Mohammad Elshinawy – Lessons From Surat At-Tin
AI: Summary ©
The church's history and its importance in shaping the image of gods and rewarding individuals have been discussed in this segment of a transcript. The church's use of words and negative language has led to deformed behavior and evil behavior, and shaytan's revelation has led to deformed behavior and negative language. The segment also touches on the importance of consistency in life and rewarding individuals.
AI: Summary ©
We begin in the name of Allah, all
praise and glory be to Allah and may
his finest peace and blessings be upon his
Messenger Muhammad and his family and his companions
and all those who adhere to his guidance.
We welcome everyone back to our gatherings around
the ayat of the Quran, lessons from the
short surahs of the Quran.
We had concluded surah al-alaq last and
now we will combine between the surah before
and the surah after surah al-alaq.
Surah al-alaq was a longer surah relatively
and so we had to give it a
night on its own but the surah before
it and after it are ateen and al
-qadr and they're relatively shorter and so we'll
combine them in one night inshallah.
And we ask Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala to
teach us from his glorious book what we
do not know and to remind us of
it, to remind us what we have forgotten
of it and to allow us to recite
it by night and by day in a
way that earns us his pleasure.
Allahumma ameen.
So surah ateen.
Ateen means the fig, the fig, the fruit
and Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala begins with three
or four oaths at the onset of surah
ateen.
He says, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim So
he swears by the teen, the fig, and
the zaytoon.
So whether this is one oath or two
is a little bit semantics here, right?
Ateen, the fig, and the zaytoon, the olive,
and Mount Sinai, the mountain of Sinai in
North Egypt, right?
And this secure town, this secure city.
This secure city is referring to what?
Mecca, for sure.
By the agreement of the Mufassereen, there's no
discrepancy here, no debate.
We're working backwards because it's the beginning of
the surah.
That's why the ayat haven't changed yet.
Mount Sinai is what?
What's Mount Sinai?
What is significant about Mount Sinai?
It is the place where Allah subhanahu wa'ta
'ala spoke to Moosa alayhis salaam.
It was upon Mount Sinai.
So that brings us back to ateen and
a zaytoon.
Allah swears by the fig and swears by
the olive.
Why does he swear by the fig and
the olive?
Some scholars said due to the inherent blessed
nature of these two fruits.
Are olives fruits?
Come on, man.
They have seeds, so they're fruits.
They ruined my life too when they told
me that tomatoes are fruits, but you got
to call a spade a spade.
Cucumbers are fruits, right?
As blasphemous as that sounds.
But these two, right?
The ateen and the zaytoon are blessed food
items, so much benefit in them, right?
And Allah swears by them due to their
great value, their great inherent value.
Other scholars said it is not just about
their value.
It is about where they are known to
be harvested from, which is what?
Al-Aqsa and its surrounding lands.
Jerusalem and the Sham in general, right?
The blessed lands of Palestine are known historically
to be lands of olive trees and also
lands of figs.
And so why did they say that this
swear?
They always do this, by the way.
Scholars in the Quran, when they're looking at
the oaths, the qasam, the aqsam of the
Quran, they look into what the meaning of
the qasam is or what the qasam is
pointing us to.
Maybe it's a symbol of something else, indicating
something else.
And they also look at a third item
we will talk about later, which is the
relationship of what is being sworn by with
what is being sworn about.
I swear by Allah about something.
So Allah swears by whatever He wishes.
We only swear by Allah.
But He swears by whatever He wishes of
His creation.
So here He swears by ateen and a
zaytoon, and turi-sineen, and hathal baladil ameen.
They said this must be referring to, this
must also be alluding to, the blessed lands
of Jerusalem.
Why?
Because the oaths after it are blessed lands.
So to match up, turi-sineen is a
blessed land, Mecca is the most blessed of
lands, therefore ateen and a zaytoon are also
a reference to the blessed land of Jerusalem.
So Mecca is where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam was spoken to, and Musa alayhi
salam on turi-sineen he was spoken to,
and Isa alayhi salam, Jesus the son of
Mary peace be upon him, and many others
in the lands of Jerusalem they were spoken
to.
And I don't mean direct speech, the distinction
of Musa alayhi salam is known, but meaning
these are places of revelation.
And so Allah swears by these three greatest
places on earth.
Think about that.
There are many great events that have happened
in human history, some of them even have
religious significance.
Days where Allah manifested His power and gave
support to the pious, and did away with
nations in an instant.
Great days, great events, but the greatest of
all events happened in these three lands which
is the event of the heavens connecting with
the earth, with revelation descending upon mankind.
These are the greatest of all events, the
events that happen in these lands.
You know this is why Umm Ayman, the
caretaker of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
she was among those who nursed him in
his infancy sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, but she
also outlived him.
When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam passed
away, Abu Bakr and Umar said, let us
go visit Umm Ayman, the same way the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used to maintain
regular visits of her.
Let's go pay her respects.
And when they entered upon her, they found
her weeping, weeping, weeping.
They said to her, don't you know that
what awaited him with Allah, what awaited the
Prophet with Allah, is better for him than
anything in this world.
So she said to them, I do not
cry because I don't know that that which
is with Allah is better for his Prophet.
وإنما أبكي على انقطاع الوحي.
I cry about the interruption, the termination of
revelation.
And so the two of them started crying
with her.
It was an unparalleled event.
Imagine, imagine like you're in a house and
events take place and the Quran comes down
and addresses them.
That's what was happening.
The skies open and news comes down.
You know, even the ayah, يحذر المنافقون أن
تنزل عليهم صورة تنبئهم بما في قلوبهم.
The hypocrites, it gives you a feel of
what it was like.
The hypocrites are paranoid, يحذر المنافقون.
Are paranoid that another surah will come down
on their heads, عليهم, on top of them
that informs them, meaning everybody else or informs
them, tells them about themselves, that informs them
about what is happening in their hearts.
Surah will come down, clarify issues.
Surah will come down, expose issues.
Right?
And then خلاص, it is over.
Never again until the day of judgment.
The connection between a teen was Zaytoon.
Sorry, I'm gonna break my neck tonight.
A teen was Zaytoon, the figs and the
olives.
They are blessed fruits that nourish the bodies.
Throughout human history, Allah has provided them for
people.
And the revelation is what the nourishment of
the souls.
So he who provided you with these blessed
produces to nourish your bodies has provided you
with something even better, which is the revelation.
So there are multiple meanings at play here
at once.
Now for what is being sworn about.
لقد خلقنا الإنسان في أحسن تقويم.
We have created the human being in the
best تقويم.
What does it say here?
Stature?
Form.
So it depends on how you translate تقويم.
You're gonna have to pick an interpretation and
then translate it.
But there's not one interpretation.
The Qur'an is layered in its meanings.
As we've said, the most eloquent of speakers,
the creator of our psychologies, the creator of
our tongues عز وجل.
ومن أحسن من الله حديثة.
Who is better than Allah in speech?
And so we have certainly created the human
being in the best of forms.
Does that mean the image Allah gave us?
Yes.
Other surahs in the Qur'an call our
attention to that.
هو الذي يصوركم في الأرحام كيف يشاء.
No, this is not the ayah.
This is Ali Imran in التغابن.
يصوركم فأحسن صوركم.
صوركم فأحسن صوركم.
Right?
He gave you أحسن, the best of images.
So your form, meaning your physical features.
Yes?
Others said تقويم comes from قيام.
It also calls attention to قيام.
قيام is to be standing.
Meaning he gave us our upright nature, our
upright stature.
So that's why some translators translated it as
stature, our upright form, skeletal form.
You don't have to put your face to
the ground to eat, right?
You don't sort of slide around unless you're
in the army, right?
They're sort of, what do they call this?
Anybody?
Huh?
Crawling works, fine.
Thought there was like a cool technical military
term for it.
None of you guys are militant?
Islam means peace.
I always forget.
So there is the stature, right?
That Allah did not have you on your
bellies, did not even have you on all
fours with your head down, doesn't have you
sort of eating off of the floor.
You are upright and you have a hand
and you have an opposable thumb and you
bring the food to it.
This is of how Allah has honored the
human being.
But also gave you intellect.
Of what he gave you is that he
gave you superior intellect.
That's of the ways that he honored the
human being, right?
We have created the human being in the
best of forms, meaning he gave him intellect,
superior intellect.
What is superior about human intellect?
Anyone know?
Yeah, you have agency, you have the ability
to decide, make a moral choice, also to
be able to evaluate.
What is and isn't a moral choice?
How else can you make it if you
can't evaluate it, right?
In sort of the psychology world, which I
always act like I am familiar with, but
I'm not, they call it metacognition.
The ability to think about how you think,
right?
Animals can think.
Animals have intelligence, right?
But you are obligated to evaluate, to introspect,
to morally audit yourself because you can.
You know how to do that.
Allah gave you that gift and it's also
a very big responsibility.
That's of the form, of the reasons why
the angels prostrated to the son of Adam
or to Adam, alayhis salaam, to the human
beings, right?
But they also said ahsani taqweem means morally
upright.
Not just intelligent, able to become upright, but
he made you morally upright.
He gave you the potential to be morally
upright.
How?
How can you be morally upright?
What do you need to be upright?
I'm gonna get into sort of like moral
philosophy here, huh?
You need revelation.
He just swore by the three places revelation
descended and he said the human being was
created in the most upright form.
He was created with potential to be a
moral creature, right?
To be a moral being.
You know, I'm not gonna get too sort
of philosophical on you, but where does morale,
how can you be moral?
You have to believe morality exists, right?
And atheists shouldn't believe that morality exists because
everything is stardust.
Everything is hydrogen and nitrogen.
So, right?
They should not believe that they are good
people.
You're saying I can't be a good person,
I'm an atheist.
No, I'm saying you shouldn't believe you're a
good person because you're not supposed to explain
anything except in terms of the material, right?
So, you have to believe morality exists, okay?
Number two, you're gonna have to define morality.
What is right and wrong?
Human beings have never agreed on this by
the way, ever.
That's why you need revelation, but that's not
just it.
You need motivation towards morality.
You need a motivational structure and that also
is found in the revelation.
So, it really all boils down to what?
His Wahi.
We cannot be moral, right?
Creatures.
We cannot be moral beings.
We cannot fulfill our potential of Ahsani Taqweem,
the trophy creation of Allah Azza wa Jal,
except by virtue of the revelation of Allah
Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
This is the connection the scholars are drawing
for us of why these are being sworn
by regarding about this.
This is the relationship.
Laqad khalaqna al-insana fi ahsani taqweem.
Of the meanings is morally upright.
Thumma radadnahu asfal asafileen.
And then, and then, we returned him to
the lowest of the low.
Is that what it says?
I'm gonna keep doing this till my neck
pulls and I'm gonna get a stinger, right?
And then we reverted him back to being
the lowest of the low.
Does that mean physically or morally?
Both.
You see, the scholars that said Ahsani Taqweem
means morally upright.
I'm sorry, physically upright.
Then, they start decaying, right?
Till you, you decompose altogether, right?
You become rubble.
You become worm food, right?
And those that said intelligence and moral uprightness,
they say that the one who does not
take advantage of the Wahi becomes the worst
of the worst.
Becomes worse than the animals.
Remember we said that?
You land on planet Earth.
Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala gives them what?
He says, Fa imma ya'tiannakum minni huda.
Faman tabi'a hudaya fala yadhillu wala yashqa.
I'm gonna send to you guidance, O Adam,
and your children.
Whoever follows it will never be miserable, will
never be lost.
But without it, whoever doesn't follow it, will
be the lost of the lost.
No one will be more lost than them.
Because you know, you're getting thrown into this
world and there's desire in this world.
There's desire for this world.
There's temptation in this world.
What do I do?
Can I kill this person to get what
I want?
Can I just sort of like without accountability
have a relationship with that person?
What do I do?
He gives you a book.
And he gives you inspiration to motivate you
in the right directions.
And so if you don't follow it, the
animal within takes over.
And SubhanAllah, notice in the revelation, in the
Quran in general, moral failure is always referred
to as downward.
That's why the scholar said this.
You know, even you always hear, ala huda
fi dalal.
You are upon guidance or in misguidance.
Yes?
A person is sort of elevated in Jannah
by the Quran, recite and climb.
A person is cast into the fire, right?
Plummets for 70 years, based on whichever of
the two, right?
If you gave in to your base desires,
the components of your creation, by the way,
you were made from mud.
The lowly substance, right?
If you give in to the desires of
this world, it brings you down, right?
And you were also created with the spirit.
The spirit was blown into you.
And it wants, it needs, it's, it's, it's,
it's figs and it's olives.
It's nourishment.
It came from above and it gets it
from above.
So you either rise by responding to the
call of the spirit, the cravings of the
spirit, or you are debased.
You are lowered by giving in, kicking revelation
to the curb and giving to the cheap
thrills of the physical desire or the worldly
desires.
They're not just physical.
Except for those who have believed and worked
righteousness.
For them is a reward that is uninterrupted,
which is uninterrupted.
What is a reward?
That is what?
Huh?
Read man, read, tell me.
Never ending.
A reward that is never ending.
You know, it's interesting that this is the
secret of consistency.
May Allah make us consistent.
Even if we're going to say the human
being was given, you know, a period of
great potential, even physically, right?
Honored.
We get weak, right?
But if you are consistent with Allah for
your stronger years, even when you begin deteriorating,
you're still getting rewarded for it.
The stuff you couldn't do, right?
Because as if you're saying to Allah, I'm
pushing, I'm going to do whatever I can.
I'm not going to accept excuses.
Then when really he takes away the opportunity
from you, he will not take away the
reward from you.
The prophet said, when the servant
falls sick or the servant travels, it is
written for him, meaning the full reward, all
that he used to do while he was
healthy, while he was resident.
I'm sorry, my mouse is misbehaving.
And this is also the reason why Jannah
is forever.
People usually don't ask, why is Jannah forever?
They usually ask, why is the fire forever?
The double standard of humanity, right?
But why is Jannah forever?
Because he, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, is the
one that ended your life at a certain
term.
But you proved in your life, you proved
in your life that you are going to
be consistent.
So he ended your life at 70.
He knows what you would have done if
you would have lived 7,000 years.
You would have worshipped him forever, as long
as you could have.
So he's going to reward you for it
forever.
And likewise, the other side.
People say, why is the hellfire forever, since
I brought it up?
It's because Allah knows from you that you
would have disbelieved forever.
He gave you this life to prove it
to yourself.
That is the oversight of many people, not
to laugh about this because it is a
light matter.
But people say, how come this?
He's showing you, the point of life is
to show you.
Pay attention.
Allah Azza wa Jal says, if you could
only see them as they stand over the
cliff of the fire.
And they say, ya laytana nurad, we wish
we could go back to this life.
Allah says, walaw ruddu la'adu lima nuhu
anhu.
And if they were sent back to this
world, they would once again repeat what they
were prohibited from.
Disbelief in Allah and deviant acts and misconduct.
They would go back and do it.
Can you imagine?
Even if they saw the hellfire and they
went back, they'd do it again and again
and again forever.
This is why the hellfire would be for
some people forever.
And then the surah ends by saying, fama
yukadhibuka ba'du biddeen.
How do they translate that one?
Now, after all of this, right?
How can you deny that there's going to
be judgment?
How can you deny the day of judgment?
How can you deny the worship of Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la and his
religion?
Alaysa Allahu bi-ahkamil haakimin.
Is Allah not the most wise of all
judges?
He's the most wise of all judges.
Therefore, you should be going to him for
judgment.
Right?
Isn't he the most wise?
Because if you reject the determinations of Allah,
right?
The revelation.
If you reject this, this is automatically an
accusation against the wisdom of Allah Subh'anaHu
Wa Ta-A'la.
They're inseparable.
Like when shaytan says, no, I'm not going
to prostrate.
Why?
Because he does not believe it's the right
thing to do.
He's accusing Allah's wisdom, right?
He even spelled it out.
He said, I'm made from fire.
He's made from...
Likewise, any person.
What are you talking about this rule, man?
It's 2024.
Sharia stuff is so outdated, right?
This means your fitrah, Allah created you in
the best stature, the best point of readiness
to receive the revelation and become the best
human being.
You've become deformed in your fitrah.
Shaytan has infected you, right?
With being critical of God and his wise
judgments.
This is what you need to keep in
mind.
You know, throughout the Quran, you find this
common theme that shaytan works to alter the
creation of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la, right?
And shaytan has declared, Allah's telling us his
words to warn us, right?
I will abduct a hefty share of your
servants, and I'm going to mislead them, and
I'm going to fill them with false wishes,
and I'm going to instruct them to clip
off the ears of the cattle.
This is a superstitious act they used to
do in Arabia.
Clip, alter creation of Allah, right?
And I will command them to alter, meaning
in other ways as well, the creation of
Allah.
All the time, being dissatisfied with your physical
creation is a part of that.
But also, he works to alter your fitrah,
your inner nature.
He works to alter it.
And when you find yourself incapable of accepting
Allah's judgments in his revelation, the theme of
the surah is because the fitrah has been
compromised.
The fitrah has been compromised.
That is why SubhanAllah, such a wise example
he gave, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, every
son of Adam is born upon the fitrah,
upon this pure state of readiness for Islam.
We're not born Muslim, by the way.
We're born in a state of readiness for
Islam, right?
Okay, he says, then his parents turn him
into a Jew or a Christian or a
fire worshiper.
You know this hadith, well-known hadith, that
because of socialization, they socialize him into Judaism
or Christianity or Magianism, fire worship, right?
Then he says, This
is just like the bahima, the animal, the
sheep or the cattle that is born full,
born whole.
No marring, right?
No missing parts.
Born whole, jama'a.
Do you detect any missing ears, any missing
nose in it?
Any amputations in its face?
What's he referring to?
He's saying the people, the people in Mecca
that have been tricked by shaitan pre-islam
to sort of mutilate their animals like this
for some superstitious reason, right?
They cut off its ears, subhanAllah, they cut
off its ears.
And the first thing shaitan tries to do
is plug your ears to the revelation.
It's unwise, it's outdated, or maybe he'll ease
it in slowly that it's not for our
generation at least, right?
Nothing to do with me.
He says just like the animals that are
missing their ears, their kids come out whole.
It's the reset.
Everyone has their because everyone will be fairly
accounted for or be held fairly accountable.
And so the point being, the more you
surround yourself, socialized, right?
With words other than the words of revelation,
the more critical you will be with revelation,
the more alien you will feel with the
revelation of Allah Azza wa Jal.
It will change you.
The other words will change you, change your
perspective, change your reference points, change your worldview.
You know Dr. Hatim al-Hajj, they asked
him a question once, and I'll close on
the surah with this, and it looks like
we're pushing al-Qadr to another day.
And I apologize for that.
But Dr. Hatim al-Hajj, they asked him
about the Muslim communities that, you know, struggle
to have their own fully separate graveyards.
Like what is the severity, because we can't
do any better right now, we can't mobilize
enough funds.
So he said the severity of being buried
with non-Muslims.
He said you should be more worried about
living with them.
Right?
I mean this is part of sort of
the sanctity of the Muslim, and he gets
his own dedicated graveyard, and all of this,
right?
But the bigger danger is not that.
If you tried your best, you couldn't find
them sort of okay.
But living with them is the bigger problem.
This doesn't mean hostility and animosity.
The whole khutbah today was about goodwill, and
it is about you being protective of what
will alter the way you hear Allah's revelation.
What will sabotage what you were created for,
which is ahsani taqweem, right?
To be the best of Allah's creation.
To have a reward uninterrupted.
Even the day that we get weak and
old.
Even the day we enter our graves.
Forever the reward will continue.
That is a big central theme in what
Surah At-Tin reminds us of, and we
are so much in need of it.
You notice that the theme is always like
that in Surah Juz Amma.
It's always telling us human nature and the
need for revelation.
The need for revelation and human nature, and
how people classify against those needs or addressing
those needs efficiently.
So may Allah Azza wa Jal teach us
that which benefits us, and benefit us that
which he taught us, and increase us in
knowledge and in action.
It would have been a full hour if
I started the other surah.
Yeah.
Yeah, some scholars some scholars would encourage for
people to