God Given Wisdom

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Al Hamdulillah Lumia Allah. Allah Hoshi config molk Aquila, Luminato Li Mila. Well hamdulillah Hindi Angela Allah Abdi Hindi kita

hamdulillah levena who understand you know who want to sell Pharaoh will not be to be he wanted to actually want to be let him in totally unforeseen. Amin sejati Melina yet he level philomel biloela on me You played Allahu Allah. When Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah, Allah Mohammed Abdullah he was full of Salah hola hola Allah Buddha would even do para hawala de Nicola he Waka fabula he shahida pasado la Marley, he was seldom at the Sleeman kathira I'm about pay now. Stefan Howdy, thecable la, behavioral Howdy, howdy Mohammed and sallallahu alayhi wa sallam but in the short run or more democracy, we're in a lower setting with polka.in Bala Allah, Allah, Allah Allah.

Allah Allah azza wa jal

Nakula Ruby let him initiate honorable Jim.

Well after the Athena look man and heck matter anichkov Lila woman Yesh. koepfer. In NEMA Yash, Guru dean of CEO and co founder of in Allah. Hamid probably Shafi saw that he was in the MD, Dr. melissani of Gokhale along with a bit Nan de la TV, La Ilaha, Illa, Allah, Allah how much I let me know, let me know, let me know so hard, but also without pay. But also, I mean, my intention for the next few weeks is to go through and remind myself actually, and remind all of you of the passage in the Quran, that is about Look, man, it'll be a lot more on who and how Allah talks about advice that Allah gave him, and the wisdom that Allah taught him and the advice that he passed on to his son. It

should be noted that this person has never been mentioned anywhere else in the Quran, except sort of one. And it's a pretty amazing honor that a lot took this individual. And the pseudo was actually coined by named Saba would remember this sorta, by the name of this person that's mentioned in it. It's almost consensus that this this individual is not a prophet like this is someone that allows me to give wisdom to, but he's not considered a prophet by most scholarship. So this is the individual we're talking about? Well, I think I'll take my in this passage, a lot takes certain individuals and he chooses them to be prophets. And there are some individuals and Allah just allows them to have

wisdom. And Allah gives them special gifts, that they say things that profoundly impact people. And Allah considers him one such person, and of all the things because if Allah says, He granted this person wisdom, he must have had a lot of wisdom in his business dealings, he must have had a lot of wisdom and, you know, his, you know, the advice he gave to his community, the way he carried himself, in every aspect of his life, there must have been some kind of wisdom. But what Allah does is he highlights one part of the wisdom of his life, the wisdom that apply to all parts of his life, he chose to focus in on one of them. And that's how did he decide to talk to his own son? And what

kind of advice did he give to his child? Right. And so that's pretty unique, that you have this conversation happening between father and son, about the religion and this, this man who has wisdom is now teaching his son, this wisdom, and it's also important, just so those of you who are not so familiar with this stuff, this is a person who is before the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is that someone at the time of the Prophet is not someone before the prophets time. But this is how

Allah introduces us to him. And this is also important. It's a person who you know, as someone who reads the Quran, for the first time I learn you that the Quran is going to spread in every society around the world, right? And there are going to be people that accept Shahada and they are going to start reading the Koran or trying to understand the Quran. And when they do, they're going to come across this ayah and many of the Sahaba even coming across the time may not know who look mine is not everybody's supposed to know necessarily who look mine is. And some say that he was famous and many people knew, but it's also possible that many people didn't know and especially as Islam

spread, it's expected that a lot of people won't know who this person is. So usually when you introduce someone

Then you want to give some biographical information, right? Where do they live? You know, how old were they? What kind of family did they have? What did they accomplish in their life? What kind of society did they live in, etc You want some of this some of this background information. But Allah the best teacher of all teachers, I love the Koran, the one who taught us the Koran, decided that the only background information the only profile you need on Doc mandevilla is captured inside one ayah. So like, all we're gonna get from Allah is this one IR This is iron number 12. of suits of man. And this is all you're going to get about who Lockman is or what Allah wants you to know about

him, before he gets into the the account of him talking to his son. So from from this, you learn, you know, we, when we introduce somebody, right, if I'm invited somewhere to speak or something like that, and they're they're going to introduce me, they're going to start going through, you know, things I've done, or maybe awards that I may have received or whatever, right? Those kinds of accomplishments and things like that, they make a list of them. If I invite somebody else say what degrees they earned, and where they studied, and you know, what they've done, and what they've written, what they've published, etc. accomplishments. This is a lot introducing someone. And the

way a level introduce him is profound, because now we're learning. You know, when you and I hear people being introduced, we value their credentials, we value, you know, their accomplishments, we value what they've been able to build, we value what they've been able to do. What is a lot of value in a person. Right? That's, that's the things I just mentioned are how we value each other. how society values, human beings value each other in a society. This is teaching us how a human being is valued by Allah. So look at how Allah talks about him. He says, Well, I got it now Look, man, and hikmah we certainly gave Look man, we granted Lockman wisdom. Like the first thing you know what?

Look man is that Allah gave him the special gift of wisdom. He says in another place in the Koran. You take Mata Manya shabu oma util, hikma. kakatiya, Highland kathira, on my other karela, Bob, he gives wisdom to whoever he wants, and whoever has been given wisdom has been given an incredibly abundant good, a massive good has been given to them. And no one will make an effort to remember except people that have sound thinking, you know, deep thinking. And so in this IRA, he says, Look, man, what you need to know about him is what makes him special. What makes him remarkable is that I gave him wisdom. Now, when you and I think of wisdom, we think of somebody who's gonna say pretty

deep things, but we're gonna make memes out of right? We think of epic quotes, we think of profound philosophical insights. You know, we think of people that speak in very poetic language. So we associate wisdom with philosophy, we associate wisdom with very profound reading or someone, you know, very scholarly and well read, etc. They possess wisdom, or we think of wisdom as something that comes with a lot of experience in old age. So senior will have a lot of wisdom, because they've seen life, they've seen things in their life. So we benefit from their experience and their insight and therefore their wisdom.

But before I go on, to define that wisdom, according to Allah, the Arabic definition of wisdom is important for everybody to note. Wisdom is not an abstract thing in classical Arabic. It's not some like, oh, somebody's dropping epic quotes as wise, or somebody's very old as wise, it's actually a little nephew. Well, Amma, Louie, it's very straightforward definition. Classically, it's knowledge that is of benefit. And that is acted upon. So it's two parts, beneficial knowledge that you act on. So if you have both of those ingredients, then you're considered wise. It's pretty basic. And it's actually also very powerful. Because beneficial, let's take it take the most easy example. So you

guys can make sense of this. Right? So the basic knowledge that a child has is fire burns, yeah. And they act on it by not touching the barbecue grill.

Right, so they have beneficial knowledge and they didn't act on it. It's also possible that a kid knows fire burns, but they don't act very wisely, and go too far close to it or touch it, etc, right. So you can have beneficial knowledge and not act on it. You can also act without having beneficial knowledge, you can have one or the other. So being knowledgeable is not the same as being wise. And acting is not necessarily the same as acting wisely. But wisdom in the in the Arabic sense. And the classical Arabic sense actually from the from the way that it was used, is when you have knowledge that is actually meaningful and beneficial. So first of all, it gives direction to

what kinds of things you should learn, you know, we're living in clearly the information age, how much time are you going to waste acquiring knowledge of things that mean nothing, reading 1000s and 1000s of meaningless comments on any video that you're watching or any meme or any posts or whatever that is just opinion.

And really adds nothing to your life in any significant way at all right on our mind. So where do we draw the line for meaningful knowledge? First of all, there's enough here beneficial knowledge. How is this making me better? Is it making me better at work? Is it broadening my horizon? is it helping me understand a society better? How is the things that I'm exposing myself to beneficial to me? How is what I'm consuming? is knowledge beneficial to me? And then the next part comes kind of flows logically, now that it is beneficial, how am I going to put it to work? How am I going to use this knowledge? What purpose will this knowledge serve? What purpose will this learning serve? So anyone

know? I'm a newbie, so this is the definition Allah says, He gave him the he gave him wisdom. Now what does that mean? That when he learns something, he's purposeful in learning something, and when he does learn it, he puts it to use right? Then he takes all of that wisdom, which may have wisdom, which was then may have to do with every aspect of his life. But he limits it to this one principle. Like it says, if all wisdom has been reduced to one seed, like a giant tree, but its origin is one seed, and everything, every fruit from that tree and relief from that tree, every branch from that tree, every part of that tree is a byproduct, its origin is that one seed? And what's that one seed,

initial Lila, be grateful to Allah.

We gave lookman wisdom, quote, be grateful to Allah. And this is, this is where Arabic grammar becomes profound. Like it's profoundly important to study. Allah didn't say, for those of you that are familiar with Arabic, well look at it. Now look, one Quranic delay.

Allah gave him wisdom to be grateful to Allah, that would be a good translation, to be grateful to Allah. Like, I give you wisdom to do this, this this right, that would have been the modality that would have been the, you know, fundamental hype, but this is the armor. This is the commanding form. What does that mean? Allah gave him wisdom, that he actually has a conversation with himself in any given moment. How do I make this situation something that I think about it in a way that will make me grateful to Allah,

like his most bent, the most beneficial part of his knowledge, is that he commands he understands that he needs to, he needs to instruct himself, needs to even tell himself and he needs to understand this is what Allah wants for him, that he needs to instruct himself. How am I going to be grateful in this situation? This just happened.

It's not just I'll see Alhamdulillah is not to thank Allah by word. But actually what is going to be make make me grateful about this circumstance, which is it is a profound way of thinking because what that does, is obviously in life, you and I are faced with positive and negative situations. we're faced with anxiety causing situations, stressful situations, depressing situations, hopeless situations. we're faced with fearful situations, we're uncertain situations, there are lots of situations that have negativity all around them. And the wisdom that this man has been given is yes, there's negativity. Yes, there's fear. Yes, there's anxiety. Yes, there's depression. There's

there's cause for concern, all of those things. But in all of this, I must think about what it is that I must be grateful for right now. Not blind to the situation.

Not blinding yourself to the situation and signal handler, it's okay. It's flooding and I'm drowning. Alhamdulillah not like that. You're not crazy. But even though there is negativity surrounding you, you're well I haven't found yet hamdulillah all there is, there is a little bit of a rise over there, there may be a plank of wood, I can hold on to Alhamdulillah

although, you know what, it's I think the rain slowed down a little bit. Alhamdulillah like, you're looking for opportunities to make the most of a difficult situation and that cannot happen if you if you give up if you succumb to the negative, and the ultimate wisdom is, Allah would never leave you abandoned. Now what the acara bucola Nakata like he told the Prophet himself so long, right? So, because Allah would never leave you abandoned, the instruction from the wisdom that lachemann has is I'm going to find a way to think positively.

And you can't be grateful to Allah if you don't think positively and I'm going to look for opportunities. And for each of those opportunities, I will be grateful. This this is the ultimate wisdom that look man has given any situation. How do you find the silver lining? How do you find the opportunity? every crisis presents represents an opportunity. Every failure represents a path to success. That's that's his mindset and all of that the root of it. Be grateful to a lion. That's why

I didn't just say, to be grateful, he said, Be grateful like the commanding form, as if he's, he understands that Allah is compelling him, encouraging him, instructing him, and therefore he's instructing himself to be grateful. Like you said, what that means is sometimes you really got to tell yourself to do that, because it doesn't come naturally. You know, those of you that exercise or play or something, you're tired, and you have to literally tell yourself, come on, let's go well, you have to, you have to self talk sometimes. And he has this wisdom, that he can propel himself into a grateful state, even in the middle of a negative crisis. anichkov, Linda, and then Allah

says, adds Romania score for inner mesh guru Lin FC he, and whoever continues to be grateful. So he, he said, Look, man had this 1000s of years ago, you're like, that's great for Look, man.

What about me? So from there, immediately, Allah says, I'm not telling you this. So you learn something about a great man who lived 1000s of years ago, even before the ayah is complete, Allah says, and whoever is going to be grateful, meaning he's talking about you, and me, by the way, I'm talking about him. So I can talk about you. That's what Allah does. Immediately, there's a default to you and me, we gave up mine wisdom to be great, be grateful to Allah, and whoever is going to be grateful. And the the present tense form the melodic form, what that means is something that occurs over and over again. So you don't get to say, but I was grateful last year, and nothing changed.

That's one in Chicago, this is where my English course meaning whoever is going to continually push themselves into a state of gratitude, whoever is going to constantly pick themselves up and be grateful over and over and over again, find the opportunity over and over again, never succumb, never be submissive and surrender to a situation ever.

Always look for the positive, whoever can do that. And then thank Allah for that positive that they found that it was there. And so when they do that, when a person does that, what does Allah say, for in nema shulin, FC, then he's only, he's only doing so a person who is going to be grateful, is only doing so for their own benefit.

He's only being grateful for himself. Meaning the beneficiary of gratitude is you. And the harm of not developing a positive mindset, the harm, you're only harming yourself, the harm comes on you. You know, thanking Allah doesn't increase Allah's kingdom.

thanking Allah doesn't make a lot azzawajal more honored than he already is. You can thank me and I'll feel better.

A student come comes Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it. And I'll say oh, my God for you. And I appreciate that I got acknowledged, a child can come to mom and say thank you for dinner, and the mom will feel acknowledged prefill feel better, feel more valued. You can say thanks. So when they feel valued, a lot does not need to be more valued. He's, he's beyond that need human beings creation have that need that need for validation that needs to be appreciated.

A lot doesn't have that need. So he, when he says, develop this positive attitude, and thank me for whatever little opportunity you find in the middle, even in the middle of a crisis, when you're going to do that, and thank me, you're not thanking me to benefit me. You're thanking me to benefit yourself? Well, my score for them is good enough. See, what's also really interesting about this ayah is that there's a there's an tosia, meaning in the first phrase, unless I'd be grateful to Allah. But the second time, he didn't say, and whoever is grateful to Allah is only grateful for themselves. He said, Whoever is grateful, but he skipped the part to Allah. Now you could say that

that to Allah portion has been emitted, because it's already understood, the ledger said it, whoever's grateful to Allah does so for himself. So that the the to Allah part didn't have to be set twice. Another way of thinking about it is thinking, being grateful to Allah is actually not just being grateful to Allah. You see, Allah made this world, right. So if you're, if you're walking in the hot sun, and you find shade, you're grateful to Allah, which also grateful that our tree is right here, you're appreciating the tree. And you might even appreciate the person who owns the land and says, there's a sign there. If it's hot and you're tired, you can it's private property, but you

can get shade here. Now you're grateful to Allah but you also grateful for this person. You had a flat tire somebody pulled over and started helping you out you're grateful to Allah which also grateful to this person, Allah brought them to you. And Allah put it in their heart to stop their car and help and you know, get out and help you. So you're grateful to Allah. But you can't just say By the way, don't be confused. I don't do *. I'm not I'm not appreciating you. I'm only appreciate it.

A lot But yeah, a little harder on the right right tire please. This doesn't make sense. To be grateful to Allah actually means what you find reason to appreciate the people and the things Allah put in your life that you should appreciate. This is why the prophets I said I'm said, my goodness, let me quit Allah whoever hasn't thanked people who's whoever is not grateful for people isn't grateful to Allah.

The opportunities you have the friends you have the family, you have the you know, the people you have in your life, the people that have benefited you in this life.

You should be grateful to them, all of them.

Okay, I should say this sarcastically but in some sense, I mean, a to a graduation ceremony is what I would graduate my students I'd say, I'm so grateful for all of you. Some of you increased me and becoming better than me as a teacher. Some of you gave me just wonderful company had profound insights and some of you increased me in southern

still grateful. So help me deal with certain things better, you improve me in some way. But you know what, even hard people You should be grateful that they came along and you know, the causes some damage, they caused some cracks, but those cracks got reinforced. And now we're stronger because of it. So you know what, I'm still grateful for that situation. I'm still grateful for a terrible situation. Because Allah, Allah taught me something through it. Still a matter of gratitude. It's still a matter of optimism. Whoever can do that is only doing so for himself. And then woman, Guevara, and whoever not Guevara in Arabic could mean whoever disbelieved, right? And usually the

opposite of believing is disbelieving, makes sense believer disbeliever moltmann coffee, right.

But here in this ayah disbelieving is the opposite of being grateful.

What Quran does sometimes is it takes things a lot takes things that are not opposites, but he makes them opposites. We expect opposites to be a certain way light and dark. We expect those kinds of opposites. You would think the opposite of grateful would be ungrateful. And by the way, COVID has the meaning of ingratitude to which we'll get to. But it's interesting that he used this word, as if to say that when you are when you cannot develop this part of your relationship with Allah and with things around you, what part the part where you must find things to be grateful for constantly put compel yourself, and you can't really believe in Allah the way you should. And you're denying an

aspect of reality that is fundamental.

This is so fundamental to our belief in Allah that before anything else in the Fatiha, he said, he taught us to say Alhamdulillah

as if, like all the lessons will come number two, this is lesson number one Alhamdulillah get this first. If you don't get this, everything else will be flawed. Everything else will be missing something. So our mindset is one we're constantly looking for praise and thanks to Allah for some any and with that attitude, Allah says, and whoever is going to be ungrateful, so just go for can mean two things. Whoever's not not, whoever denies faith, whoever denies and you can also meet whoever is ungrateful.

And the governor was used in the past tense as if, and whoever even once becomes ungrateful. Whoever even once denies, you know, this, this, this positive attitude. So yeah, sugar was the Medallia form. kafala is the multi form which inshallah one day when I, when I continue in my Arabic studies with some of you students, I'll, I'll explain this further. But then we get to the ending part. So whoever is grateful,

benefits himself into my school years, he's only doing it for himself. Yeah. Then you get to whoever is ungrateful, whoever denied, I'm expecting a lot of say, and whoever denied is going to hurt himself. Whoever denied is going to get punished. Whoever denied is going to face the consequences. Obviously, if whoever does good will benefit from the consequences. The opposite would be whoever does bad will reap the harms, reap the negative consequences. It's quite logical. But that's not what Allah does. A lot, makes us even more grateful for the way he describes gratitude. He says, and whoever is and whoever has been ungrateful, or whoever were to be ungrateful, for in the law has on

me then certainly Allah is independent. Allah is not in need.

He didn't even talk about that person. He even talked about the consequences on that person. He started talking about himself. And there's a mercy in that there's something scary and something beautiful in that. The scary part of that is, it is as if they fail to remember Allah and Allah chose no longer to mention them.

That's one side of it.

The other side of it is, they did something horrible they did cover.

But Allah azza wa jal sees that tragedy as if maybe unless he's always telling us that this person thought Why should I think Allah look at all the problems of love Let's be having this life he doesn't fix them for me.

And he just wants me to thank him I'll pray him pray to him all the time. He needs prayer after prayer after prayer.

What is what am I getting for it? What am I even getting and alone just response to that attitude? It's so tragic that you think this way it's obvious that you're hurting yourself. But let me give you a reality check for in the law, honey. Certainly Allah is completely free of need. Allah has no need of your thanks No need of your prayer. No need of your such that no need of you eating halal food, no need of you staying away from how long he needs none of it. He doesn't need even need you. He says in the Kabbalah, you stop the common waiter come if you turn away he'll replace you all with other people from Malaya qu onsala comm they won't be like you.

You want to turn away, there's the door, going for lunch how often you've been on a channel for a year for every every week those sites with the graph. Tell them the truth comes from your master whoever wants to can believe it. Whoever wants they can deny it.

Go ahead.

You know,

so Miss Amelia Sarah, he made the road easy. You take you take whichever road you want. It was not harmed in any way. It was not diminished in any way. Let's not disgrace her honor dishonored in any way a king can get offended when you turn your back on the king.

And he says You made me look bad and bad in front of the security staff. You didn't look bad in front of the fan guy. You know, how dare you turn your back on the king? Allah says Go ahead. No, there's you want to turn your back. You can't reduce my kingdom or my honor or my glory in any way. You can't You can't even begin to fathom what that is. And then he adds Hamid not even machmood

man that's why you guys learn Harry Henry this called an ism sofa. Misha bow. Be madness be madness Wilma food. So this is a what's called someone who is praised. Someone who is praised and someone who is thanked. But actually, when you say someone who is praised, you think of someone who is praising them.

Right. So if I say this person is well known, that means well known by people. So you kind of the idea of the people is there. Or if you say this person is, you know, for example, well read, which means well read by a lot of readers, right? So when you say a lot is praised, you're thinking of people who do the praising, but that would be the word Mahmoud. When you say the word Hamid, it is as if to say Allah is praised and praise worthy and thanked and thank worthy.

With no one existing.

Even if no one existed, his praise would still be there. Even if the skies in the earth didn't exist, he would still be praiseworthy. Even when there's no creature left to praise him, he's still Hamid, you cannot be mad you can only be Mahmoud if someone exists.

But you can be Hamid when no one else existing.

No one has to exist for him to be happy. He says I don't need you to be Hamid.

You know, there's there's the name Hamid and there's the word mood right? And of course the prophets Larson's name is similar Mohammed comes from the same origin it's also in this ummah for but Allah azza wa jal Hamid, he says, I don't need you. And my praise doesn't depend on creation. Thank you, thanking me doesn't depend on anyone. Me being thanked and me being praised. It is free of the need of creation. This is the wisdom that no one understood, I am going to think a lot not because I because Allah needs it or allowance it, I'm going to think a lot because I need it. It's actually you would think thanking someone else for someone else. No one understands what wisely, I will think

of love because the first beneficiary of thinking that love will be myself. And when I deny Allah, I will only be hurting myself. Now, that's wise, that's profoundly wise. And everything that he's going to say from here on, is based on that wisdom. It's like that seed and every other advice because the passage is about him. He's going to talk to his son, right? He's going to give his son some advice. And every bit of the advice that he gives, comes back to this one fundamental seat, it's got that texture in it. It's got that flavor in it every time of being grateful and being positive. And finding the reason I'm always finding a reason to thank Allah azza wa jal, I pray that

Allah makes us of those who constantly and continuously thank him. And as a result of that, Allah gives us more and more and more, and he keeps on giving us more reasons to thank him, and he never makes us people that are drowning inside negativity, that even when we are that we can come back to the last word

I was word can heal us and restore us and we can go back to being in a grateful state. Particularly welcome for unlocking when I finally went Yeah, it was

handled Allahu akbar wa salatu salam O Allah everybody in the vena cava for Susannah Ali Mohammed, Mohammed. I mean he was a big man in Kuala Lumpur so don't

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him in Chicago Jean in the La homiletical saloon Allah maybe you handed in

the Buddhist Lama. A lot of us on the island Mohammed Ali Mohammed commerce Allah tala Rahim Allah Allah.

Allah, Allah, Allah Allah. Allah, Allah Allah.

Allah, Allah, Allah in

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to stand up with Salah in the salata, canon, vena cava makuta