Nadim Bashir – Community Ethics – Surah Hujurat Tafsir Verse 7
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Before Ramadan, we started the tafsir after on
Saturdays after Sadaf Fajr, we started the tafsir
of Surat Al Hajarat.
And the intention behind starting this tafsir
is simply because we all live in a
community,
and there are certain ethics that we have
to apply,
and we must uphold in order for our
communities to to thrive,
in order to maintain peace within our communities.
And of course, this is all again, a
reminder for all of us. We started the
tafsir
of the Surah, and we got through approximately
6 verses of the Surah.
The last ayah that we covered was,
A simple message behind this verse is that
whenever This is Allah telling Rasulullah alaihi wa
sallam,
but in essence, he is in telling he
is telling the entire ummah. Whenever anyone brings
you any news,
before you react to that news, make sure
you do your investigation.
Make sure you do your full thorough research
behind the story.
Because the Quran says to the prophet shalallahu
alaihi wa sallam, and he's telling And Allah
is telling us,
if you were to take action
on the news that comes to you
without your research,
then you could do something that you could
be regretful about later on.
You could be regretful over your actions.
So this is the last ayah that we
covered. The next ayah is
ayah number 7. Allah says,
Now in the Quran, whenever Allah says,
This is no different than the word
Like Allah says in Surat Al Hadid.
When Allah talks about the reality of this
dunya,
Allah is breaking down what this duniya is.
What this duniya shows us is one thing,
but the reality on the back end, Allah
is telling us in this verse. Allah began
the verse with
This is the same thing.
And to help you understand
how great
and how important this word is.
You know, imagine if you're watching an infomercial,
and the infomercial starts off by saying warning.
Warning. And it's red, and it's blinking over
and over again. Or you see the word
beware.
As soon as you see something like this,
you know immediately,
I need to pay attention. There's some very
important information that's about to be shared. When
Allah says,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it's exactly the same
way Allah is saying, beware of this information.
It's a warning to everyone.
What is the warning? What Allah
is trying to convey to us? And what
is he trying to tell the sahaba? He
says,
In your midst
you have Rasulullah.
Now, this is Allah telling the sahaba that
do you understand the magnitude of this matter?
You don't have any random person.
The greatest person
in human civilization
is in your midst.
So think about this, you know when a
when a when a guest is about to
come to our house, what do we tell
our children? Look, I have a very important
guest. This is a very important person to
me. I want you to be on your
best behavior. We tell this to our own
children.
Likewise, Allah is telling the sahaba,
do you understand
that who you have in your company, you
have Rasulullah.
You better be on your best behavior. You
better behave in the best way possible. And
this is why there are other ayaats
where Allah is instructing
the sahaba how to behave
around Rasulullah
And in essence,
Allah is telling us how we should behave
in the company of the prophet Now, a
person can ask one simple question.
I understand
or we understand
when Allah tells the sahabah
that the Prophet is in your is your
company or he's in your gathering.
But what about us?
We don't see rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
We're not around
rasulullah How does this ayah apply to us?
And the answer is very simple.
The prophet
physically may not be present amongst us,
but his guidance is amongst us. His sunnah
is with us.
His guidelines
is with us. His advices are with us.
So this is us benefiting
from
Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says something very
beautiful. He says,
This is the very first part of the
sentence. Allah is telling the Sahaba that if
you believe
that your opinions
are more logical,
and they make more sense,
and if you believe that the that the
prophet
should listen to you in your affairs, and
in your matters,
This will cause you a great deal of
harm.
Now think about this. In the previous verse,
very beautifully, what did Allah say? If they
come to you,
oh Rasool Allah,
do your research.
In this verse, Allah is telling the believers
that if the prophet comes to you,
it will cause you undue harm. It will
cause you immense amount of harm. So Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is telling the sahaba
that no matter how much you think you
know
more than rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, the
most important thing is in terms of the
hierarchy,
the first thing that comes is
the opinion of Allah and the opinion of
rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam. This is what
comes first.
Our
opinions, they come secondary.
And then also we find a great example
of this, where in the sire of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Where 3 men
came to the doors, and to the house
of our mother Aisha
And what did they say? That we will
One said, I will never ever sleep at
night.
The other person said what?
I'm gonna fast
every single day. And the third one said
what?
I'm
gonna stay away from women. What did the
prophet say? That see, you see these three
people,
they came. And what were they trying to
show is that no matter who the prophet
is,
we, our taqwa, is here.
My abstinence is here.
My my spirituality
is up here. And perhaps it may be
down here.
And what did the prophet say waslam tell
them? That no. You see, once again, Allah
is telling that that if you think that
you are smarter, and your opinions matter more
than the
First comes Rasulullah
And though you might think that you have
more spirituality
than rasulullah sallam, but what you're doing is
not right. And that is why the prophet
later on when he came home, what did
he say? What happened, o Aisha? Aisha radiAllahu
anha says, these 3 men came. What did
the prophet say? He says, I am more
fearful to Allah than these 3 people, but
I also engage in marriage. And there are
times of the night when I also sleep,
And there are times of the night when
I wake up, and I engage in an
ibadah. And there are days when I fast,
and there are days when I don't fast.
So once again, this is the very first
thing that Allah subhanahu wa'ala is telling the
believers.
The second thing that Allah subhanahu wa'ala is
telling the believers is
This is also a very beautiful sentence. Allah
is telling us that
what he has made beautiful in our hearts
is
Allah has made beloved to us
iman and faith in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
But see, you know, how You know the
word hub. Hub in Arabic means what?
A seed.
Okay? In the law as saliqul hub. Right?
A seed. When you plant a seed into
the ground,
does that grow immediately?
No, it does not. It takes time.
Likewise, when it comes to the hub,
when it comes to the love of Allah
and the love of iman, it takes time.
The love of Allah and his prophet may
be planted in our heart.
It may be beloved to us, but you
have to continuously water it. You have to
look after it. You have to nurture it.
And after a while what happens is, when
that seed of iman begins to sprout,
then you see a beautiful thing. When you
put a seed into the ground, and after
3, 4, 6 weeks, you see the plant
coming out and so forth, and it's growing.
And now it looks beautiful, right? Likewise Allah
is telling us,
Allah has made beloved to you iman. Iman
has been planted into the heart, but then
you water it, you nurture it, and as
a result it grows, and what happens was,
and it becomes something very beautiful in your
heart.
A scholar gave a very beautiful example. He
says
that, try to imagine the
the tree as like iman.
Because there's a lot of examples in the
Quran about the tree. He says that imagine
that tree that is bearing fruits.
He says that as long as
the fruit
is attached to the tree,
as long as the fruit is attached to
the tree,
the sweetness will grow in that fruit.
The color of that fruit will change,
but as soon as
that fruit is detached,
and is severed from the tree, and it
falls onto the ground,
then it is susceptible to any kind of
damage. People can walk right over it, people
may even pick it up, but there'll be
no more
color changing in that fruit.
That that fruit may become
Now it it may it may be ripe,
it may be unripe, but what's gonna happen
now is, it won't grow anymore. It might
become ripe but then it will become rotten
after that.
Likewise,
the more we stay connected to iman,
and we connect We stay connected to faith,
then our iman will become beautiful.
When a person's iman becomes beautiful, it shows
in their ibadah. When a person's iman becomes
beautiful, it shows in their akhlaq. It shows
in their ma'amalal.
It shows how they It shows when they
are working and dealing with others. So this
is what Allah is saying, that he has
made beloved to you, mean to us, iman.
And he has made it muzayan. He has
made it beautiful in our hearts. And what
has he made us dislike?
He has made us dislike. Kufr. Kufr means
disbelief.
Kufr also means being ungrateful to Allah.
And to to commit sins,
excessive sins.
In disobedience to Allah. So Allah has made
certain things beloved to us, and he has
made certain things
disliking to us. And then Allah
says that anyone who loves iman, and iman
is growing in their heart, and they dislike
kufr
and sinning and disobedience to Allah, Allah says
as a result these people are
I explained this in Ramadan one time.
Comes to the word.
Rushd basically means
a person who's continuously
on the guidance. They make decisions
according to the guidance of Allah and the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. That's why we
say
Because every single decision they made was based
on the Quran, and the sunnah of Rasulullah
salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
or something similar or close to the prophet
salallahu alayhi wasalam's sunnah, if they could not
find anything in the sunnah of Rasulullah salallahu
alayhi wasalam.
So this is what we need to focus
on. And this is why there's a very
beautiful dua of Rasulullah
That
Allahum
This is based on this exact verse of
the Quran. There's a dua of
That you Allah make iman beloved to us,
and make it beautiful in our heart, and
make us dislike kufr, and disobedience,
and on being ungrateful to you, to you,
You Allah. And then Allah subhanahu
says, anyone who has this.
We might think that the person who has
the most amount of duniya, they have the
most amount of bounty of Allah
Allah is saying, no. These are the people
This is the fadhal of Allah
This is the Fadl and the niyam of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is all knowing,
and he is
and Allah is the one who is all
wise. So we'll finish on this inshallah.
The point is that, my brothers and sisters,
is that
that the first thing is that the prophet
Allah subhanahu wa'ala is saying, our opinions does
not matter when it comes to Allah and
his prophet
Allah and his
prophet are at the top, then everything comes
afterwards.
In Surul Bara'a, the same thing.
It's 3 things. There are 3 things. Allah
and his prophet
and he was striving in the cause of
in Surah, Surah Bara'ah. But first comes Allah
and his prophet, then everything comes afterwards. And
what we should be focused on is that
developing our iman, making sure it becomes beautiful,
that it shows on our actions, it shows
in our Ibadah. And what we try to
focus on is disliking all these things in
our life. I ask Allah to
make us from amongst those who will focus
on their iman, and their iman will make
them beautiful.