Nadim Ali – A Discussion On Surahtul Asr
AI: Summary ©
The importance of belief, willingness, and integrity in Islam is emphasized. The need for mindful behavior and personal development is emphasized, along with the importance of learning from the past and working towards helping the poor and homeless. The speaker emphasizes the need to strive for the best representatives of Islam, not treating Islam like a private club.
AI: Summary ©
Indeed, all praise belongs to Allah, the most
high. We thank him, and we seek his
aid, and we seek his forgiveness,
and we seek refuge with him from the
evil of ourselves
and from our bad actions.
Whoever Allah guides him, there's no one who
can mislead him, and whoever Allah calls to
go astray, there's no one to guide him.
And I bear witness that is no deity
except Allah who is unique and without partners,
and I bear witness that Muhammad is his
worshiper and his messenger. May the peace and
blessing of Allah be upon him and his
family and his companions and those who follow
them with good intentions until the day of
judgment.
Oh, you who believe, fear Allah as he
should be feared and don't die except as
Muslims. And, oh, mankind, be careful of your
duty to your ab who created you from
a single soul and from it created its
mate. And from the 2 of them, he
scattered forth many men and many women and
be careful of your duty to Allah whom
you demand your mutual rights and be careful
of your duty to the wounds that bore
you. Indeed,
Allah is over
you. Oh, you who believe, fear Allah and
always speak the truth. He will cause your
deeds to be beneficial, and he will forgive
for you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah
and his messenger, then he has truly
achieved a tremendous accomplishment.
And indeed, the best speech is the book
of Allah. And the best guidance is the
guidance of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and
the most evil of all affairs of newly
invented matters, which has no precedence in Islam.
And indeed, all innovations are astray, and each
astray is in the hellfire.
Oh, Allah.
Accept our du'a, and oh Allah, please forgive
us.
By the time,
mankind is indeed
lost,
except
those who
have faith and believe
and
in doing righteous deeds and advising each other
to truth
and advising
each other to patience,
and this is one of the first sores
that we learned for the most part,
and when we look at this particular
surah, it is something it is it is
so
weighty in wisdom,
weighty in wisdom,
because Allah talks about the time. And in
this verse, Allah takes an oath on time.
Allah sometimes
approved and strengthens his verses through vows,
and he sometimes uses the names of some
beings when he vows to indicate the importance
and the value of these beings for man.
So here in this verse, Allah manifest the
excellence of time to make us understand that
every moment is significant
for success.
You know, we have to look at this.
This is one of the things that we
have to look at about appreciating
time. They have a concept called time management.
How are we managing our time? And the
law says, verily,
management.
How are we managing our time? And the
law says, verily, mankind is lost. And when
the Quran states that
conclusively that man is lost, mankind is lost,
it implies that they are they are losers
in both this world and
in the hereafter, except for those except for
those who? Those who
enjoying one another in truth and patience.
You know, we have to look at that
the verses specifically. We're looking at the 3rd
verse. You know, the last of this verse,
it mentions that that you know, Allah mentions
that the conditions upon which our success and
failure depends. What are the conditions? The first
important condition is belief,
belief in Allah and his attributes,
belief in the hereafter and the reckoning, reward
and punishment, the divine books
reckoning,
reward and punishment, the divine books
and the prophets. Just belief. Belief. It's weighty.
Even with.
As the prophet
said, if it was placed on one side
of the scale and all of creation was
placed on the other side of the scale,
it would outweigh all of creation.
The second condition is the willingness to perform
righteous deeds. In the words of the prophet
he said that righteousness
is good behavior and sin is what fluctuates
in your heart, what fluctuates in your chest,
and you would hate for people to discover
that about you. And so we have to
be of those who are practicing
righteousness. That's our job description
based on
Surah Ta'asir.
And thirdly,
the verse asks us to enjoin
one another towards truth and patience. In other
words,
encouraging others to be righteous.
You know, we should live in isolation,
but rather try to create a believing and
righteous society
by encouraging one another. As the prophet
said, the Muslims should not touch a thing
unless they improve it. So if we're touching
the society,
we should work to improve it. Regarding the
comprehensiveness
of Surah Al Asa, imam Shafir Rahim Allah,
he said
if the people
only considered this verse,
well it alone would be sufficient for them
for their guidance. And so when we look
at that, that's from a giant in Islam.
This sword is
the importance of it is that we should
have we should be people of integrity.
We should have integrity
speaking the truth even if it's not in
our favor. As Allah says, be a witness
against yourself,
encouraging others
to be patient, and encouraging others to persevere,
to struggle,
not allow yourself to become disillusioned.
We should also help others find a way.
In other words, we should never stop giving
the dawah.
When I first came into Islam, there were
so many Muslims giving dawah. We've become lax
in that. So it's important to continue to
not treat Islam like a private club. We
should be the best representatives
of Islam. We should present Islam in the
best of lights.
You know, we should always be cognizant that
Allah is aware of all that we do,
brothers and sisters.
We have to be we have to understand
that. You know, like for instance, we have
supercomputers
that can do amazing things.
But the quantification
that Allah
will have,
it's immeasurable.
It's immeasurable. We can't even conceive the quantification.
As he says, he knows when every leaf
if a leaf falls, we must beware of
this fact and not tire of doing good
Not tire of doing good. We should never
burn out on doing good, brothers and sisters.
Yes. Take care of yourself,
but you want to be a one who
does good. This sword is a reminder of
who we're supposed to be.
We have to strive to be our best
selves. We have to strive to be of
those who are working towards
changing the society.
You know, you know, this time is just
an entity. It only exists in this world.
It won't exist in the hereafter.
You know, we often have difficulty accepting this
concept
and that can lead to despair.
That can lead to ways
of developing
an attitude of ingratitude, whereas Muslims, we should
have an attitude of gratitude and doing all
things. These are some of the things that
we have to work on, brothers and sisters,
because
as Allah says,
by the token of time,
mankind is lost except for those
except for those who enjoin in the mutual
teachings of truth with patience and constancy. So
these are some of the things that we
have to work on and use this particular
source specifically
if you are a new Muslim, if you
are a new Muslim, to be able to
find ways of
of
of of of it learning
the deen, not only learning the deen from
an intellectual perspective, but learning the deen learning
the deen from an intellectual perspective, but learning
the deen so that you are able to
to teach others. And even the original Muslims,
they would only know a little bit, but
they would teach what they knew. If they
only knew a few verses, they would teach
what they knew.
As they say that
iman can be practicing what you know, practicing
what you know. So
if you can memorize the whole Quran
and
if you're not practicing it, what good is
it? You're just a book. You just
could be placed on a shelf.
You know, I worked with people when I
worked in Saudi Arabia who
who memorized lots of Quran, but they couldn't
stop shooting heroin. They couldn't stop using drugs.
They couldn't stop engaging in behaviors that were
were inconsistent with with who we are supposed
to be as Muslims.
So these are some of the things that
we have to work on, that Islam is
not just something
that makes us parrots. You
know, we want to use
this deen to change ourselves. Use this deen
to improve our character because the prophet
said he only came
to change character, to improve the character of
mankind.
And so when we basically recognize that, then
Allah will elevate us. Allah will elevate us.
We're living in some trying times,
trying times.
As the prophet
said that during the last days,
people
will be killed and not knowing
why they're killed, and people will be killing
and not knowing why they are killing. We
look at this. Look what what happened in
Atlanta. Look at what happened in Boulder, Colorado.
You know, we have to really look at
that. These are signs brothers and sisters. And
so we have to increase our we have
to increase our worship. For those of you
who are new Muslims,
learn your deen. Learn your deen. And it
but the important thing is not just be
of those who want to memorize
but be of those who want to internalize
this deen. Because that's what
all of the previous civilizations
that came before.
And I truly believe
that this country has the ability to replicate
al Andalus,
the Muslim Spain,
because you have such diversity
in this society, and that was one of
the greatest cooperations between the the three great
religions, Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
And so we have so many people, different
people in this society, that I believe that
as as the Islam grows,
we have the ability
to repeat,
you know, what had happened in El Andalus.
And but we have to work towards
showing our better selves. We have to work
towards growing in our deen. We have to
work towards
not only helping the the poor, helping the
homeless. We should not be of those who,
you know, shoo away the the people who
are struggling.
You know, we have to start to put
institutions
together to not only help the Muslims, but
the not yet Muslims. This is one of
the things that we have to work on.
We have to work on it. And again,
by the time mankind is lost,
except for those who are joining the mutual
teachings of truth with patience and constancy.
Our lord, take us not to task if
we forget
or fall into error. Our lord, lay not
on us a burden that you did lay
on those who have gone before us. Our
lord, lay not on us a burden which
we do not have the power to bear
and overlook our faults and forgive us and
have mercy on us. You are our protector
and grant us a victory over the unbelieving
folk.