Morad Awad – The Infinite Wisdom of Allah Reflections On Our Times #2
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Everyone. And welcome
to the next episode of
Reflections
on Past Times.
Today insha Allah ta'ala we're going to talk
about a very very important subject.
And that is
the wisdom of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and our understanding of it.
There is no doubt that
everything happens by the decree of Allah and
by the wisdom of Allah and with the
knowledge of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
And because it happens
with the decree of Allah Subhanahu wa then
it's a divine
message from him. And it has a reason.
Allah
is
the cause for every effect that we see.
Anything that we see, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
Our wisdom
is limited.
We can
perceive some of the wisdoms of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala in our life but there is
no doubt
that the wisdom of Allah is much greater
and much vaster.
Our wisdom is limited. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's
wisdom is unlimited.
So
just as a brief example,
when
a teacher
decides to punish a student,
The teacher wants to make this student an
example to the other students.
And
the teacher decides
on what to do to the student so
that number 1, the student can learn a
lesson.
And number 2, the other students in class
can learn a lesson.
And that is the limitation of the wisdom
of the teacher.
You can add 1 or 2 things but
there is a limit to that wisdom.
Does the teacher's action
take into consideration
the feelings
of the boy or the girl's friends in
the neighborhood that are going to hear about
this punishment?
Does
the teacher's
action take into consideration
or does the teacher take into consideration
what the parents of this child
are going to think or feel?
Does
the teacher take into consideration
what the parents of the other students in
class are going to think or feel? No.
And that is the limitation of our wisdom.
Allah
has infinite
wisdom.
So when something happens
you have to know that it happens with
the wisdom of Allah
Allah and His wisdom only.
And that everyone
who it affects
and everyone who lives in its time and
hears about it, or doesn't hear about it,
or hears about it late,
hears about it in the time they hear
about it or feel it in the time
they feel it or sense it in the
time they sense it
with
a divine wisdom from Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
And this is
part of the meaning of the name of
Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, Al Hakim.
The all wise. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is
the wise.
There is nothing that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala
does
to us or makes us live through except
that it has a wisdom.
Whoever knows it, knows it. And whoever does
not, does not.
But we
have to understand
that
we will never
understand all of the wisdoms of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Okay.
So the wisdom
of what is happening today. Today
perhaps this is the first time and insha'Allah
the last time
that our generations
see something like this. This is a pandemic
and there's no doubt
that it is happening with the wisdom of
Allah
And there's no doubt
that
Allah is testing us with this so that
we can learn something.
But what?
What is it that Allah
wants us to learn?
This is what we should be
reflecting on right now.
When we're at home sitting on our couches,
holding our phones, okay.
Flipping, you know, social media,
watching different videos,
playing different games, doing our homework, studying for
a test
but we have a lot of time that
we didn't have before.
We should be thinking to ourselves,
what is the wisdom
behind this for me? What did Allah
want me to learn from this?
And
I think if we if we began to
think like that,
we
will definitely
start to change.
And if we start to change,
then know
for a fact that
Allah will aid you and assist you in
this change.
If you were never as practicing or as
religious or as spiritual as you thought as
you wanted to be, then know
that this
is the time
to change. Because Allah
in the ayat, he mentioned tests,
punishments,
that that befell the people before us.
Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said,
so that they may return.
Return to who? Return to Allah Subhanahu wa
Ta'ala.
And Allah
also said,
so they can humble themselves to Allah. Some
people think that, you know, they they control
everything.
Some people think that
nothing can happen to them because they're strong.
They planned everything. It's all planned out. What
can possibly go wrong? Allah
tests them the way,
we are being tested today just so they
know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala from above 7
heavens is the 1 in control and not
you. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants us
to learn that we are da'if. We are
weak. Allah subhanahu wa'ala said,
So
now Right now we're reflecting.
Okay. So I want to help you
reflect. And this is the purpose of this
lecture series inshaAllah.
How am I going to do that?
I want you to think.
What
is the reason
that this is happening? What does Allah
want to teach me from this?
From this situation?
Okay.
That's number 1.
So
I'm going to help you
discovering that today, inshaAllah.
I want you to discover it. I want
you to find out
with a series of questions and some examples.
InshaAllah, that'll teach us,
teach us, inshaAllah, a lesson.
The first thing
that we can learn
is
the scales that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala measures
things with.
Our scale
and the scale of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
are completely different.
And the more they meet and match up,
the more obedient
we are to Allah.
When something is a big deal,
then
if it's a big deal to us, I
mean,
then
is it necessarily a big deal in the
scales of Allah
Maybe not.
Something may be light in in our eyes
but very heavy on the scales of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I'll give an example.
So one time I was I was in
Madinah
and one of my shiyu, kafidullah ta'ala, may
Allah protect him,
he gave a story.
And
he said, Subhanallah guys, you know what happened?
I said, What happened?
All the students were sitting there. They said,
Okay. Sheikh Huwah. He's like, I have a
crazy story for you.
He said,
in the courts
a couple of years ago, somebody walked in.
A young man.
He walked in,
to the courts, to the Islamic courts. And
this is in in in Madinah.
And he said, I want to marry my
mother.
And all the judges were saying, Astaghfirullah, yakhtakillah.
What are you doing? What are you talking
about?
He said, Yes. That's what I want to
do. I want to marry him. I have
2 witnesses.
Look, she wants to, I want to, that's
it. Like the conditions are there. What else
you guys want?
They said, What
are you doing? What are you talking?
Is there something wrong with your head? And
they kept trying to convince him and convince
him, But what?
He's like, No.
I want to do it. What do you
think of a person like this?
Awwdu billah. Disgusting.
Such a misguided person. Right?
This
is very disgusting
in our eyes. Right?
Something that is totally unacceptable.
But in the skills
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
adinar
adinar
from riba, of
usury, of riba.
A dinar
like 1
unit
whether it's dollar, dinar, dirham.
1 dinar
of riba, usury,
is heavier in the scales of Allah than
this action.
But people
look at us or you ask something very
light. Something that's, Oh yeah. It's just it's
just a dollar. Just a dinar, just a
dirham.
No, but in the scales of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, it's completely different.
So
we need to readjust our scales.
That's the first thing.
Are our skills right?
Do I see something
as heavy as
I should see it or not?
Now.
Debt
is one of the heaviest things on a
Muslim. In this dunya and in the akhirah.
The Prophet
in every salah he would say, O Allah,
I seek refuge in you from debt.
Being indebted to others.
And the Prophet
also
didn't pray on the janazah of 1 of
the companions
because he was in debt.
Debt is not forgiven on the day of
judgement.
Debt is something the person
who
they are indebted to has to forgive them
for. If they don't, then it's very heavy
on the day of judgment.
Very heavy. And the hadith about this are
many.
But
are our skills right?
That's the first that's the first point inshaAllah.
So
another point. Are we
from the people of the dunni or the
akhirah?
Did you ever think to yourself like, Hey,
you know,
I wonder what type of person I am.
Am I a person whose heart is attached
to the duniya or whose heart is attached
to the akhirah?
And I'm going to give you like a
small litmus test
to see
that you can use,
yourself
to
be a witness on your own hearts.
So you can like begin this,
introspective,
journey.
So
when you daydream,
when you daydream, you know, sometimes people sit
back, they think,
they think about things and then, you know,
they start daydreaming. Their their minds go off
into la la land. They start thinking about
stuff.
Think about the last time you daydreamed.
What were you daydreaming about?
What were you thinking about?
What is it that's on your mind so
much
that
you even dream in the daytime about that
thing? And I'm not even talking about night
dream. I'm talking about day dream.
If every time you day dream
it's about
the dunya,
then your heart is attached to the dunya.
And if every time you daydream it's about
the akhirah, then your heart is attached to
the akhira. Why am I saying this? This
is a it's a strong assertion,
right? But
when a person
thinks of something a lot and a person
lives,
lives in what they think and they feel.
It's running through their blood. It's in their
emotions. It's in their heart. It's in their
mind.
It's in their soul.
When the akhirah is there,
all you're going to daydream about is the
akhirah. You'll be sitting back just after reading
a a surah in the Quran, you'll be
thinking of what? Jannah. I wonder what jannah
looks like.
I wonder what
the akhirah
is going to be like.
You Allah, what is the barzakh life like?
What did I prepare for? And then you
daydream.
But when a person is only daydreaming about
the dunya,
then how can they claim that their heart
is connected to the akhirah? So that's another,
that's a litmus test.
So do
do we weigh things in the scales,
in the correct,
the way Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wants us
to weigh them? Are they are our scales
similar
to the scale of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala?
There's no doubt, Yaqwah, looking at what's happening
in the world,
we see a lot of interpretations,
a lot of, you know, conspiracy
as to where this
this coronavirus or this pandemic began or how
it began or why it began. With all
the theories, those are all irrelevant.
That's irrelevant to us. Why? Because the fact
that it's happening means that Allah
decreed it to happen. That's it.
And to a believer, that's all that matters.
There's nothing else that matters. What matters is
that Allah
decreed it and how can I
reflect on the situation that we're in so
that I can draw closer to Allah
And that's what we should be thinking?
The way they can, you know,
the disbelievers
can study and can research and can talk
and they can
think of the causes.
But the ultimate cause for all of this
is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's decree alone.
And that is what the believer should connect
themselves with. That's it.
So we don't a believer shouldn't be running
around
these
conspiracy theories
and where it began and how it began,
why it began, and getting lost in that
while neglecting
the other side, which
is what does Allah
with His divine wisdom want me to learn
in this situation?
The majority of our thinking
should be that.
Does that mean we don't research? Of course,
no. We research, we study, we protect, we
prevent, we do the best we can but
our heart
should be only connected to Allah Subhanahu wa
Ta'ala.
And trying to understand
the wisdom
of
Allah
in making me live through something like this.
That's what we should be thinking of.
Because the disbelievers don't
think of anything past
what is dahir. Allah
said,
They know the surface of the dunya.
And they are heedless to to the matters
of the hereafter.
Absolutely nothing.
Tell them tell me about the virus. It's
like this. It's contagious via this. It does
that. It does that. It spreads at this
exponential rate and then Okay.
That's not all a believer should be talking
about. And that's not all a believer what
all a believer should
should busy themselves or occupy themselves with.
So
reflecting.
Alright? And that's the title of this lecture.
So all of these
should help you reflect
on yourself
now.
Somebody might be busy thinking of their future.
Allah. What's the future going to be like?
What is this world going to be like?
What's the economy going to be like? Am
I still going to have a job? Am
I still going to have a car? Am
I going to have to do this? Am
I going to do that?
Are half of my neighbors going to die?
You shouldn't think of the future like that.
It shouldn't trouble you as a believer.
As a Muslim
that believes in Allah and that believes in
the decree of Allah you should be thinking
of now.
K.
Think of the past
and think of what's happening now and how
you can benefit from what's happening. That's it.
That's exactly what you should be thinking of.
How can I develop myself? How can I
grow myself?
What can I do to make myself better?
So all of this talk
about, okay, I wonder how the future is
gonna be. Am I gonna get a degree
or not get a degree?
Am I going to make it to the
team or not make it to the team?
This is all irrelevant right now.
You can plan for it,
okay? Plan for whatever circumstance but do not
let your heart be attached to it.
Absolutely not.
Ibn Uqayr
he said
that tawakul,
true trust in Allah
and I want you to pay attention to
this one. He said true trust in Allah
is when the limbs,
the limbs including the mind and the body,
are
so
attached
to this world. Meaning in planning,
in thinking of the past, the future, learning
your lesson, and what you're going to do.
Right? So your limbs are occupied with that
completely
as if there's no.
Wow. That's a big one. Right?
So your limbs are occupied with the matters
of the dunya as if there's no.
But the heart and this is the this
is the crux of it right
here. The heart, and this is what we're
talking about,
is
attached
to the akhirah as if there's no dunya.
Allahu Akbar.
Okay. Let me run that back.
The body This is what trust in Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is. The body
is attached
to the causes, the asbaab of this dunya,
as if there is no akhir.
You're thinking,
you're
planning,
you're strategizing as if there's no akhir.
But the heart
is only attached to the akhir, as if
there's no dunya.
How do you balance between that?
It's very difficult.
Actually it's not that difficult.
Because
the heart
Like the sadaqul Mazdook, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said.
He said,
that the heart
he said,
that there is a part
in the body.
There's a body part that if it's good,
then everything in the body becomes good.
And if it is bad, then everything in
the body
becomes bad.
He said,
indeed it is
the heart.
And that's the only body part
we need to focus on right now.
When we're thinking of ourselves
inside ourselves, what we occupy
ourselves with on our free time is connecting
ourselves with Allah with
Ta'akhirah.
Connecting ourselves.
Develop habits
right now. You never spend time with your
wife and kids. You never spend time with
your parents. You never spend time with your
siblings.
Now is the time to develop a routine,
to start spending quality time with them.
Now is the time to change.
You never had time to read your word
and Quran, now is the time to develop
a habit
and to make it a lifestyle.
They say, you know,
in a few days you can develop a
habit and then 40 days it becomes a
lifestyle. It
sticks to you.
So
this is most
It might last 40 days or more than
40 days or less than 40 days. We
don't know.
But start developing your lifestyle right now so
that
when everything opens up again
and things go back to normal,
then by then
you can be one of 2 people.
And by the way, it can take 3,
6,
3, 6 months, a year, year and a
half, however long it takes.
What matters is
there are only 2 types of people that
leave
their houses when things go back tomorrow. The
person that says, Alhamdulillah,
for this time.
Alhamdulillah. If it wasn't for this pandemic
and me staying home, I would have never
knew how much I loved my wife and
kids. I would have never knew how much
I loved my husband. I would have never
knew how much I loved my siblings. I
would have never knew how much
I I I love breeding.
All you can start by developing these habits
right now.
You can start by making a lifestyle for
yourself that's beneficial.
A person can come out a year later,
laqaddirullah, inshaAllah, doesn't last that long. But I'm
saying you can leave and you can say,
alhamdulillah, I memorized this much Qur'an.
I read this many books.
I had so much I had really good
times with my family. I did this. I
did that. That project I always had on
hold, alhamdulillah. I did it. I completed it.
I registered for this online course that I
never had time to do. There's so many
things that you can do.
Start right now
by
busying yourself with good.
Busying yourself with good. Yeah. Imam al Shafi'arrihamullah,
He has a profound saying. I want you
to remember I actually have it. It's on
a portrait in my house
because it reminds me all the time. So
alhamdulillahjazala
khair, my wife drew it and she,
she wrote it up. She colored it. It's
on a beautiful canvas Right there in my
living room. Every day I walk into my
living room, that's the first thing I see.
Imam al Shafa said,
He said, if you don't busy yourself with
truth, by default it's going to busy itself
with falsehood.
If you do not busy yourself with good,
by default, it's going to busy you with
what?
With falsehood.
So
let's
start building the schedule for ourselves, right?
What I'm gonna do every day in the
morning, what time I'm going to study,
what time I'm going to sleep until,
when I'm going to pray my adkar in
the morning. That's very important.
Read my Quran in the morning.
Read the news. That's important.
Read
books, okay. Have a certain number of pages
that you want to read, okay.
Then you have breakfast,
you can and like do your studies, have
a couple hours set
aside to do a certain, you know, if
you have if you go to high school,
college, university, anything.
Just have a good schedule for yourself. Plan
it out.
So that when you leave this pandemic, you
live accomplished.
And you say, Alhamdulillah,
Allah
decreed this and now I understand
the wisdom behind it.
That's what we want.
And the prophet
said, and I'll end with this,
Said, it's very weird
or very interesting, the matters of a believer.
What is interesting? The prophet
said,
If something good happened to them, they thanked
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and it was better
for them.
And
in asaba
tudarah,
you know, shakar fakan khairullah or sabar fakan
khairullah.
And if something bad happens to them, they
were patient and it was good for them.
So be
patient. Plan your life.
Replace the bad habits with good habits.
Build a good routine for yourself.
Start this mission of introspection.
Look into your heart. Okay. Classify yourself. And
insha Allah ta'ala,
next episode
we're going to talk about the 6 levels
of of change that happen in the heart
of a person on their path to Allah
Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
So tune in inshallah. It's going to be
this Thursday.
Jazaakumullah khayr. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make
us from those who hear
the word
and follow
that which is best from it. May Allah
forgive me for any mistake that I said.
May Allah
aid us in these crucial times
and make us from the people
who follow the straight path. Ameen yarabbal aalameen
wajazakumullah
khair, wasalaamalaykum
warahmatullahi