meaning of the first verse
of the surah.
And a few things to point out.
First of all, Allah says it in the
plural.
You have been, in the plural.
The Arabic is Kum, not Al-Haka, you
as an individual.
Al-Hakum, and perhaps this is an indication
of just how common this is.
This is the predominant downfall of man, is
this distractedness, this ghafla, this heedlessness.
That people are always busy with this.
Because you know human beings, they know deep
down inside that they are not God.
They know deep down inside that they have
voids in them, they want to fill.
They know deep down inside that they have
this insecurity.
And so they're trying to fill this void.
How do I know how much I need
to fill the void?
They look around.
How much does he have?
How much does she have?
And they try to fill the void.
Of course the problem is what?
This void is infinite.
And only the eternal and the infinite, knowing
him and having a relationship with him, will
ever fill that void.
Otherwise you will forever have the insecurity.
الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَلَمْ يَلْبِسُوا إِيمَانَهُمْ بِظُلْمٍ أُولَٰئِكَ لَهُمُ
الْأَمْنُ وَهُمْ مُهْتَدُونَ Allah says, those who believe
and don't corrupt their belief with wrongdoing, for
them is security.
They are more recipients of security than anyone.
And they are the ones that are rightly
guided.
But those that don't know Allah Azza wa
Jal, they drug themselves with second best, with
chasing against each other.
And they tell themselves that this chase will
fill my void, will help me.
But it's just a distraction.
In reality it's just a distraction.
It's a drug.
It's an escapism.
You know like we did last week, two
weeks ago, يَحْسَبُ أَنَّ مَالَهُ أَخْلَدَ He presumes,
wrongly presumes, chooses to presume that his wealth
will let him live forever, will get him
past that insecurity that we all have about
the day we die.
He just, the wealth, let me just focus
on the wealth.
There's two things that were not mentioned in
this first verse that the scholars talk about.
The first of them is that distracted from
what?
The other one is competing in what?
Neither of them were mentioned.
They were left open-ended.
So competing in what wasn't stated because anything
can be competed in, right?
Some people compete in wealth.
Other people find it more expedient, more helpful
for them, advances them further in the rat
race.
There is no further in the rat race,
right?
It's a circle, that ball, the hamster wheel.
They're gonna compete in fame, in physical abilities,
in knowledge, even in religious knowledge.
So long as you are competing for the
sake of worldly advancement, then it's worldly, right?
So the problem is not seeking wealth.
Obviously the problem is not seeking knowledge.
But if you seek wealth or children or
Islamic knowledge for worldly gains, then you've tokenized
and it's still worldly.
If you're not seeking it because you need
it, you're seeking it because you want to
boast of it, then it's worldly.
Like the man in Surah Al-Kahf, what
did he say?
أَنَا أَكْثَرُ مِنْكَ مَالًا وَأَعَزُّ نَفَرًا I am
more than you in wealth, and more powerful
than you in terms of family size, right?
In terms of my following.
So that's the first thing.
Competing in what was not mentioned because you
can compete in anything.
And we'll come back to this in the
second ayah after we finish this.
Also distracted by the competition from what?
It doesn't say.
Because it has the power to distract you
from everything.
Does that make sense?
The person, once they get into the rat
race, it spoils everything.
It burns the entirety of their life.
Salah and sadaqah and family and Quran and
ummah, everything all together.
That's why some scholars say the surah right
after it is what?
والعصر It squeezes you till every last minute
is gone.
This is also why not the next surah.
The very next verse says what?
You are distracted حتى زرتم المقابر You're distracted
by the competition between you and others until
you visit the graves.
That's usually when it ends.
For most people, they're distracted from everything until
they enter their graves.
They don't come to their senses before then.
That's why Yahya ibn Mu'adh al-Razi,
rahimahullah, he used to say, الدنيا خمر الشيطان
That this dunya, worldly chases, this is the
intoxicant of Shaytan.
فمن سكر بها لم يفق إلا في عسكر
الموت That whomever gets intoxicated by it, whoever
gets drunk with it, will not come to
their senses until they're among the dead.
Until they are among the dead.
And the Prophet ﷺ himself also said this,
that the son of Adam keeps saying, مالي
مالي, my wealth, my wealth.
وهل لك يا ابن آدم من مالك إلا
ما أكلت فأفنيت O son of Adam, what
do you really own of your wealth except
that which you already consumed?
It's not yours if you leave it behind,
right?
If you didn't eat it, it wasn't yours.
What do you really have of your wealth
except that which you consumed and so you
finished.
Can't have your cake and eat it too.
I actually never understood that phrase for a
very long time.
But the idea is, if you want to
keep your cake, you're not allowed to eat
it, or else it's gone.
That's the idea.
You can't keep your cake and eat it
too.
Once you eat it, it's gone, right?
أكلت فأفنيت He says, أولبست فأبليت Or you
wore it, and when you wear it, it
wears out.
It withers.
It looks crisp only the first few wears.
Then you got to throw it in the
washing machine.
It starts looking different.
Yes.
أولبست فأبليت He says, أو أنفقت فأمضيت Or
you spent, meaning in good causes, and so
you forwarded.
أمضيت مضى means to proceed.
And so you forwarded it across the bridge,
the other side, the hereafter.
That's the only wealth you really have.
Meaning the wealth you didn't use, you don't
have.
And the one you consumed, you don't really
have.
The one that you spent for Allah is
the only one you really have.
This is in Sahih Muslim.
And Ubayy ibn Ka'ab radiallahu anhu, a
great Sahabi, he used to say, and others
I believe as well, we used to consider
the valley of gold hadith like a surah
from the Quran.
You guys know the valley of gold hadith?
And the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam said
that, if the son of Adam were given
a valley of gold, he would wish for
a second valley.
And if he was given a second valley
of gold, you know what a valley is?
A place between two mountains, right?
When he was given a second valley, he'd
wish for a third.
وَلَا يَمْلَأُ فَاهُ إِلَّا التُّرَابُ وَيَتُوبُ اللَّهُ عَلَى
مَن تَابُ And nothing will fill his mouth
but the dirt.
He'll never say enough, except when the dirt
has covered him.
And Allah opens the door for forgiveness, for
repentance, for those who actually repent.
But normally people don't.
Normally until you visit the grave.
The hadith says, حَتَّى زُرْتُمُ الْمَقَابِرُ Until you
visit the grave, people just continue to chase,
people just continue to run.
Until you visit the graveyards.
You know actually the scholars of Tafsir also
mention, until you visit the graveyards, they mention
an interesting story, even though that's not what
they usually assign as the meaning of the
ayah.
They say until you visit the graveyards, most
of them will say meaning until you die,
and spend some time in the graveyard, right?
But they say actually, we have a story
from like pre-Islamic Arabia, in the Jahiliyyah
period, the period of the ignorant culture before
Islam, that two tribes got into a boasting
competition.
We have this warrior, and we have this
rich man, and we have this number of
family members, right?
Until they kept going back and forth, until
they visited the graveyards, and started counting their
ancestors.
Like the graveyard is supposed to be a
place of wake-up call, a place to
remember like, yeah, this is where I'm coming,
this is actually my house, right?
I'm going to be here soon, I'm getting
relocated soon.
You know when I believe it was Abu
Darda'a radiallahu anhu, they entered his
house, and they saw that he had like
very little furniture, and they said to him
like, where's your stuff?
He said, no, no, I'm just like renting
the place, this place is not mine.
They said, okay, but you're still going to
need some stuff while you're here, like this
is really minimal.
He said, صاحب الدار لن يتركنا The owner
of the house won't leave us here long.
And it was reported about one of the
scholars of Zuhd, the scholars of Islam that
was well known for his Zuhd, his restraint
from this world, or disdain for like worldly
luxuries, he was visited by some people, this
like saintly personality, the Zuhd, and they said
to him, where is your furniture?
He said, where is yours?
They said, we are just guests.
He said, so am I.
And so that idea of like we are
guests in this world, and what?
And we are guests in even the grave.
The verse says, until you visit the graves,
meaning if you live a hundred years here,
you may spend a hundred thousand in the
grave, but even that would be a visit.
Can you imagine?
And so these people before Islam, it's sad
because it's not just the people before Islam.
People do that all the time.
They boast in the graveyards, don't they?
With the tombstones, right?
I'm so sorry, I have to say this.
With live streaming, it is one of the
most bothersome things in modern life for me.
In the graveyard, everyone wants to live stream
the burial, right?
I can imagine half of a percent of
the time, there is some sort of justification,
right?
Like to cool the heart of a person
who didn't get a chance to get to
the burial for someone, like what happened in
the COVID period or otherwise.
But everyone's recording for what purpose exactly?
Streaming for what purpose exactly?
Like this is a treasure in front of
you.
So the people of Arabia went into the
graveyard, and they're saying, look, look, look, look,
look.
They're boasting in dunya, not realizing that they're
standing at the gate of akhira.
The graveyard, if you don't remember then, then
when?
Prophet ﷺ said, I used to forbid you
from visiting the graves, as for now, visit
them because they remind of the hereafter.
It's the gateway.
So that is interesting.
But for most scholars, when they speak about
the meaning of this verse, they assign it
to the actual person himself at the time
of his death visiting the grave, and they
stop getting distracted only then.
They say there was more to life than
just hoarding all of this wealth.
I spent my whole life hating and bothered
and competing and envying.
And he will realize that it wasn't worth
it.
As the Prophet ﷺ said, لا حسد إلا
في اثنتين.
There is no envy allowed.
There's no envy that makes sense also.
That's another interpretation.
There's no logical reason to envy, except two
people, a person whom Allah gave knowledge and
or the Qur'an to, a person whom
Allah عز و جل gave wealth to.
By the way, that's not what you're envying.
The hadith says, so he taught it by
night and day, he spent it entirely in
good causes.
You're envying the teaching for Allah's sake, the
spending for Allah's sake.
You're not envying what was used as an
instrument of that, because that could be for
dunya, could be for akhira, right?
And so a person, حتى زرتم المقابر.
Once you visit the graveyard, you realize I
was so busy with everyone, and here I
am all alone now, in the hole, in
the ground.
There's so many hadith in this regard, maybe
this is, not to mention them now, then
when.
You know, there's the famous hadith of Musa
عليه السلام, you know, the angel of death?
Musa عليه السلام, Allah عز و جل sent
him the angel of death, and the angel
of death caught him off guard.
And so he just reacted.
He just reacted naturally, as humans do, fight
or flight mode.
He chose fight, and he knocked out the
eye of the angel of death.
And so Allah عز و جل restored it
for him.
And he said to him, Ya Allah, you
sent me to someone who doesn't want to
die.
And so Allah عز و جل revealed to
Musa عليه السلام, Oh Musa, here is a
thawr, here is an ox, you know the
animal, the bull, the ox.
He said, wipe the back of this ox,
and every hair of the ox that your
hand touches as you caress its back, I
will add for every hair a year to
your life.
So Musa عليه السلام, he's not caught off
guard here, this is now sort of an
exchange.
A gift from Allah عز و جل, and
an exchange, it's very clear what's happening now.
He said to him, Ya Allah, and then
what?
He said, and then death.
He said, فالآن يا رب, then now.
Like, what is the difference?
I live 100 or 150 years, like 100
or 300 years, what's the difference?
If this is actually death, if it's actually
when you want me to die, I was
just reacting here.
I'll go now, if that's when you want
me to go.
The end of the day doesn't really mean
much.
Because whatever it's going to be, divided by
infinity, is what?
Zero.
And so, until they visit the graveyard, they
don't realize just how distracted they were.
That they spent, they just kept putting things
off, and procrastinating, like we were discussing today
in the khutbah.
Just when I graduate, just when I have
kids, and just when I set things up
for the kids and the family, and so
on and so forth.
The years that I wasted, I could have
been in the company of the king, I
could have seen his face, and so on
and so forth.
حتى زرتموا المقابر And the last thing I
will say, brothers and sisters, I will accelerate
now, but you know, the scholars, they mentioned
a beautiful point.
They say that, why is it that the
competition is interrupted by death?
Because it's endless.
And you will always have more amal than
your ajal.
Ajal means your limit, your lifespan.
The Prophet ﷺ drew a line on the
ground, said, this is the amal of the
insan, the hopes, the wishes, the dreams, right?
He said, and this is his ajal, this
is his limit.
So you will always have more dreams, wishes,
ambitions, than your life will allow.
So you're gonna have to pick something.
You can't be competing in it all.
It will be at the expense of something.
So when a person visits the grave, they
get interrupted and say, I made the wrong
transaction.
I prioritized the wrong way.
I should have known I would not have
time for it all.
And then Allah ﷻ says, kalla, kalla means
what?
Absolutely no.
Kalla, it's like it tears through the noise
of the distraction.
Kalla, sawfa ya'lamoon, they will soon find
out.
Thumma kalla, then again I say it, they
will soon find out.
Why is the repetition here?
Some scholars said for emphasis.
Other scholars said, it is the repetition of
the amount of times they will be reminded
of what they were distracted from.
So when they reach the akhira, every single
prayer they were distracted from, they will be
reminded about.
Every single sort of dollar that they chased,
or unethical business decision they made, they will
find out the outcome of all of this.
They're gonna find out, not just once, not
wholesale, you messed up.
No, no, they will find out.
No, no, no, they're going to again find
out over and over and over and over
again.
They will be finding out when their fortune
deserts them and they're left alone just with
their deeds, they will be finding out what
was the cost of the shortage in their
deeds.
And then the ayah says, kalla law ta
'lamoon a'ilmal yaqeen.
Absolutely not.
This is not the way to do things.
If only they knew for certain, if only
they were sure.
The heedlessness eats away at your certainty.
It's not just like a fact and you
automatically know the fact to be true, positive
about it.
No, when you get distracted from it for
a while, you begin to doubt it after
a while.
If only they knew it with a degree
of certainty.
kalla law ta'lamoon a'ilmal yaqeen.
This is the wake up call.
Wake up, be certain.
You're starting to doubt or you have doubted.
As the Prophet ﷺ says, law ta'lamoon
ma a'lam.
If you know, meaning you're certain, ma a
'lam, the way I know, you would have
laughed little and you would have cried much
and you would have not enjoyed your women
on your beds and you would have all
walked out into the deserts pleading with Allah
and crying and begging of Him.
Then Allah says, kalla law ta'lamoon a
'ilmal yaqeen.
la tarawunna al-jaheem.
The lamb here is the lamb of...
Allah is swearing.
This is the lamb of oath, they call
it, of an oath.
la tarawunna al-jaheem.
You will see the jaheem.
Jaheem is the blazing fire.
Jaheem is one of the names of Jahannam,
one of the names of the hellfire.
la tarawunna al-jaheem.
Of course, we know that you will also
see Jannah.
But depending on where you go, you will
see things differently.
So a person of the fire, may we
never be of the people of the fire.
The person of the fire will see paradise
and that he's locked out of it.
So it would increase him in remorse, increase
him in anguish.
And the person of paradise will see the
fire but it will be a source of
joy for him that I'm not going there.
That was my seat and I'm not going
to fill it.
You will see the fire.
You know, like certainty is knowledge, right?
Knowledge.
You believe in the words of Allah.
You believe in the words of the Prophet
ﷺ.
This ayah is saying these are not words
anymore.
A day will come when it wasn't just
lectures.
It wasn't just the Shaykh.
It wasn't just the ayah that we heard.
It wasn't just, right, the meme that we
read.
This is real.
You will see it.
Not just the words, not just the talks,
not just the lectures.
ثُمَّ لَتَرَوُّنَّهَا ثُمَّ لَتَرَوُّنَّهَا عَيْنَ الْيَقِينِ And then
you will see it.
لَتَرَوُّنَّ الْجَحِيمِ ثُمَّ لَتَرَوُّنَّهَا عَيْنَ الْيَقِينِ And then
you will see it by way of experience.
عَيْنَ الْيَقِينِ No, I'm sorry.
it.
You will experience it yourself.
So you will not just see it, you
will not just hear it, you will begin
to experience it yourself.
لَتَرَوُنَّ الْجَحِيمِ ثُمَّ لَتَرَوُنَّهَا عَيْنَ الْيَقِينِ You will
see it and see it in a way
that makes you certain about it in a
different way, because you saw it now.
Not just certain in the knowledge that you
were heedless of, but certain about it because
you saw it.
عَيْنَ الْيَقِينِ The eye of certainty.
ثُمَّ لَتُسْأَلُنَّ يَوْمَئِذٍ عَنِ النَّعِيمِ And then, I
swear, you will see, you will be asked
on that day about every last favor.
Every day, every dollar, what did you do
with this, what did you do with that.
It was supposed to beget thankfulness.
So long as you were thankful for it,
then you will not be accountable for it.
You got it from halal, expended it in
halal.
You consume that which is halal and thank
Allah for blessing you with it.
And so, there is the same theme, and
I'm closing out here, between those two surahs,
that these are forgotten realities, they are simple
realities, until you face them.
And the world is distracted from them.
Outwardly, these two surahs are very scary, right?
They're horrific.
But embedded in this fear, embedded in this
scare, is a great mercy from Allah عز
و جل, because it rescues you from the
tragic story.
Like you imagine the tragic story of the
image or the metaphor of a man, as
some scholars have portrayed.
Imagine a man going to prayer.
Yes, going to salah, going to fulfill his
purpose in life.
And he finds like a bag of gold,
right?
So he bends down and picks it up.
Then he sees another bag of gold.
So he goes and picks that one up.
Then he sees a third bag of gold,
and he picks that one up.
And he misses the prayer, and the next
prayer, and maghrib, and isha, and he continues
to do this.
Can you imagine?
Just the slippery slope ensues, sort of he
gets stuck in this, and he sees others
collecting more, so he's collecting more, and he
just does this for 5, 10, 15, 20,
he's 60 years old now.
You come and you try to remind him,
he's already hard of hearing, he can't hear
the message anymore.
He can't even understand you, like are you
crazy?
Like what are you talking about?
And then he just continues to grab the
pouch of gold, until what?
Until he falls in the hole.
That's exactly what this story is about.
This story, the story of the surah, is
shaking you out of that, snap out of
it.
It cuts through all these distractions, and tells
you that even the grave, you're just going
to be visiting it.
There's a bigger picture here.
And you make a decision, now or never,
may Allah Azzawajal grant us the ability to
make the right decisions.
The Prophet ﷺ said, it's my favorite du
'a in the sunnah, he said, when you
find people hoarding, like drunk, gathering, hoarding gold
and silver, you hoard, meaning hold on tight,
collect, these words, Oh Allah, I ask you
to be firm in my affairs, not to
be swayed, right, in wrong directions, and to
be determined upon doing the right thing.
There's a big difference between loving the right
thing, and finding the determination to go after
it.
And being determined upon doing the right thing.
And I ask you to make me, help
me, inspire me, to be thankful for your
blessings, and beautiful in my devotion to you.
This surah ends with what?
You'll be asked about the blessings.
You'll be asked about the favors.
Have me not distracted, make me thankful for
your blessings, and devout, beautifully devout in your
worship.
And I ask you for a clean heart
and an honest tongue.
And I ask you for all the good
that you know, and I seek your protection
from all the evil that you know, and
I seek your forgiveness from what you know.
You are the full knower of everything unseen.
Go find that du'a, and learn it
one line at a time, and hold onto
it tightly, and hoard it.
Keep it close in a world that hoards,
that which distracts, and will not avail.