Mustafa Khattab – Tafsir Gems 8
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So everyone speaks English. Right? Mhmm. Urdu? Yeah.
Okay.
No, Harvey? No. We'll do English inshallah. No.
And Urdu. Urdu. Okay. Okay. Salaam Alaikum Assam.
So a quick announcement before we start inshallah.
Next Friday,
24th, 7 to 9, we have a guest
speaker from the UK,
brother Saboor Ahmed. He's he's coming to give
us a very important talk about atheism and
evolution from a Muslim perspective.
And, brother Saboor, Mashallah, he's a dawah expert,
a coach,
and he gives a lot of training on
dawah, and he does a lot of debates
and so on and so forth. So he's
coming all the way from the UK to
give us this lecture,
and, he will be giving training,
the next day, Saturday at Kuper Masjid. So
we're working with him, InshaAllah.
So I always get this question.
Okay. We read the Quran, but it doesn't
touch us. Right?
The Quran is a good book, it's from
Allah
but it doesn't talk to me, it doesn't
touch me. Right?
This is a common
complaint or concern that we get from some
people, that I read the Quran, but it
doesn't touch me as as a Muslim.
I'm going to start with a little,
story
about someone from Egypt. You know, some of
the people, the villagers, they are innocent people,
decent people, but, you know, their level of
education is not that high.
I'm talking about my people. I'm not talking
criticizing anyone. Like, people in my village, growing
up in the village
40 years ago,
I would say
95% of the people were not educated.
So this guy,
a farmer, he got a problem in his
ear, and he went to the doctor. It's
a true story that happened
in Egypt, in upper Egypt. So the guy
went to the doctor and he said, I
have a problem in my ear, I can't
hear. There's a lot of pain, and you
know, know, I can't hear anything.
So the doctor gave him antibiotics,
and he gave him, you know,
a tablet of antibiotics, and he said, take
one every 6 hours. And after 2, 3
days, you should be good.
The next day,
the same patient came back. He was supposed
to take
antibiotics for 3 days, but just one day,
and he came back and he said, the
pain is unbearable.
I'm taking the medication, but there is no
improvement, It it my condition is getting worse.
So the doctor said, yeah. I know, but,
you know, it's gonna take a couple of
days, 3 days, and you will get better
until the, you know, the medicine
dissolves in your body and it starts to
function. It takes some time. He said, but
I can't take this medicine anymore. It's it's
killing me. It's causing me a lot of
harm. It it's not working for me. So
the doctor said, okay. What is the problem?
He said, every time I put
the pill in my ear,
it's it's harming me, and I keep putting
the every 6 hours I put a pill
in my ear,
and it's killing me, man. So it turned
out the guy was taking the light medication,
but in the wrong way. He was putting
the pill in his ear, not in his
mouth. Right?
So,
I've met people, I've met people,
Some people are half of the Quran,
and their actions are not Islamic in any
way. Their actions are devilish. Like, they know
the whole Quran by heart, They have the
Quran inside their heart, but it didn't affect
them at all. They are horrible people. Right?
And subhanAllah, sometimes you meet people who don't
know,
you know, they don't know much. They know
and so on and so forth, and they're
good people.
So what is the problem?
So
we have to understand that
the Quran is the word of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala,
and everything you need is there in that
Quran because as we read in the Quran,
every prophet came with a message,
whether they had a book or not or
they just came to confirm
the earlier prophets,
they came to a particular peep
Wailea Thamud Aghaom Salihah, to the people of
Thamud Wissent Salih alaihi salaam, and to Madyan
Alaihi salaam tribe, to the people of Madyan
Wissent tribe,
and and, and so on and so forth.
Every prophet came to their people, Muhammad salaam
came to everyone.
So
the other day I received a question. I'm
digressing a little bit, but I'm going to
come back to the real issue.
I got a question from a student from
the Islamic Academy here, and mashAllah, most of
the questions are excellent.
Sometimes I get brilliant questions like, Okay, mashAllah
when we live on the moon, which way
will we pray? Which way is the qiblah?
I don't know, I've not been there before.
And so on and so forth. And
one of the questions was,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala based on a hadith,
in in the Haben, some and they say
the hadith was authentic, some question the hadith,
but anyway, there are so many prophets who
have been sent. So in this hadith, the
prophet salallahu wa ta'ala said, from Adam to
Muhammad, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent a total
of
a 124,000
Prophets.
Not every one of them had a book,
they just came to confirm, so the question
was, why didn't Allah
mention every single Prophet in the Quran? So
So I told him, if Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala just mentioned the names of these Prophets,
124,000,
the Quran will end up like the old
pages,
just names,
124,000,
and what will be the benefit of the
book.
But Allah
focuses on highlights
from the lives of some of these prophets.
I hate this mic. So
so
Yeah, maybe this one is working.
Yeah. We have some sisters, so we have
to use the mic. So,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in the Quran,
We mentioned some of these prophets
by
name, 25 of them are mentioned in the
Quran, but the rest are not mentioned.
So Allah made it very clear,
and there is no need
for for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to mention
every single Prophet by name, and their stories,
and because as I said, otherwise you will
end up with something like Encyclopedia Britannica. The
Quran is not a history book,
but it's a book of science.
Right?
So
when I looked deeply into the Quran, I
realized something,
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent prophets for
different reasons,
to fight
different illnesses in their societies, but the focus
of every mission was something different.
Now let's say for example someone like Shua'i
alaihis salam.
Every time you read in the Quran in
Surah Araf, in Surah Uhud, in Surah Sharraf,
when he talks about Shua'i alaihis salam, he
had
one big problem in his society that didn't
exist in most of the other societies.
So every Prophet had to deal with one
major issue in his time, or at his
time. So Shoaib alaihis salam, his people
were crooks,
chor,
They were thieves.
Every time they sell you something, they steal.
Every time they buy you buy something from
them, they steal.
If if they shake your hand, one finger
is missing.
If they give you a hug, your underwear
is lost.
Chor, thieves. They steal everything from you, man.
Right? And this is why, Shoaibari is the
alful kayilawat
give people
the perfect weight, don't steal from people, give
them everything,
take your right, but give them the rights,
and so on and so on. He he
came to fix the measures
and to give people the rights.
You feel when you read the story of
Musa alaihis salam, he came to deal with
political corruption.
So Shawayid came alaihis salam came mostly to
deal with financial corruption.
Musa alaihis salam came to deal with political
corruption.
Lut alaihis salam came to deal with social
corruption, social problems,
and so on and so forth. Ibrahim had
had issues to deal with. Yusuf alaihis salam
came to deal
with siblings rivalry
in society, and so on and so forth,
and the issues that the youth face, and
and all these issues.
So Muhammad
he was the last one of them, and
this is why when you read the Quran
it talks about everything.
The Quran talks about your life in this
world. It talks about life in akhra. It
talks about war and peace. It talks about
social life. It talks about family life, marriage,
divorce, kids,
everyone's rights and responsibilities.
Divorce, rights after divorce, inheritance, custody of the
kids. It talks about buying, selling, renting, hiring,
financial issues, political issues, and so on and
so forth.
So it talks about a wide range of
issues and it cites these prophets as examples
on how to live a good balanced life
as a Muslim
in terms of finances, social life, political life,
economic life, and so on and so forth.
So why am I telling you this? I'm
telling you this to realize that everything you
need in the Quran
is there in the Quran, and also the
sunnah compliments
or explains
the Quran.
So if you have issues with your wife,
or a sister has an issue with her
husband, the Quran is there to explain, and
the sunnah of the Prophet is there to
explain.
And so on and so forth. So sometimes
people come to me,
and for example it is time for talaq,
we have tried everything, they are not listening,
everyone is talking to their family or their
friends, and they filling their brains with garbage,
and they're not listening to the imam. You
tell them this is what Allah said, this
is what the Prophet said, no, no, no.
Because
they want
something more than what the Quran and the
sunnah promises them.
They want more. So you tell them about
the law of the king,
you tell them about the law of the
king, they say no, we want the law
of the queen. Okay. It's up to you.
Why did you come to me in the
first place?
You shouldn't have come to me, you know.
So one sister came to me one time,
and you know, she said, you know, I
don't want, you know,
the law of the masjid, I just want
to go to the court because the court
will give me more. I said, why didn't
you come to me? You should have gone
to the court. And I told her your
husband is my friend, I know him.
We see each other all the time, your
husband is broke, he doesn't have money, Sharia
will give you more.
You will get money, you will get everything,
but if you go to the court, the
guy is broke, he doesn't have anything,
you know. So you have this and you
have this.
So sometimes we'll put,
some people put what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says in the Quran behind their backs because
they have,
you know, they can't get more from somewhere
else,
at the expense of other people.
And we know in Islam, if some if
you get something extra, more than what you
deserve, you have to return the extra. You
take what is right for yours, but what
is extra, you give it back.
So everything you look for in your relationship
with your parents, with your wife, with your
kids, social life, political life, financial life, everything
is there. And the reason is, as I
always say, the Quran is your manual as
a Muslim,
as supplemented by this Sunnah, of course. So
for example, if you buy a laptop, if
you buy a a phone, if you buy
something,
it comes with a manual. A car a
car has a manual. It has this book
this thick, it tells you this is how
you open the window, this is how the
car functions,
if you use it this day, this way
everything is good, if you use it another
way, everything will break down.
Right?
So yeah, so we have to follow the
manual to be able to function. So Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is our manufacturer,
and he said the Quran, that if you
follow the Quran, the do's and don'ts, you
will be able to function.
There was a Muslim from the US, he
accepted Islam many years ago, and he said
there's, he started many different he looked into
different face. He looked into Buddhism,
all the isms.
And he said when he first read the
Quran, he wrote opened the Quran at a
random page.
He didn't know where to start, right, left,
he didn't know. He just opened the random
page and it was Surah Nisa.
And he said,
ayah number 1,
Then, you know, a couple of hours later,
Give your children like this. Every single ayah,
the whoever author this book, every single ayah
was telling me, do this. Don't do this.
Do this. Woah. Woah. Woah. Who is this?
Like,
he's talking with authority. Like he's telling me
do this, it's good for you, don't do
this, it's bad for you. He said, what
I liked about the book from the first
page I read was it speaks with authority.
It tells me do this, it's good for
you, don't do this, it's bad for you.
I haven't read anything like this before, and
eventually he accepted Islam.
So this is number 1. Number 2,
when you read the Quran,
you have to understand the meaning. The Quran
is probably the only book that is memorized
by 1,000,000, although many of them they don't
know what they are reading. Yes, it is
good to be a haveid, alhamdulillah.
But what's your contribution?
Your contribution is another copy of the book.
This you know, this is not enough of
a contribution. Your contribution should be understanding and
applying.
Haft is the basic level. This is level
number 1, alhamdulillah.
But once you get your Haftz ijazah and
everything, you need to move to the next
level which is understanding,
and reflecting, and applying.
Right?
So
memorization is good, but understanding and applying is
better. Right? So,
if it says this is haram, avoid it.
If it says this is halal, do it,
and so on and so forth. And this
is the approach of the Sahaba. They used
to understand the Quran, and they used to
apply it.
He says,
there
is this special category when
The Prophet speaks about them in an authentic
hadith, and he said Allah will give them
tijalul minur, crowns of light, and they will
be honored in front of everyone. So Imam
Ibn Al Qayim said, do you know who
these people are? He said, they are the
people of the Quran, who understand, reflect on
the Quran, and they apply it in their
life. What is halal? They make it halal.
What is haram? They make it haram.
He says, if you understand the Quran, even
in Tarjama, if you don't speak Arabic because
85% of Muslims are not Arab, they don't
speak
Arabic. Instead of you understand it, even in
Tarshama or Tafsir,
and you reflect on the Quran,
and you dig deep in the Quran, you
take these gems, and you apply it to
your life,
you would be one of those people in
your murkaban, even if you are not hafid.
But if you are hafid, and you don't
understand, and you don't apply, you don't reflect
on the Quran, you will not be called
from these people, even if you are hafid.
So heaven is important but it is not
everything.
So you will not be touched by the
Quran, you will not be moved by the
Quran if you don't understand. You have to
understand what it says. And number 3, and
this is the last one for today inshallah.
The Quran should talk to you.
The Quran should talk to you. Like every
time you read something in the Quran, it
should touch you because Allah is talking to
you. He's not talking to anyone else. This
should be your approach.
If it says this is haram, this is
haram for you, not your cousin, not your
name, it's talking to you. Right?
If it says, Ribay is haram, Ribay is
haram for me.
Oh, everyone is a chore, everyone is a
thief, no.
It's talking to you. And this is the
way the sahaba understood it, and the Prophet
himself
understood it.
Hadith, the Prophet he
started to pray one night, and he came
across this ayah at the end of Surah
Mahidah,
So
they say in the hadith, the whole night
the Prophet was standing in salah reciting 1
ayah and crying, reciting 1 ayah and crying.
Just 1 ayah, a few words. Because it's
so powerful in Arabic. So he felt the
meaning, and it touched him, and it moved
him, and the whole night he was reading
1 ayah.
Another example, and I will finish with them
with this inshaAllah.
Abdullah ibn Rawaha, one of the great Sahaba,
one day his wife was sitting like this,
he was not feeling well,
so he was sleeping on his wife's lap,
and he started to cry.
He started to cry.
So his wife cried,
subhanAllah. He didn't say anything, he just started
to cry, so she cried.
So he said, I know why I cried,
why are you crying? His wife. She said,
I'm crying because you're crying. I'm giving you
like emotional support. I don't know why you're
crying, but I feel you. Right?
So he said the reason I cried is
because when I was sitting here, I was
reflecting on the Quran
where it says,
Every one of you will pass over Jahannam,
this ayah in the Quran. So he said,
I started to think,
will I be able to cross the bridge
safely to the other side, or I will
fall down in jahannam?
So I started to cry because I was
afraid, you know. So because
the ayah is talking in general to the
believers or humanity in general, but he took
it to be talking to him personally.
And he took he started to apply it
to himself. So every time you read the
Quran, try to understand it.
I'm not impressed when someone says, I finish
Quran everyday or every 2 days. Right? This
is not the point.
I would rather finish the Quran in a
month or 2 or 3 months
with than to finish it everyday no tafkir,
no tafkir.
Come on man, what is this?
You know, you need to reflect and think
about the Quran,
and you need to understand it, and you
know that this is the word of Allah
and it is talking to you, not anyone
else. And whatever Quran makes halal, make it
halal, whatever He makes halal, make it halal.
And we'll continue next week inshallah. We ask
Allah
to give us the best in this life
and the best in the life to come
and give us sincerity in everything we say
and do.
And see you on Friday
7 to 9 PM for the lecture by,
brother Subhora Ahmed from the UK.