A Life of Ease

Today's goodbyes really actually about one ayah of the Quran. And that's in the middle, it's repeated twice, by Allah azzawajal in SoTL inshallah also called SATA sharp losses for in use law in America mostly useless, commonly translated, then certainly with every difficulty or with difficulty comes ease, or with every difficulty there is ease. That's the an average translation of the ayah. I wanted to give a little bit of background as to you know how to appreciate the short soda, a lot of you've memorized it, your kids have memorized it. And it's actually a really beautiful thing to learn about our religion and about life itself. Some of the shorter sutras of the Quran have some of

the most profound teachings. And actually, it's part of the wisdom of Allah that He made them short, so people can easily memorize them and remember some very powerful life lessons through those short sodas. Allah azza wa jal is describing a time when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was going through tremendous difficulty. And as he was preaching the mission of Islam, the message of Islam, not many people were willing to listen. It was not like our time now. And it was not like what happened after, you know, after her, they be our droves and droves of people were coming in accepting Islam. earlier on in the mission, people were only making it harder and harder for him.

And it seemed like anybody who accepted what he was saying was labeled crazy, was labeled, you know, super hot, you know, fools, not very intelligent, or, you know, people that have been fooled by him, etc, etc. So these were the kinds of things that were being hurled as accusations about anybody who would accept Islam, and at that time allowed, so it will reveal to him this profound surah telling him that Allah has been doing him favors all along, but in different places, Allah has mentioned different kinds of favors like in another soda, he says, Let me identify a team and for our then we find you an orphan, and didn't find you an orphan and he gave you refuge. What was the other cabal?

And Fahad Ah, Elena, Elena, Allah says he was he saw you seeking and he guided you. And then he says, you know, he found you bankrupt and he made you wealthy meaning through the marriage to Khadija the Allahu taala. Now you weren't financially dependent anymore. But in this surah, Allah azza wa jal mentions a different kind of favor actually even more profound. Allah azza wa jal says, Allah Mashallah like a southern rock, didn't we expand your chest for you? The expansion of chest in the Arabic language means to be at peace and to be at calm. The Prophet sallallahu Sallam was not an easy situation. everyone around him either people were hurling accusations at him, some were even

ready to physically attack him, his own family was starting to cast him out. Nothing was easy. And yet Allah says that the biggest favor in the middle of all of these troubles is that your chest has been expanded for you, you have been given comfort in the chest, you're at peace, that you're at peace, and allows me just describes that peace from what what will that now ankle is like, we removed your burden from you. And the burden that's being described here has been talked about by many of them. One aspect of it I'll share with you in this hotbar and that is that the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam used to recuse himself used to get away from Makkah, just to think before he

became a Prophet used to think about why there's so much suffering in the world. And he used to stay many hours, days, sometimes nights in the cave of Hello, just just thinking he would just separate himself from society and just think about why there's so much suffering, and so much sadness in this life and alarm which gave him the answer to those questions through his own words. And when he received the answer from the word of Allah, Allah describes that as a lot of removing his burden from him. Well, what Dinah and COVID lack? So for us, yes, life comes with a lot of burdens. But Allah describes his words as relief from those burdens, as removing those burdens. And then he

uncovered a final look at the character the burdens that were breaking your back and we elevated your mentioned for you, but then the teaching that Allah gives in the surah that's not specific, tell us a little la sal Allahu alayhi salam, it's actually for all human beings, is for Mr. ellerslie, Yusra, that with every difficulty, a bad translation is with every difficulty comes ease. And I want to spend some time this code by just talking about this ayah and what it can mean for you and me. The first thing we draw from this ayah from the Arabic of this ayah is actually that for those of you that are familiar with nocal, a little bit grammar a little bit, it's useful. That's

the muqtada, meaning the start of the sentence grammatically is actually ease. When we translate this in English, we say with every difficulty comes ease, but actually, the closer to the meaning is great ease comes with difficulty. Actually, the focus of the sentence is actually ease not difficulty. That's the mocha that's the starting point grammatically speaking. Why is that important? Because Allah is putting our attention on ease, not on difficulty and the the ease may be coming later on. The relief may be coming later on. But Allah wants you and me to focus on what is coming instead.

What you're in right now, that allows origin will see you through whatever it is that you're going through, and ease is definitely coming on its way. The second thing to note here is the word use is what's called makira. Meaning it's, um, what Ashman what album what arkad, meaning difficulty. Everybody knows what difficulty is. Maybe it's financial difficulty, health difficulty, maybe it's psychological difficulty, emotional difficulty, maybe your difficulties sitting next to you right now, I don't know, everybody has some kind of difficulty in life. But those difficulties are very well known.

And it's very specific, you know exactly what the problem is, you know exactly what the problem is. But unless has the ease is much bigger than the difficulty. It's broader than the difficulty. It's also less known than the difficulty, meaning some ease will come. But you don't know how to recognize that ease. everybody recognizes the problem, but not everybody will be able to recognize the solution, when Allah will give ease to you, you may not even see it as is allowing me may bring relief to you. And you may not even recognize that Allah is bringing relief to you. And he will bring relief to you in ways that you know about, and then relief to you in ways that you didn't even

think about, that you don't even know about that's happening in the invisible world, that's happening in the rain. So I live

in Iloilo City LLC, where difficulty meaning it's known use run your friends, Nikita, it's not known. So it's a mystery. It's a mystery to us. And that's an important thing, because a lot of times, people can focus on what they see. And what they see is the problem. And they cannot pay attention to what they cannot see. And ally is telling you and me that there's always an invisible ease that's coming our way. That's always there. And so from there, you find that the word in nine Arabic, which is translated certainly or for sure, actually in nice used by, you know, it's described by people of the language, as you know, heartfully is Allah to shock, it's there to remove

doubt. It's there to remove doubt, let me put it put it to you in a simple example, if you're having trouble of any kind, if you're having trouble at work, okay? Or if you're having trouble with family, then somebody comes and tells you, man, that's not a real problem. And you say, no, definitely, that's a big problem. I'm going through a really big problem for sure, there's a problem, you have no doubts about the problem. But you know, what you have doubts about whether or not this problem will ever go away. Whether there's going to be any ease coming, any solution coming. So human beings have certainty when it comes to the problem. But they have doubts. When it

comes to the solution easily, we become hopeless, easily we start thinking, Man, this is always going to be this bad, it's never gonna get any better. It's just never gonna get any easier is it? we tell ourselves this. So we are convinced far more of the negative and far less of the positive. What does Allah do in the in the word that removes doubt, for sure, there is no doubt about it. That ease comes with difficulty. Allah put certainty, not with difficulty, a lot, but certainty with the ease. He put the emphasis on the ease, as if a believer that reads this IO should know, I can actually even have doubts about the difficulty, maybe I'm so sure that this is a hard, this is a

terrible thing. But maybe it's not as bad as I made it to be in my head. But the ease that a level bring is way bigger, and it's absolutely coming. It's absolutely going to be there. You know, what also a puts us puts into doubt whether something bad is actually something bad. Sometimes things are a lot bad, a lot worse to us in our mind, and in our thoughts and our feelings than they actually are in reality. Some people start living in their head and their problem starts getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until it's out of control. And sometimes you have people in your life, the ones you talk to, instead of making the problem smaller, talking to them makes the problem even

bigger. It just gets bigger and bigger. And so in your mind, sometimes the negative is way bigger than in reality. And the ease that Allah is bringing is actually right there but you're too blind to see it because you're so engrossed in your imaginary imaginary view of the difficulty. So Laszlo just says have certainty about the ease be be absolutely sure that ally is bringing ease. But the final lesson that I want to share with this ayah before we go on to how to complete this, this, this, the sutra and how the last parts of the sutra are tied to it is that Allah did not say after difficulty is comes. He doesn't use the word after he used the word with in Amara and welcome to

call in number three.

For Kanaka vena kalimat ma Urbina Kalamata, there's a big difference between saying, with difficulty there is ease and saying after difficulty, there is a big difference. At least two differences in this hope I want to share with you. One difference is maybe as you're going through a difficulty that difficulty came with some other ease the

You didn't even realize at the same time,

maybe as hard as this is, the alternative would have been much, much, much harder. Maybe one problem where one door closed was the only reason five other doors opened up, you see that you didn't see it that way. But a lot of designs, sometimes that one problem actually creates 20, other solutions, countless other solutions. So this had to happen, for those eases to come for those eases to come. So this is part of a large design, we can't recognize it, but it's always there. In other words, my mindset is yes, I'm going through this problem. But with this problem, Allah is creating ease in my life, for sure. And I have to find where it is the problem, I can see the solution, I have to look

and discover where it is. But every experience you and I have, that some of the most terrible experiences you and I will have in this life, where you will start asking yourself, why am I being put through this? Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? What good can come out of this, every one of those experiences has some ease, some relief, some good that comes with it, that we are becoming blind to see what Allah says it's there. It's right, it's now you don't have to wait for it afterwards. It's right there at the same time. It's right there at the same time in number anniversary.

But even beyond that, when you use the word with what ally is saying is that ease has been put with difficulty. Ease has been put with difficulty. Like he put the night with the day. Like he put the you know, like you put the cloud with the rain, there are things that he put together. And in this life, what Allah decided to do is if you and I want to experience ease, he designed it in a way that you first have to go through difficulty. And only by going through difficulty with it will come the ease. And that's how he made all of life. Many of you are students, you have to go through the difficulty of studying before you experience the ease of graduation, the relief of getting getting

to the next grade.

You have to work hard at your work before the ease of a bonus comes before a promotion comes. without difficulty. That's not gonna happen. You have to go through the difficulty of fixing your diet and eating better before you experienced the ease of better health. A patient has to go through the difficulty maybe have surgery before they experience the ease of healing. That's just how Allah made life. You have to go through tough experiences in order to experience relief. That's a lot of design. That's just what it is. As soon as you hear all of that you tell yourself well with difficulty comes ease. So I'm going through a tough time right now. So I guess ease is coming. I'm

going to relax and wait for it to come. No ally is telling us something more profound. He's saying you have to exhaust yourself through the difficulty fight through the difficulty. You can't just sit back and say Allah will bring easy he promised he will bring these so I'm just going to wait for that and cry until then. No. That's why he told the prophet in the next is Allah Allah who seldom he says for either for us du Pont's a very powerful words. When you find yourself free, exhaust yourself, when you find yourself free, exhaust yourself, and what in the world does that have to do with ease and difficulty? Allah does not want you and me sitting idle. When we are in difficulty,

Allah actually wants us to exhaust ourselves. You see other people, when they find themselves in difficulty. They sit back and start giving up. They get depressed, they get anxious, they start quitting. They take a backseat, but the believer because of desire or you're in difficulty, well the moment you find yourself having free time of any kind, exhaust yourself, put yourself to work make yourself productive. There are them I would comment exhaustively on this ayah when you free yourself from Dharma busy yourself with you know a bother when you free yourself from a bother busy yourself with our like the prophet SAW Selim. Every time he's exhausted from one task he needs to busy

himself with the other tasks. The question is how much free time do you and I spend thinking about how terrible life is sitting there doing nothing letting the our mind take us around in circles while we sit there completely unproductive, completely paralyzed. And Allah says you have way too much free time on your hands. And you're not exhausting yourself. When you're not exhausting yourself, you are allowing the difficulty to win. And if you don't, and the ayah starts with a thought it's called a suburbia. Therefore, because you want E's to come you better exhaust yourself. As a result of learning this, you better put yourself to work. So you and I have to actually live

meaningful, productive lives. Sometimes it is easy to become overwhelmed with the experiences that we're having is it's easy to become overwhelmed with sadness or grief or nervousness or anxiety. It's okay to do that. But we have to learn to fight through that bit through Allah's words, find the strength to actually put ourselves to work and busy ourselves with something. Everything the Prophet

Did sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that kept him busy. There's two kinds of things. And please remember this, there's two kinds of things that can keep you busy, either, and I'll add even a third. For us, the prophets. lysozyme is either busy doing something that makes a lot happy.

Or he's busy doing something that helps one of our last creations.

That's it.

Either he's doing something just for the sake of Allah, like he's praying. Like, he's remembering a lot like he's doing Vicar. That's just for the sake of Allah zoton. Or he's helping someone else. He's guiding someone else. He's teaching someone else. He's actually even helping someone else earn a living. He's doing all kinds of help to somebody else. You have to ask yourself, what are the two things we're doing? exhausting ourselves? Are we doing something that makes us happy? Are we doing something that that brings relief to somebody else? And that's actually what Allah told the prophets. I said, I'm in a different suit.

You know, Amelia tema will attack her Messiah Illa fatten her material, because why do you tell him all of that? He said, Well, you used to be an orphan. Now go take care of orphans. You used to be in a bankrupt situation. Now make sure you help others that are in the bankrupt situation, go help them. So we have to exhaust ourselves either doing something that draws us closer to Allah, or gives relief to others. When you become concerned with Allah. And when you become concerned with giving ease to others, Allah becomes concerned with giving ease to you.

When you start, keep thinking about how bad your problems are, how terrible Your life is, how everything is going the wrong way, nothing is ever going to get fixed, then you are too absorbed in yourself. You're too lost in yourself. And when you're lost in yourself, then a loss help doesn't come that way. That's not how it was help comes. So he says we're in our ob cafaro have exhaust yourself and focus yourself towards your master. You see these problems that you and I are having today. They're huge. All you can think about is this problem. But go a little further and you realize all of us are on a journey. And every single day, we're making progress on that journey. And

the conclusion of that journey is meeting with Allah well, and a lot of because

if you forget the fact that you're on a train, or you're on a road, and you're heading towards a law, whether you realize it or not. And whether you like it or not, you're not standing still, this problem that you're going through, did not bring a stop to your life, it's still moving on. And you and I are still going to be meeting with Alonzo, again, when you realize that no matter what I'm going through, that journey still continues, then it becomes easier for you to focus on your destination and lose sight of the fact that whatever I'm going through whatever area I'm going through right now I'm going to pass through it, I'm going to keep going because my this is not my

destination, my destination is Allah think of it visualize it like that, when you're going through a road, you know, you're going through a road and you pass by an area that smells very bad. If you keep on moving, it's that smells like gonna stay with you is it it's not gonna be there forever, you can pass through it and it's going to be in a you're going to be in a better location. You might be going through an area that's dangerous, but it's not going to be dangerous forever. If you keep on moving, you're going to be in a safer place. That's how life is we have to pass through these experiences. And Allah azza wa jal says every journey you pass through, had some intended plan from

Allah, you and I just have to see ask ourselves, are we people that exhaust ourselves or not? What are we doing at the end of the day, you know, the third thing I was going to ask is, you know, the I told you the profit slice of them is either doing something that makes a lot happy, or helps his creation in some way. But for us, most of our day is spent doing something for ourselves. And of course, we have our needs. Food is a need clothing is a need work is a need. We're doing that for ourselves. But what that free time because the I wasn't about your 24, seven, it was about when you are free for either ferrata. When you're free, okay, fine, you don't have a choice, you got to get

up at five in the morning, you got to get to your job at six in the morning. You're working until six in the evening. Fine. You're stuck in traffic until 730. No problem, you didn't have a choice. You were not free. But what do you do with your time when you are free? What are you doing with it when you're free? And what you're doing with it when you're free will determine whether or not alone will bring ease in your life? That's going to determine that so you and I have to ask ourselves, what are we doing with our free time? And what are we teaching our kids to do with their free time the moment they have a free second? video games, the moment they have the free second, TV's on?

We're not doing things we're not doing productive things. We're not exhausting ourselves in being something more than just self serving, or self entertaining, or self consuming. The only thoughts are what are we going to eat for lunch? What are we going to eat for dinner? Which movie Are you gonna watch? Want to watch something want to play something, just entertain yourself, feed yourself and and lose yourself in you know in these distractions that's all it's become. How is this fun sub You know, there's nothing

So

where did that go? And a lot and what is the guarantee a person can, you know, lose themselves in games and play and entertainment, and you know what those things will do, they will only bring about more difficulty.

I'm not saying you shouldn't play games, entertainment, I know it's summer, kids want to have a good time, that's fine. But they also need to be taught how to make good use of their time, how to make good and they can't learn that if they don't learn that from you and me, when the moment we have free time, we start wasting it, we start squandering it away and we don't do something productive with it, then that's the habit that they're learning in their own way. We're late we're leading by example. We're modeling our behavior to them. It's an important thing that we you and I live this and when they say Why are you always doing something? Why are we always helping someone? Why are we

always going to the west? Why are we always learning this? Why are we Why are we never having any you know, not enough free time we will you remind them for either ferrata concert or in Arabic Africa. And why do we do that because we want to make our lives easier for in America. In America. For either for us the fansub in Arabic Africa, this is the legacy left behind for the messenger sallallahu sallam. This was the advice that he was given. This is the this is the focus that he was given. Salallahu alaihe salam so we have to bring that into our lives. If we want our lives to get any better. If we want ease to touch our lives. Every one of us has problems there is not one of us

that doesn't have problems. And you know what the hardest problems are the hardest problems are not on the outside. The hardest problems are happening inside the chest. The hardest problems or what you're feeling the hardest problems are your thoughts that are more paralyzing than anything happening on the outside and that look at this sorta The first is Allah gave the prophets I said I'm is Allah Masha laka shadrach which we opened up your chest for you, we gave you calm, we gave you come by the end of it. A person when he hears that Allah gave his messenger comes along when I said him, in the middle of the worst problems a human being could have he's come Why is he at peace and

ally describes that at the end, if enough of the facade were in order, because if you can do that, it doesn't matter what people are saying to you. It doesn't matter what problems you're facing on the outside, you will have the greatest ease of all and that's your chest will be at ease. Your heart will be at ease. You will be calm. Everybody else is crying, nervous, afraid. They're going through all kinds of emotional turbulence and you find yourself more and more in a state of peace and in a state of calm because you're living by this profound truth. May Allah azza wa jal give calm to all of our hearts, and we allow them to make us happy. people that find shadow solder that our

hearts are opened up in our chests are expanded by the mercy of Allah. I pray that Allah makes us that people have stronger will that we make better use of our free time. And that allows me that gives us more and more and more and we ease much bigger than any of the difficulties that we ever have to face in our lives. barakallahu li walakum filco Hakeem when a fan er can be it was lucky