Surah Al-Infitar
When we stand before Allah on the Day of Reckoning, we will know what we had âsent aheadâ: the good deeds we did in this life that will be waiting to vouch for us when we most need them. Every decision we take, explains Ustadh Nouman, is recorded with Allah, waiting for us to read on our own.
2017-05-31
In the Quran so tokuyama Allah says you know, but will inshallah Yama envy macadam, our human beings will be informed, they will be informed the priorities they made and the procrastinations they engaged in here Allah doesn't say they will be informed here he says they'll know on their own, they'll know on their own, which is remarkable. As these events are happening, you haven't even been shown your grades yet. The book hasn't even come out yet, though it is the other one. But even before all of that happened, you're recalling what your priorities were. yo maya tada currently shallow masa, masa, the day on which human beings will remember completely on their own all the
efforts they used to make. So this is the first meaning of the theme. And the second meaning there's there's a few meanings very powerful to send ahead. And to leave behind. Literally, some translations also say this, every person shall know what they sent ahead or sent forth. What in the world does that mean? Let me give it to you by example, if you're traveling, let's say you're traveling to, you know, New York, and you have a lot of luggage. So what you can do is you can actually put your luggage on a truck, or put your luggage on a delivery, and they sent it a week before
you're gonna fly a week later, when you get there, what will already be there.
your luggage is already gonna be there, right? So what, when you send something ahead, it means you're ready to receive it. When you get there. It's waiting for you in a sense of loads describing the deeds that we do, the actions that we take the decisions that we make, every hour that we do. That's why Allah says a lot. He told Gerald, not just a file, but more why to allow all decisions are returned. All those decisions you made are now recorded with a law waiting for you to read on your own. every deed you did, good or bad is being sent to the future. It's being you know, literally like you know, when you send an email, you can unsend it. You've sent it to the Day of
Judgment. You've sent everything you did every word you said to the Day of Judgment. And as you've sent it ahead, that's that makes sense about the ultimate, right?
But what about 100?
There are in that sense, what Allah is saying is there are some things that are valuable when you get there, they should have some value. Like if you give charity, it should have some value on Judgement Day. If you prayed, it should have some value on Judgement Day, right? So you send valuable things, deposited them on judgment day. And when you get there, you're going to withdraw from that account. But there are some things are less as you left behind. Well accurate. Like, for example, I can't take my money with me, I can't take my clothes with me on Judgement Day, I can't take my property with me. I can't take my status with me or my education with me or my social
position with those things I'm going to have to leave behind. There are only certain things Allah wants to allow you to take forward and other things. You cannot no matter how bad you try, you cannot take them forward. I'm reminded of a crazy conversation. I can't even believe I had this conversation with a Muslim lady. It was in a state that shall not be named. But it was this incredible mansion like they were they invited me after a talk to dinner. Back then, when I was naive enough to accept dinner invitations. I don't accept an invitation because God knows what they turned into. But, but back then I used to accept dinner invitations from random people.
So I accept this dinner invitation and this thing is a 15,000 square foot mansion. Okay, and I'm gonna we're driving man who lives in Al Capone's residence and then they turn into it like,
you know, it was crazy. And so we're having dinner on this, like, God, I don't even know where he got this dinner table from it could see I think 40 people, there's one of those long, you know, King Arthur type dinner tables. And you know, and you can't you probably need a microphone to come Converse from one end to the other. But whatever one all of us fit on one side. We're having this conversation and the lady of the house. She said, I have a personal question. I was like, okay, like, No, I can't ask in front of everybody. It was okay. Why don't you guys move to the other end do the rest of the table, which is in the other zip code, so I can talk to the lady. So she says to
me, I know we all have to die. And I know we're gonna go in judgment. I just, I don't want to leave this house.
I kid you not I want to leave this house. And I can tell you their living room was probably the size of this masala that was just their living room. You know, artificial waterfall in the back. All of this wall is glass. And so we're looking at waterfall and their stairs. I was confused. It was a winding staircase and I've seen a winding staircase before except it looks like somebody took silk and dropped it on their staircase and it's kind of like that, and when I wonder if that was actually marble shaped like falling silk. And that's their staircase.
I was afraid to ask how many
bedrooms, they told me 27.
Right? I was like, you can only sleep in one. So
what you do with the rest,
but there's so she was so mesmerized by this beautiful every piece of decoration, she put so much heart and soul into it right? And she says, I don't want to leave this place. What do I do? I was like, well, you can do whatever you want, you're still leaving. Sorry.
There's nothing you can do about that. You know, there are some things you're gonna have to
leave behind. There's something a heart, you know, and we have to internalize that even this physical body will be left behind this physical body will be there'll be a new body that Allah will give. When you realize that then you don't become so obsessed with the things that you are going to leave behind anyway. That's the reality of this, you're not going to be obsessed with your physical appearance, you're not going to be obsessed with your car, obsessed with your house obsessed with your clothes, you'll enjoy them, that's fine. But you won't be like this is this is everything you don't want when somebody has so much concentration, and so much, you know, emphasis placed on how
they look in a mirror before they go out of their home.
You could say whatever you want, your actions are telling you where your priorities are. Your actions are telling you that my head is somewhere else. And I'm not an advocate of people shouldn't even take care of themselves. And they should just be a pupil of aka and they don't have to brush their teeth anymore, etc. I'm not saying that. But I am saying there are two extremes, right. One extreme is we only care about the alcohol let's just all smell bad Indonesia. The other extreme is
your your entire life revolves around either you know personal beautification, physical attraction, social engagements, devices, entertainment, video games, movies, you know, and it just it circles around all of these things that you don't want to come out of. As if this stuff will last forever. This stuff will go on forever. There are things you will send ahead and you will realize that day the stuff you've left behind.
That's the second meaning of McAdams