Nadim Bashir – Conversations In The Quran #1 God & Angels
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We're gonna be starting a new series inshallah
called the conversations in the Quran.
So, we're gonna inshallah go through all the
the conversations, whether the conversations were taking place
between Allah and the malaika,
the people of Jannah, the people of Jahannam,
and many other inshaAllah.
Today, we're gonna take the very first conversation
that takes place in the Quran, and that
is the conversation
that takes place between Allah and the angels.
Now before this conversation starts, if you read
Surah Baqarah, Surah Baqarah begins with Allah subhanahu
wa'ala talking about iman and the 3 groups
the 3 groups of people, the people who
are believers, the people who are the munafiqun,
and those who are the kuffar.
After that, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talks about
his creation.
And at the end of that passage, Allah
says something very interesting. He says,
Allah says that you all were dead. There
was nothing that didn't exist.
Then Allah brought things alive.
Things Allah
brought things to life.
Then they will be returned to Allah
The question is, what is that one thing
that Allah
gave life to right after that Allah mentions
the creation of the human race? So you
see that there's a connection here.
The ulemaadi state that why is it? Allah
we find in the Quran, so many different
stories that Allah wanted to do something,
He wanted to create something.
Never would he ask others about what he
wanted to do. Why is it that he
went to the
and he said that this is what I'm
thinking to do? First of all is that
if anyone has this idea
that Allah cannot do something
without the consultation
of the malaika,
and without their input, then this is a
blasphemous
comment or even a blasphemous
idea to think about Allah Allah does not
need anyone's approval.
Allah does not need to make
with anyone before He does something.
But the ulamati states something very interesting,
and that is that the reason why perhaps
Allah wanted this
conversation to take place
was because
Allah wanted to show,
and Allah wanted the malaika
to understand
that how valuable the human race is,
and how honorable they are.
Because in all the stories of the
who was the one that Allah would send
to the It was the angels.
So, if the angels have a very negative
perception
about the human beings, or what they are,
and what they do,
then they perhaps would it would impact their
kind of work when they came to the
human beings. Because they are the ones who
are gonna interact with the human beings, They're
gonna do things carrying out the orders of
Allah that are related to the human beings.
Allah wanted to create a situation
where they will get a demonstration
that who are the human beings, and that
is why this conversation took place.
The conversation begins with Allah telling the
I intend to create a khalifa.
A khalifa means a generation,
one that comes after another.
Hence we call
them 1 khalifa coming after another khalifa.
Some ulamadi say that khalifa is in reference
to progenies and generations.
You have a generation.
And as some people they say, that after
every 40 years, there is a generational shift
that takes place.
So there are shifts that take place, and
there's a khalifa. There are, meaning that there
are people who come after another.
Generation that come one after another.
Likewise, another meaning of khalifa is a group
of people
that will establish the orders of Allah on
the faces earth. So Allah says, This is
my intention. The
they said,
If the purpose
to serve If the purpose is to serve
Allah, then we're doing that. We are doing
the tasmi of Allah. We are glorifying Allah.
We're carrying out the orders of Allah. If
this is the reality and this is the
purpose, we're doing this.
What is the need to create another creation?
And what will this creation
do? They are gonna spread chaos on Earth,
they will commit bloodshed,
and why and how do the malaika know
about this? Because the jinns were already on
the faces earth,
and they were doing the same exact things.
So the malaika are simply asking a question
to Allah. They're not objecting to Allah, rather
just asking a simple question that if the
purpose is to carry out your orders and
is your obedience,
then what is the purpose behind this? To
which Allah said,
You don't understand
or you don't know what I know.
I know
something that you're not aware of. Then Allah
said,
He taught Adam
the names of everything. Now the ulema, they
say that when when Allah says
it actually means,
meaning that Allah taught the names
and the names of everything to Adam
Then he presented Adam
to the
and then he says,
At that time they said Allah said to
the angels,
that tell me these names
if you are truthful in your statement. Once
again, they made a claim against a human
being. So if you are truthful in your
claim, tell me the names.
They said,
We do not have knowledge except for what
you have given us.
And You are the one who is the
most knowledgeable and the most wise.
Knowledgeable in the sense that Allah gives knowledge
to whoever He wants, and hakeem is that
He is most wise in what decisions Allah
makes. Then Allah says,
Give them the names of everything.
When Adam
mentioned all the names,
they
said, Allah said to them,
Did I not tell you?
Did I not tell you that I have
the knowledge of the unseen,
and what I hide and what I expose,
all of that it comes is in my
knowledge? At that time Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
He said,
At that time Allah gave the order to
all the malaika
to drop down in Sujood to Adam
All the angels they did, except for Ibelis.
This is where the story ends in Surat
Al Baqarah. Now,
after this, Allah does mention about Adam
coming on the face of this earth, but
I want to go back to the conversation,
and there are some interesting points to understand
here from this conversation.
The very first thing is that when Allah
created the human being,
it is mentioned in a hadith
that Allah told the angels
that I want you to scout the earth,
and I want you to bring clay,
clay in the colors, different colors,
red,
white, black,
brown. Bring me all these different colors of
clay. Not only that, but bring me clay
that is soft, Bring me clay that is
hard. Give me clay Bring me clay that
is, you know, not too hard, not too
soft. Right in the middle, that is mediocre.
And the ulama, they say that the reason
why
we today are human beings, and we all
are different in terms of our temperament,
is because of the clay that was brought
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Just like there
is hard clay, there are people who have
a very hard personality.
Just like there is soft clay, there are
people who have a very soft personality,
and likewise.
So this is the creation of the human
race. The second thing is, that Allah
is telling the
Now think about this.
The are giving a simple logic.
Are they true in their logic based on
their understanding?
Not on Allah's understanding, based on their understanding.
They're making a logical argument to Allah. Why
would you wanna do something if the purpose
is to serve you? And Allah is saying,
I know what you do not know. From
this du'ulama they say, that something we can
learn from this statement is,
that everything that happens in this duniya,
no matter how logically we may have an
argument,
we may ask, You Allah, why is this
happening to the people of Gaza?
Why is this happening to the people of
India? Why is there so much
There are people, and especially atheists who bring
this argument all the time. Why is there
evil on earth? Right? They bring this argument
all the time. Once again,
Allah is telling, no matter how much you
think you know, just like he's telling the
angels, no matter how much you think you
know, there are things that I'm aware of,
and you're not aware of. And this is
where we have to put our trust in
the knowledge of Allah
Another explanation given by the Ullama they say
is, that this ayah of the Quran
falls in line with the hadith that is
found in Sahih Muslim. There's a hadith found
in Sahih Muslim that the they have shifts,
and they go to Allah
So there's a hadith that says that the
they came to Allah
and Allah, knowing the full reality, he asked,
How did you find or how did you
leave my slave?
The angels, they are saying that we came
to them in the morning time, and they
were praying salat.
We left from them in the evening, and
they were still engaged in salat.
To which their ulema they say, This is
the idea of
Allah knows that within this ummah, there's prophets.
Within this ummah, within this human race, there's
gonna be messengers.
Within this human race, there are gonna be
people who care for others. There are people
who look after others. There are people who
are gonna be close to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
Not everyone is gonna be corrupt. Yes, the
majority are corrupt.
There's no question of that. The majority are
corrupt, but there are still a handful of
people
who do worship Allah and who do carry
out the orders of Allah. So when they
leave the human being in the state of
salat, and they come to the human being
in the state of salat, this is when
Allah says,
Another interesting
tafsir I found of this ayah is, that
Allah is telling the
not in reference to the human being. Though
this is a not a very popular opinion,
but I found this opinion that Allah is
in reference, or is referencing to shaytan here.
He's telling the You
think that this jinn who is coming and
staying with you, and he is so pious
and so forth, you think that he is
so elevated?
You I know something about him that you're
not aware of. I know his flaws. Though
you may want to elevate his strengths, but
I know exactly
who he is.
This Another another interesting point here is, from
this is,
that this is Allah's practical demonstration
of telling them, and teaching them something interesting.
Because see, I shared this last week with
you very briefly.
There are many purposes
for all these conversations in the Quran. Sometimes,
Allah wants to teach the
that He knows something that they are not
aware of, and the value of the human
race. So when Allah is telling them this,
He could have just said, I know more
than you. Simple as that. But Allah
is giving them a practical demonstration
that the reason why I'm saying this is
that he created Adam
So they say from this, that this is
a teaching
technique. Whenever you share something with someone, try
to give a practical demonstration, so that people
understand this. The last point I will share
with you from these ayat are
the value of knowledge.
Allah
gave Adam
a very
prosperous
rank. Why?
Because of
their that Allah gave to Adam
He knew more than the angels they did
at that time. In front of Allah Allah
created this situation.
But the ulema they say, From this aya
we understand
that
the human race
has a very high rank because of the
intellect that Allah has given them. When you
compare
to even
have physical energy. They are physically more powerful
than the human being, there's no question about
that. But when it comes to pure intellect,
there's no doubt in the fact that human
beings, the
in terms of intellect, they are superior than
the jinn. When it comes to physicality, the
jinn are superior. But in terms of intellect,
the human being is superior. And this is
why the very first revelation that came into
this ummah was what?
There is such And I talked about this
one time in my khutbah. There is such
a lack of intellect today in our own
community.
There is a lack of pushing our youngsters,
and pushing our youth to attain a higher
education.
Education is something that is very important. And
this is why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in
Suratul Rahman, what did he say? He says,
He taught the Quran.
He gave him the ability to speak and
so forth.
Knowledge in itself is something that is
very prestigious and very honorable. And here the
ulema they say, the fact that knowledge was
that key criteria
of showing Adam's superiority over the angels, and
that is why we learned from this. That
when it comes to knowledge,
knowledge in itself is something that we all
should attain. The last point, I promise when
I say inshaAllah, this is the last point
inshaAllah.
If you really think about this, the
angels,
when they were created by Allah
they were created for one purpose,
and that purpose is to carry out the
orders of Allah.
The the
animals,
on the other hand, they have been created
by Allah
but they have been created only with one
thing in life, and that is desires.
That's all they do, Fulfill their desires.
The human being, the reason why the human
being has such a high rank in the
eyes of Allah
that even a hadith they mentioned. As long
as one person is on the face of
this earth saying, Allah, Allah, Allah will not
bring this earth to an end.
When that one person is gone, then Allah
will remove this earth.
When a person
is surrounded by temptations,
and they're surrounded by obligations,
that is why life is a test for
the human being. This is why we will
be given jannah. This is why the jinns
will be given jannah, and no other creation
will be given jannah. Because see, jannah comes
at a price. You have to work hard
for jannah. When the human being The reason
why Allah cares
about the human being is because that they
are surrounded by temptations and obligations,
and yet despite all their the temptations,
and the temptations in society, they still wake
up at night, they still read Quran, they
still are fasting, they're still doing the zikr
of Allah, they are surrounded by so much
wrong, yet they always do the right thing.
This is why Allah gives them jannah in
the hereafter.
Why? Because they are proving the malaika wrong
in one way. This is us proving Allah
right.
Imagine if someone's gonna prove you right, you're
gonna feel very proud about them. Likewise, when
we are doing these things, we are proving
Allah's statement right when he says,
So these are few important things that we
learned from this conversation. Beautiful conversation that we
find in the Quran, inshaAllah.
Next week we're gonna go into the conversation
between the people of Jannah, and the people
of Jahannam, and between them and shaitaan, inshaAllah.
I ask Allah to give all these tawfiq
to benefit from
these ayat.