Striking Examples From The Quran #13 Walking In Light
Date:
Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
Series: Nouman Ali Khan - Ramadan 2024 - Striking Examples From The Quran
File Size: 52.37MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of showing an angel to enhance one's career and achieve success in Islam. They emphasize the need to show the Bible and not begging for something. The importance of following a religion and not begging for something is emphasized. The use of words and language in studies is also discussed, and the importance of following a religion is emphasized. The concept of beauty and beauty is also discussed, and people are encouraged to sponsor students on BayGeneration TV.AI Generated Transcript ©
Today's parable is another parable from, Surat Al
Am.
Before yesterday, I when I took a day
off, and you could probably hear from my
voice. It's not my usual singing voice. So,
that I'm still kind of recovering, but please
continue to make dua for my recovery and
whatever I have. The wife also has, the
baby also has. So we're all kind of
recovering together.
Alhamdulillah.
But,
before I begin, I just wanted to acknowledge,
the reason I came to Manchester
of all the places on the planet. In
fact, there were there were 3 candidates
this Ramadan, for where I was gonna spend
Ramadan with the family. And you can imagine
traveling in, Ramadan is not easy.
Right? So I decided to And I don't
wanna spend Ramadan away from family, so I
dragged my entire family with me. My parents
are here with me, my wife and baby
are here with me.
You know, and just all of them have
been uprooted
to spend time here, and the decision wasn't
an easy one.
The easiest decision was to stay back home
in Dallas.
The second choice was actually
Tokyo, and the people that are watching from
Tokyo, I'm sorry.
But there was a pretty welcoming Muslim community
that was making all the arrangements necessary for
the family. And then I just kind of
came up with the idea of Manchester, and
that has to do with, you you know,
I've I've had a chance to travel many
places in the world, and to me it's
not places that are important, it's people that
are important.
Because at the end of the day, it's
just Allah's Earth everywhere. But to me, what
stands out about places
is not is not the buildings or tourism
or people usually ask, hey, have you gotten
the chance to look around? I was like,
I don't really look around. What am I
gonna look around for? But it's really people
that matter. So it's people like, you know,
my younger brother here, Sheikh Raheem, who is
much much more senior to me in knowledge,
but he's a younger brother, and I will
troll him till my last day or his.
You could tell, you know, I it's easy
to troll him because of his sense of
humor. You saw the Spiderman joke he tried
to make.
So,
but it's people like him that kind of
brought me to Manchester. And I must acknowledge
that the the kind of hospitality that we've
received as a family here, the way we've
been taken care of even before I got
sick and the family,
it's just been incredible. And we we really
feel like we're being treated like family and
make dua for the volunteers and all of
those that are helping us,
you know, in this trip and making this
trip very, very easy for all of us.
But anyway, so let's begin by talking about
one of the biggest,
in the Quran,
and this parable is taking place in that
surah. We already saw one parable here when
the devils pull somebody down,
if you remember. Right? And they're just walking
around aimlessly and their their friends are trying
to call them back. That was one image.
Now we're gonna look at another image. But
in order to place this image, something I
wanna bring to your attention about this very
large,
Maqan Surah is that Allah keeps bringing up
the sky and the earth in some interesting
ways in the Surah. He keeps bringing up
light and dark
under the earth, above the earth.
Okay. Life and death.
So these opposites
keep occurring multiple times in the Surah, and
I wanna give you a quick run through
of how these ideas are being quite literally
planted in the mind
of the listener
of over and over again. From the very
beginning,
All praise and gratitude belongs to Allah
who created the skies and the earth and
put in place
darknesses and light. So that's the opening statement,
darknesses and light.
Then you find in a couple of ayaat
later in the 3rd ayahu Allahu
He is Allah in the sky the skies
and the earth. He knows your secret and
he knows what you expose.
And see you know, what is secret is
what is hidden in the earth or buried
or unseen, and what's exposed is what's above
the earth. Right? The the the secret and
the exposed.
Then you see,
didn't you didn't they see how many towns
we've destroyed before them that we stabilized in
the land?
And then right after that he says, and
we sent the entire sky pouring down on
them. Meaning they used to get abundant rain.
So here again, you see a very subtle
reference to the earth and then the sky
in history. Right?
Then you find this is this is interesting.
One of the things that happens in Surat
Al An'am
is that people want something more
than the Quran as proof
of the prophet being a prophet. The Quran
is not enough for them. They wanna see
something. They wanna see something something more. The
claim of the Quran is that the angel
speaks to the prophet,
Jibril speaks to him. So they're like, well,
he speaks to he gives you the book.
The book must be in pages.
So can we see some of the pages
kind of floating down from the sky? Can
we see that? Can at least.
If they if we if we sent the
book down to you in pages that are
floating down from the sky and they touch
those pages with their own hands.
Right? They saw them floating like flyers, you
know, like,
shooting flyers from the plane. Right? That kind
of thing.
Disbelievers would have then said this is just
magic. It's a pretty good trick. In other
words, even if Allah did that, they would
have found a way to dismiss it. You'll
notice another
criticism that they say, okay.
Fine. You can't show me the book.
Why don't you just introduce us to the
angel? The angel speaks to you. Right? How
come we can't
see
him?
How
come
no angel comes down to him? We wanna
see the angel. Okay. Either either show us
the book or show us the angel.
You know, and Allah says, and had we
did had we sent down the angel, meaning
in a way that they could see
then their matter would have been decided and
they would not have been been given any
more time. Some of you have been listening
to my lectures for a long time. A
lot of you tell me that my voice
is soothing. It helps you go to sleep
at night. So I don't assume that you
remember things that I say. So I will
repeat one thing that I say often in
my lectures about miracles,
in the Quran.
Miracles are given to nations
as their final chance.
I'll say that again. Miracles are given to
nations, previous prophets,
as their last opportunity, final chance. If they
receive a miracle
and they still choose to dismiss it in
any way,
then that nation suffers the consequences of Allah's
rage in this world.
They get annihilated
in this world.
So when the Quraysh are asking to see
a miracle,
2 things Allah is saying. 1,
Allah knows for a fact that even if
he showed them a miracle, they will still
dismiss it.
That's fact number 1. Number 2, what they
don't know, they're asking for their own destruction.
Because once Allah does show a miracle and
you still dismiss it,
you will be annihilated in this world. So
even though they were trying to rush the
prophet, alayhi salatu wa salam, to show him
a miracle to show them a miracle, The
way Allah phrase that in the Quran
is They're rushing you to bring about punishment.
Even though literally sometimes they were asking, why
don't you show us the punishment?
Other times they were asking for a miracle,
but that was not any different from asking
from the for the punishment itself. So in
this ayah, you see that if Allah had
sent the angel, their matter would have been
decided. They would not have been given given
any extra time.
Now interestingly, they keep asking for something to
come from the sky. The angel should come
from the sky and reveal himself to us.
The book should come from the sky and
reveal it reveal itself to us.
No. Why are you keep looking at the
why do you keep looking at the sky
for some kind of divine answer for yourselves?
Why don't you travel the land?
Like, everything you need to arrive to the
truth, arrive at the truth has already been
made available to you on earth. So, again,
you see this interesting contact contrast between sky
and earth.
Tell them who owns whatever's in the skies
and whatever's on the Earth. Tell them it
all belongs to Allah.
Again, the sky and the earth.
Then you see
remember I told you sky and earth, night
and day. So Allah says he knows whatever
settles down at night and whatever moves about
in the day.
Should I take someone as other than Allah
as my protective friend, the creator of the
sky skies and the earth? In the 29th
ayah,
they talk about this life and this life
being nothing but a play.
In 32.
But then the after this display, I which
I will talk about related to our parable
for the day, our parable is gonna be
ayah number 122.
But there's a really interesting statement, a very
heavy statement in the Surah
addressing the prophet
By many accounts, this is one of the
latest,
one of the last even, arguably, towards the
tail end of the Makkan period that this
Surah has come down. Okay? And
what's important to note about that is all
the arguments that they've ever come come up
with to dismiss Islam have all been documented
in one place.
It's kind of putting all of it together.
It's, it's like
the the
of Islam and the debate with,
all of it just packed together in this
one large surah. That's what's happened in Surah
Al Anam.
Other surahs in the Quran,
you'll find pieces of the dawah,
One element. Okay. They deny the in this
way or they deny the prophethood in that
way, and that that's that's what's been taken
apart, but this is actually far more comprehensive.
Now the prophet is told, the prophet must
also be thinking at some point.
The thought may may have occurred to him.
It's possible that they keep asking to see
the angel.
They keep asking to see the the book
come down, something.
If Allah just showed them, they'll just shut
up.
They keep saying it. They keep saying it.
And by the way, the fact that they
wanna ask for a miracle
is one of the last things they asked
for.
In the beginning, you remember they were just
saying that that he's insane,
or he's a poet,
or We we could say something like this
too. We could make this up.
We can make a surah.
But Allah openly said, Okay, you can make
a surah. Go ahead.
Produce something. Make it.
You can say something like this, do it.
Why don't you just do it? Yours will
be far more popular because it's coming from
all of you together.
You can spread it among the people. They'll
it'll have far more impact. Right? So go
for it.
Go for it. It's just one man, and
it's just words. You could defeat words.
They couldn't do it. And it's been years
years years. Doctor Samirai pointed out very aptly.
He said, it's remarkable to think that for
the Quraish,
who are the wealthiest in the region,
arguably the most cultured in the region, the
the reason they're the most cultured is because
they travel the most. Right? The more you
travel, the more cultured you
are. They're the the wealthiest, the most cultured,
the most feared, the most intimidating, and the
most eloquent.
Right?
And these are the people
that saw that spilling blood
and killing
and torturing their own people
was easier than just coming up with words
that could defeat the Quran.
Like why is it they were willing to
die, they're willing to kill for this
and they're willing eventually to even go out
into the battlefield after the hijrah. They're willing
to do that but not come up with
something that can just eliminate the Quran. And
these are the people that you know what
the Arabs were like. They didn't have tall
buildings. They didn't have massive highways.
They didn't have monuments and statues. They didn't
have pyramids and a sphinx. They didn't have
that stuff. What did they pride themselves on?
Their their language skills, their improv poetry.
They'd sit by a night all night spitting
out rhymes.
Right? They do you you guys have, like,
roast, hip hop roast. They used to roast
each other all night. They used to one
tribe roasting the other tribe. They did this
stuff.
They did that, and they were good. They
were good. I mean,
it's for for people that are interested in
Islamic studies and they get into Arabic studies
and then they get to classical Arabic poetry,
a lot of poetry is rated r
or worse. And you you're like, I'm reading
an Islamic book here. What's going on?
I never heard this vocabulary before. That's not
in any Islamic book. Then you look up
the vocabulary, like, oh, that's why it's not
in any book.
That's what they were like. They were good
with their words. They weaponized their words. In
fact, their words were so powerful. Sometimes it
was just because of a line of poetry
that tribes went to war with each other.
They were that good.
And yet they're debilitated with this Quran.
And at the end of it, what's the
ultimate sign of defeat? Well, okay. Fine. We
can't come up with something, but why don't
you show us an angel?
Well,
just show us the book already.
This was their all this was the final
draw for them. This is to when all
the other allegations
have failed,
this is what they're resorting to, and that's
what the Quran is responding to here.
So the that I wanted to share with
you that's so pivotal, look at what Allah
tells his prophets. The prophetess think maybe
if I show them something, if Allah shows
them something,
my job will become easier since they're asking
to see something, just show them something.
Allah tells this prophet
And if it's so hard for you to
deal with their them ignoring you, them ignoring
this message.
Then if you are able to do so,
and that you start digging a tunnel deep
into the earth.
He's telling the prophet to dig a tunnel
into the earth.
Or you develop a ladder
and take it up to into the sky
then you bring them a miracle yourself.
That's Allah's way of saying, I'm not giving
you one.
You wanna dig into the earth and get
them 1?
Go ahead. You wanna get a ladder and
go up into the sky and get them
a miracle? You do it. I'm not sending
them 1.
Because this is Allah's way of saying the
Quran is enough.
There's nothing you'll find deep in the depths
of the earth or up in the heights
of the sky that will over overpower
or be more overwhelming than the word of
Allah.
And had Allah wanted, he would have gathered
all of them on guidance. So don't become
those that are swayed by emotion.
Don't do that.
So the miracle the the we can't see
the book. We can't see the angel. Can
we see any miracle then?
That's the 37th.
Again, same kind of request. We wanna see
something. I wanna see something. I wanna see
something.
You know? There was,
my many years ago, this is like in
1937,
I used to be a professor of Arabic
at a college,
And
it was Arabic, it wasn't Islamic studies, it
was Arabic at a college, and I wasn't
teaching Islam or anything, but
it's kinda hard to hide my Islam.
So one of the guys, young guys, he
was
taking the Arabic course because people fill out
their surveys why they want to study Arabic.
And, you know, if you ask a bunch
of Muslims why they wanna study Arabic, they'll
fill it out and they'll say, you know,
I wanna understand the book of Allah. I
wanna study Islam, etcetera. When you give teach
non Muslims Arabic and you pass out the
survey, why do you wanna study Arabic? You
get really interesting answers.
Why my girlfriend's Arab and I really wanna
impress her family,
and
I I'm there are really good job prospects
at the CIA,
if you know Arabic,
to enhance my career. I wanna work in
the oil and gas industry, etcetera. Like, these
are the answers you get. Right?
This guy's answer was, I'm just curious about
these people.
And I I asked him later, why are
you curious about
these people? He's like, I served in the
military,
and I was in the an an Arab
country,
and I heard your,
is it a Dan? A Dan? Is that
what you call? A Dan? I was like,
yes. A Dan.
That's what we call it. I heard it.
I was like, what is that? I just
really wanna know what that is. So he
took an Arabic course just to understand the.
Right? He just wanted to know. And at
the end of it, he kept coming to
me with questions about the Quran, questions. He
was reading it on his own, the translation.
And one of the things he said is,
can you show me a jinn?
I mean, I Usually when people ask me
questions like that, I have really bad answers
in At the tip of my tongue, I
just don't say them, but they're right. I
was like, look in the mirror, but I
didn't say it. I didn't say it. He
was like, why do you wanna see a
jinn? He goes, can you show me an
exorcism where some like the jinn actually comes
out and you know, because I just I
was like, so what's where is this request
coming from? Because I just wanna see something
from the unseen.
Like, I'm ready to believe. I just need
to just see something. If I could just
see it I was like, so you need
to see a before you can
yeah, just just just gotta god's gotta just
show me something.
And I I said I said this then
and I stand by this now. Whatever I
can understand of the Quran is very simple.
Either you're following a religion in which
your demands are met.
Right? So god will do what you want.
You wanna see something and god will show
it to you.
Or you're following a religion where you've decided
to do what god wants.
You're you're either going to move forward on
his terms or you want him to work
on your terms,
and that determines which kind of religion you
wanna follow.
And pretty much every other religion in the
world,
those religions are designed to work on your
terms.
You wanna get married. You wanna get a
promotion. You wanna get this. You wanna get
that and you go to the religion. You
go to the guy. You pay a little
fee. They'll do a special prayer or, you
know, light some candles or whatever and that's
gonna work out for you. It's the it's
the spiritual Amazon
for for you. It works for you.
This deen doesn't work for you. You work
for this deen. You don't Allah is not
serving you. You're at the service of Allah.
Right? So he's not he's you so you
don't place the request for what? Show me
this, impress me, and I will buy your
product.
No. This is not a salesperson.
It's not a sales pitch.
If you don't wanna believe, there's the door.
The truth is
Whoever wants to believe, they can believe. They
should believe. And whoever wants to disbelieve,
they should disbelieve. This is the Quran's open
invite.
There's the door.
Allah is not begging anybody.
Allah is
it's so incredible that Allah is not saying,
come, come, come, please listen, please no. No.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
That's not your job. If they wanna walk
away, that's on them.
You'll be kind and invite them, but, no,
this this deen is not
reducing its dignity by begging people to come
to it. It's not.
See, the prophet, alaihis salatu wasalam, was so
concerned about the people that he just wanted
them to be on guidance. He loved them
so much. But it was said, as much
as you love them, this deen will not
look like it's desperate for the acceptance of
the people.
It will not that will not happen.
The prophet that the leaders of Quraish would
barely ever talk to him.
Right? One time, one leader of Quraish comes
and decides to talk to the prophet about
Islam.
And because usually it's the it's the slaves,
it's the youth, it's the
the the less influential of society that we're
gathering around the prophet, alaihis salaam. When one
of the leaders came and wants to have
a conversation with the prophet alaihis salaam, this
is a rare opportunity. Imagine the governor of
a city or a president or you know,
the the, a CEO of
a multibillion dollar organization. Like, let's say Jeff
Bezos wants to talk to me about Islam.
He wants to get on a 1 hour
phone. I was like, oh, this is an
important opportunity. I should take this seriously. So
while I'm talking to Jeff Bezos, you know,
my my cousin calls and says, hey. I
have this question about this ayah.
Can I can I talk to you for
a second? And I'm like, can you just
I'm talking to just what's Islam, bro?
Right?
Is talking to one of the leaders of
Quraysh,
and his own cousin, Abdul Abin al Maktoum,
blind Sahabi
interrupts the conversation.
Now he's blind, he's not deaf.
He knows there's a conversation going on. In
fact, blind people know better than most people
when a conversation is going on. Their hearing
is extra sharp. So he knows he's interrupting
a conversation.
And because their hearing is so sharp, he
probably knows who the Rasool alaihi wasalam is
talking to also.
He's still so he's in the wrong.
And the Rasool alaihi wasalam is so sensitive
to his feelings, he doesn't even say anything.
He just frowns knowing that a blind person
cannot see him frown,
because that can't offend him.
So he just just there's the bulge on
his forehead appears, because he he's trying to
figure out how to keep this conversation going
while not being rude to Abdul
Laden.
And just that much, and the Quran came
down. No. No. No. No. No. No.
This guy, this
celebrity,
this important person
is is not important.
It's not that important.
The one who came running to you,
wanting to remember something, that's that's your VIP.
That's Allah's VIP.
That's Surah Abasa.
So what is the Quran doing? The Quran
is putting putting value to though in those
who value Allah.
He's valuing those who value Allah. They're not
going after
the
celebrity or the important person, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Religions in the world. You know what they
do. Right? Religion has always had this bad
relationship with politics.
So politicians wanna get time with religious leaders,
and religious leaders
wanna get connected to politicians.
Why? Because one has power and the other
has influence,
and they both need each other.
They both feed off of each other. And
the Quran rejects all of this.
What power? What influence? Anyway,
coming back to this theme of light and
darkness.
And those who deny or call our miracles
a lie, they're deaf. They're mute.
In the darkness in the depths of darkness.
Again, darkness got brought up. And the the
Surah began with
He put in place darknesses and light.
Okay. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna skip forward
a little bit
because I've made the point about how light
and darkness keep making an appearance in, in
the Surah.
But now I want to share with you,
in particular, what's happening in this parable.
As for the one who was dead
this is the I have that we're discussing
today. As for the one who was dead,
then we brought him to life.
As for the one who was dead,
then we brought him to life.
Now this is already a strange parable. I'm
not we haven't finished the ayah. It's just
the beginning.
But what does it mean as for the
one who was dead and we brought him
to life? This is the same surah that
describes
Right?
The seed
eventually tears open
and pushes through the darkness of the soil
and reaches the surface where it can be
in contact with light from
the sun.
And as the plant grows, it inclines towards
the direction of the light.
It inclines towards it. Right?
And so this is the imagery of someone
coming out or something coming out of darkness
and then being pulled towards
the light.
And the the seed on its own, if
you're holding the seed in your head, it's
not alive.
It's not alive. But does it have the
potential of life in
it? It does.
So the imagery in the Surah, if you
look at it comprehensively,
we get a different definition of death.
Usually, you find death is mentioned afterlife.
Right? So someone was alive and then they
died. If you look at
this, As for the one who was dead,
then we brought them to life.
Right? So the starting point here isn't life.
The starting point here is death, which is
similar to a seed.
The starting point is death.
So we're going to have to come up
with a little bit of a better definition
for death A more Quran inspired definition for
death in this case
I would argue
this is
similar to sleep.
One way to think about this. In fact,
in Islamic literature, in the sacred literature, in
the Quran and in the sunnah,
sleep is actually very comparable to death.
And, that's why even when we wake up
from our sleep, we, thank Allah for giving
us life after he had given us death.
And it's interesting that on judgment day, we
say,
who who raised us from our place of
rest and our place of sleep. That's your.
Right?
Now why is that important?
It's important because then you're not describing death
as the absence of life. It's
life just hasn't initiated
yet. All the tools, all the all the
mechanisms necessary for the seed to come to
life
are present inside it. Life the potential for
life is in it.
It just hasn't been activated yet.
If the seed never got planted,
never got soil, never got activated,
the life will never come out of it.
But if you put it in the right
place and you allow it to be flourished,
then it will the life will emerge from
it.
So Allah says every seed that tears open
and works towards the soil,
fights against nature, fights against gravity,
fights against
the the natural state around it is death,
and it fights against that and it pushes
towards life
is actually something Allah is making happen.
Now, clearly, Allah isn't talking about a seed,
he's talking about human beings. So how does
this imagery work for human beings?
You and I imagine somebody before Islam.
They've never thought about God. They've never thought
about the afterlife. They've
other people are doing. They're you know, they
got friends, they you know, girls, parties,
you know, so a little bit of alcohol
every now and then and, you know, some
some
mischief on the weekends, this and that. Then
they got into college, university, or whatever. They
lived their life,
and then eventually,
they got a job, you know, young person,
young professional,
Every Friday night, they're gonna hit the pub,
go, you know, go clubbing or whatever they
gotta do. Right? And they just they're used
to that life, and it feels every weekend
feels the same. Every weekdays feels the same.
It's like they they call it a rat
race. Right? They're just stuck in that life,
and they're just living that life, and they
feel
like a zombie. They feel like they're dead.
And there there's nothing there there's nothing going
on inside them that there's there must be
more to life. The the thought doesn't even
occur to them. They're just in a sense,
spiritually, they're dead.
That doesn't mean that they're hopeless.
The seed is there, it just hasn't been
activated.
And then you have a person who's living
that kind of life, whatever that life involves,
whether it involves drugs, zina, alcohol, whatever it
involves.
They're living that life and all of a
sudden, Allah allows
for that seed to tear open.
That doesn't mean that the seed has grown
into a plant that has reached the light.
It just means it tore open.
Something changed.
When something changed, this person realizes this can't
be all there is.
There's gotta be something more.
And this person starts looking for answers.
Sometimes they're like, they they finish drinking at
2 AM outside of a pub,
and they're just looking up to say, if
you're out there, I just need help.
I know people like that.
I know people like that, that people were,
like, drunk, depressed,
finished partying, and they're like, if
if you are there,
I think you're there.
I need help.
Can you help me figure out who you
are?
Because I can't even figure out who I
am.
They'll have those kinds of conversations.
You know why? And their friends are never
having those kinds of conversations
because they're still dead.
But this person,
something changed inside them. They're starting to make
progression
towards life.
Right?
And so they when they make that now
look at the the imagery,
then we gave this person life.
Allah is the source of all life. Allah
put something in this person's heart.
Everybody else around them is happy living that
life,
keeping their eyes closed. But somehow, this person
says, no.
I can't do this anymore.
Something's not right. Even if they're doing it,
their heart's not in it anymore.
Now, for the first time in their life,
they're about to walk into the club or
walk into the bar or walk into the
party. And before they walk in, they're like,
I don't know if I wanna do this.
Why am I even doing this?
And they start this something inside them is
pushing away from
the gravitational
force field. This was normal. Just a week
ago, 2 weeks ago, this was normal.
Nothing
bothered them about this. But for some reason,
guys, I gotta go. I am just gonna
go for a drive.
No. Thanks. I don't wanna be here. It's
okay. I was gonna and then just go
for a walk,
and they're just staring at the sky.
And then this person starts looking,
they start searching.
Maybe they end up at a Buddhist temple,
and they sit there for a real long
long time closing their eyes, hoping something will
happen,
and nothing happens.
They end up trying to go to church.
They try I knew I knew somebody who,
tried to convert to Judaism. They didn't let
them.
The entrance fee was too high, actually, he
told me.
Literally, this is what he told me.
And I said even and they eventually did
let him convert, and they said, you're not
really a Jew, though.
Okay. Fine.
Right?
They try different things.
And then somehow,
some way, when Allah sees that this person
is seeking,
then he lets them make one stop, another
stop, another stop, another stop. And one one
of the things I've noticed with these people,
I can't say this is a matter of
fact, but certainly one pattern that I've noticed
is that people that are searching for the
truth, Islam is not one of their candidates.
They'll consider everything else not Islam.
That gets I can't I can't can't be
that one.
I'll look everywhere else.
What what else you got? What else you
got? Taoism?
Buddhist? Any other ism? Any any ism? Can
I just
check it out? Any anything anything new?
And then
when everything is exhausted, they're like, we might
as well finish the list.
I mean,
it was not the it wasn't even on
my list, but at least I could tell
myself I looked at everything.
I'll look at Islam.
And then all of a sudden,
they they they're trying to
judge Islam,
and they realize Islam is judging them.
They were trying to wrestle Islam,
and Islam is wrestling them, pinning them down.
I had a very close friend of mine
many years ago in college
who was staunch staunch atheist.
And he
philosophy guy, you know, 4 point o GPA,
super sharp in philosophy. And he just
he said I just wanted to did not
even consider the Quran. I didn't wanna consider
it. And eventually when I considered it, you
know what I felt like? Because he was
because philosophy people, they love debate.
Right?
And he's like, okay. I'm gonna have a
debate with this book.
That's how he came to the Quran. And
he's debating this book in his head. He's
having these debates with God in this book.
He goes, I I literally felt like I
was in a wrestling match and I was
being pinned down
every time and I get up and say,
you know what? I'm gonna try that again.
And I'd get to the next verses, next
surah, next surah, and I'd get pinned down
again and pinned down again until I said,
you know what? I give up. This is
it.
Like, I don't even want to, but I
that's literally what Islam means, surrender.
Right? He intellectually
had to surrender because he came to it
sincerely just looking for, is this divine or
not? And it and it pinned him down.
You know?
Gave him life
and that and then okay. So the person
is looking for Allah, looking for guidance but
that doesn't mean they found Islam but they're
looking for guidance What does Allah guarantee for
someone who's looking for guidance?
Allah says,
For first part,
we will furnish light for him.
Could be.
So this could be,
Allah will put a massive light for this
person.
You should know that one of the descriptions
of the Quran in the Quran is.
And it's also beautiful that in Surat Al
Hadid, which is it complements the imagery of
Surat Al Anam,
Allah says
He will put a light for you, Muslims,
that you can walk with. And what's that
light referring to? The Quran and a compliment
2 Believe in Allah and his messenger and
the light that we sent down. So the
Quran itself is being described as
Allah will put revelation for this person now.
Now they they were looking for something and
this light, it illuminates all the questions they
had. The idea of looking for answers is
you're trying to find something and it's dark.
Now imagine the imagery, you're looking for something
and it's dark, you can't really see it,
and all of a sudden you have light
in your hand.
I can see everything.
Now I know the reality of everything.
I know that that's what in the dark,
that looked like something good. When I shed
light on it, that's a snake. I'm not
looking at you, bro. I'm just I'm just
pointing that one. Okay. So
that's a snake. Oh my god. That looks
so bad in the dark. When I look
at it, that's treasure.
You're looking at the same thing
in the dark, and you can't identify it.
You with light, you look at the same
thing, you can tell what it really is.
They now have an ability to see things
for what they are, and that's what revelation
does. It make it makes things clear.
This is one of the ways in which
the Quran is defined.
The book that makes things clear, because that's
what light does. Light makes things clear.
I can see your faces, you can see
my face because the lights are on. The
lights turn off, nothing is clear anymore.
So
now this idea,
so you you see the the the process
here. The person was spiritually not alive yet.
I won't say dead, not alive yet like
the seed.
Allah caused some stir in them and now
they're coming to life.
If they show that genuine desire to come
to spiritual life, then Allah will guide them
to his revelation.
This is
So the Allah furnished a light for this
person. Now they recognize
that they better hold on to this light
for dear life.
Like the Israelites were told,
hold on to what I've give what we've
given you with all your strength.
Just hold on tight to it.
Right? So now this person realizes they better
hold on to Allah's book. Like Allah
says hold on dearly
to Allah's robe. Right? That's the same imagery
of holding on to the Quran, holding on
because that's the light. Don't let go of
this light. You let go of it a
little bit. You'll it'll it'll start drifting away
from you.
In fact, it won't drift away from you.
You'll drift away from it.
So you'll be you'll find yourself in darkness
again. Can't afford that.
And so
is the next portion.
With this light, he's walking with this light
now among people.
That's the next part of the imagery. He's
walking with this light among people. What in
the world does that mean? That seems to
suggest here's a person who has light in
their possession,
everyone around them doesn't have it.
That's the imagery. The imagery is everyone's in
the dark,
and only one person has a light on.
Now imagine this scenario.
There's quite a few of you in this
room. Imagine all the lights are off and
all your phones are dead because those are
lights too, but one person has a light
on in their phone.
Where do everybody's eyes go?
The one person whose lights are on. The
one person who has light.
If there's one person who knows which way
to go
or if one person has something of value
that nobody else has, it's the one who
has light.
And there are 2 kinds of people in
the room.
One kind of person says, well,
how come he has light? How come how
come I don't have it? Can I let
me talk to him?
Maybe he'll help me figure out how how
I can get some light myself.
Back in the day, light was not a
phone. Back in the day, light was a
torch. And if somebody had a torch, what
could you do?
You could light your torch with it, isn't
it?
You can get you can borrow.
You could do that.
So if you did have light, then you
can give other people hope and they can
find some light. At the very least, they'll
just get closer to you even if they
haven't gotten in contact with you. Proximity to
you will enhance their vision.
That's one kind of person in the audience.
Here's another kind of person in the audience.
Bro,
how come this guy has light?
Oh, you think he's so special?
I'm gonna go there and put out that
light.
If I don't have it, ain't nobody gets
to have it.
There are some people, they don't want what
you want. They just don't want you to
have it either.
Right? Allah will describe those people too.
They want to blow out Allah's light with
their mouths. It's a later parable that's coming,
but that's the same idea.
This person now
he was dead. Something stirred up inside them.
They found themselves coming to Islam with this
light.
That's not enough. Now they're walking among people.
You know what that means? They're not hiding
their Islam.
They're walking among people, and you can tell
there's a difference between the one who has
light and everybody else who's in the dark.
You can immediately tell.
So they are standing out now in society.
They stand out.
They're totally okay
being
different
than everyone else,
because they see that they have light, and
they appreciate that they won't let it go.
Now everyone around them says, why are you
being weird, bro? What's this light? Just turn
it off.
What? You well, the rest of us are
crazy?
Is darkness really that bad?
Really? Your mom had darkness.
Your grandpa had darkness.
Your older brother has darkness.
Is it really that bad?
You're better than everyone.
And
still doesn't let it go.
You know, darkness, one of the things about
it, the the imagery of darkness here
is if you're in the dark for a
really long time
and then somebody turns all the lights on,
what happens to your eyes?
Turn it off.
This person has light, and the people who
are comfortable in the dark, what happens to
them?
Come on.
They can't stand the presence of someone who
has light because they're really comfortable being in
the dark. This is the life of a
person who comes towards Allah
when they start walking with the word of
Allah and standing by it, and they're interacting
with a society that has darkness,
but they won't let go of their identity,
and they won't let go of the light
that Allah has given them, and it shines
right through them, there will be people in
the office that are like,
Muhammad, could you pray somewhere else?
You know,
there's going to be they can't stand the
presence.
It bothers them.
It hurts
them. They don't want to see any any
of it.
This might even happen in some families. Hey.
There's an Eid party. You're invited. Can you
not wear hijab?
Because we wanna be normal this time.
Can you not?
Okay. There's gonna be this wedding. Everybody's invited.
Can you just not leave when all the
crazy stuff starts, when the fun begins?
Can you just stay when the fun begins?
It's awkward. You're making us feel bad.
Can you just accept the darkness, please?
Isn't that what what that is?
This person is being described
as being in the in the
encircled
by people that are comfortable in the dark,
but they don't run from those people.
They're walking among them.
The light's enough for them to be able
to engage with society
to be and continue to engage with them.
The people might run from them. They're not
gonna run from the people.
It's a powerful example also of our philosophy
as Muslims.
Muslims are like, oh, we have to move
to an Islamic environment.
We are living in a country.
We're living in a society
where we would have a job. I'm meeting,
you know,
I'm sitting
at tables and apartments and
Shut up.
The entire premise of this ayah is that
Allah has given you a light, and the
purpose of you having light was so you
could you could go and illuminate an area
where everybody is engulfed in darkness.
If everybody had a light and you had
a light, you're not contributing in any way,
actually,
because it already exists.
There's actually really powerful imagery here of non
con nonconformity,
which I wanna talk to you about a
little bit.
One of the most important one of the
most powerful,
forces in the world is conformity.
Especially young people here listen to this carefully.
Conformity means
you wanna be like everyone else because that's
what's acceptable.
You create a standard.
The only way the only thing that's acceptable
is if you look like everyone else, you
talk like everyone else, you dress like everyone
else, you behave like everyone else because that's
what everyone
has decided is normal.
So if you wanna be normal, you better
be like everyone else.
And these
are telling you normal is usually dark.
Normal is the majority of people are usually
in darkness.
You have to be comfortable
holding on to light even if all the
people in the darkness
are weirded out by you
and their eyes are
uncomfortable.
They experience discomfort by your present. You should
you you become comfortable with that. Now Allah
says on the flip side,
Is this person example like someone who's who
the is this the equivalent of someone who
is in depths of darkness, the layers of
darkness
that he won't be coming out of?
So on the one hand is a person
who decides to walk
through darkness
with light in their head. On the other
on the flip side,
someone who will stay in darkness,
not to come out of it. One of
the most interesting observations about this ayah from
the as a contrast from the previous is,
So you notice the person was dead. Allah
says we brought them to life.
And then Allah says, and we put
a light,
furnish them with a light.
Then he says, and then that person walks
with that light among the people. What does
that mean?
The bringing to life, Allah takes credit.
Providing the light, Allah takes credit.
Walking among the people with light, the person
had to make the effort themselves.
Allah didn't say, I make him walk. No,
no, no. Now he walks on his own,
but Allah initiated that. Allah initiated by giving
him life, providing him the light, but the
walking he had to do on his own.
If you look at the flip side, Allah
did not mention himself.
On the flip side, Allah says, someone
as as opposed to someone
the example of someone who is in darknesses.
If you follow the previous imagery, remember the
devils were able to pull him down into
a dark area?
That's all on his own.
He did this to himself.
And then Allah didn't say, oh, and Allah
will not let him come out.
That would have been
Allah will not be pulling him out of
that darkness. No. No. No.
He won't be coming out of it.
He won't come out of it.
It's not that Allah won't let him come
out, he doesn't want to come out,
Which is interesting because the one who's moving
towards light or the one who's moving towards
life, and the one who's walking among people
in darkness is making a lot of effort.
It's like going upstream.
It's going against what everybody else is doing.
And this person is actually comfortable in the
dark.
He doesn't want to come out of it.
He wants to stay in the dark. It's
comfortable here.
Why in the world would somebody be comfortable
with darkness?
I gave you an example of somebody who
just lives their life
sort of carefree and, you know, they
one Friday night is, you know, pub night.
Saturday night is club night or whatever it
is. Right? One weekend, the next weekend, the
next weekend, the next weekend.
And these are the same people that are
depressed. These are the same people that are
taking antianxiety pills. These are the same people
that are having hangovers and all kinds of
problems.
These are the same people who can't be
in any steady relationships.
These are the same people that have trouble
trusting anybody or anybody trusting them.
They have all these issues, and every every
one of their friends has some kind of
an agenda. They feel isolated, lonely, misunderstood,
depressed
constantly,
but they're doing the same thing over and
over and over and over and over again.
You know why? Because they're habituated.
They go from one darkness to the next
darkness to the next darkness, and they're like,
well, I mean, what else do I what
am I supposed to do? This is what
life is. This is what everybody does. Would
you wanna be weird? Hey, let's not go
out on Friday night.
Why? Don't you have a life?
You should have a life
because that's how they define life.
Even if that life
brings them many troubles,
brings them many crises,
brings them many sadnesses,
that doesn't matter.
It's just what you're supposed to do. Isn't
that itself a kind of surrender?
Isn't that itself a kind of when you're
like, you know, for for us,
is you gotta show up for.
For them, Friday night, it's like, you you
gotta go party Friday night.
It's like, you can't miss it. What do
you mean it's Friday night?
How am I gonna miss Friday night?
Allah is basically the Quran's teaching of philosophy,
which I'll elaborate tomorrow
when we get to the next parable. And
that philosophy is
either you're a slave to god,
either you decide to enslave yourself to Allah,
or
you will be enslaved to someone other than
Allah,
but you will be enslaved,
and only one of them is actual freedom.
If you're enslaved to Allah,
you will be free
from your culture.
You'll be free from peer pressure.
You'll be free from social expectations.
You'll be free from your own bad habits.
You'll be free from your lower self. It's
a freedom from all things because you enslaved
yourself to Allah.
If you don't enslave yourself to Allah, you
will be enslaved
to trends,
to fashion,
to the group that you belong to. You'll
be enslaved to family expectations,
corporate expectations.
You'll be enslaved to,
you know, social media expectations,
influencer
expectations.
You will find other gods to enslave yourselves
to.
And your behavior won't actually be yours. It
will be dictated by one of those false
gods.
That's what it will be dictated. Either you're
enslaved to Allah and you're loyal to your
own conscience,
or you're enslaved to people or other trends
or other forces,
and they dictate everything that you do. You
have to decide which one which one you're
you're gonna end up which side you're gonna
end up. So Allah says
the last thing from this ayah that I'd
like to share with you briefly.
That is how we've beautified for disbelievers what
they've been doing.
What a strange conclusion to this ayah.
To beautify for disbelievers. Allah says, that is
how
whatever disbelievers have been doing has been beautified
for them. That's the more literal translation.
What does beauty have to do with anything?
Purpose,
think have you heard the term style and
substance?
Okay. If you don't know the terms, look
them up, style and substance.
If somebody's delivering a a message,
it should have substance.
Right?
And then, of course, it should have an
have an effective style. So good communication is
a combination of style and substance.
But some people
are only obsessed with style, which means beauty,
only beauty,
and others are only obsessed with
substance.
Though, an easy example of that is the
engineering department and the design department.
The engineering department is obsessed with
substance, function, and the design department is obsessed
with
style, and you have to kind of bring
them together.
One of the things Allah is doing in
this ayah is Allah is describing the people
who found light,
they are more driven by
substance,
purpose.
And what's interesting is what used to be
ugly in the dark becomes beautiful in the
morning.
So if you go to a beautiful island,
palm trees, woods,
forest, and a and an ocean in front
of you, but you go there at 3
AM
with no lights on. I can guarantee you
it's a terrifying place.
And that same place, by morning,
oh my god. If this is on earth,
what does Jannah look like?
The only difference between the most terrifying place
and the most beautiful place is the presence
of what?
Light.
While light is actually
mainly directed towards
substance, it's supposed to lead you to a
destination.
Light is also the only way by which
we can see beauty in this world.
That's how beauty is appreciated in this world.
But on the flip side, there are people
who don't care about substance.
All they care about is beauty,
style.
And Allah says,
these deeds that they do, someone has convinced
them. Somehow they've been convinced that these deeds
that they do are beautiful,
and they'll keep doing them and stay in
the dark. And they don't even know why
they're doing it because it just it's just
what you're supposed to do. It's beautified to
them. That's all the there's no purpose behind
it. You can't talk about a purpose because
it's not about purpose. It's about
It's about beauty.
So there's a contrast made about between the
people of substance,
who end up finding beauty anyway,
and the people that just want style, who
end up staying in the dark and make
their lives uglier.
Summarizing that beautiful that incredible point, when we
live a life of purpose,
life gets beautiful.
Life itself gets beautiful.
And when we live a life
running after beauty,
life itself gets ugly.
Life itself gets surrounded by darkness.
What if system Allah has made?
What if Nivam Allah has created? And we'll
see that this imagery
is then going to build on top. Final
comment on this
what they have been doing. I briefly mentioned
this to you. People are habituated. They keep
doing the same thing over and over again,
and they're like, this is how it's supposed
to be. This is how we're supposed to
do it.
And that is what Allah has captured in
When you do the same thing over and
over again, you become comfortable doing the same
thing even if it's harmful to you. Think
of, addictions like smoking, for example. You keep
doing it. You keep doing it. You keep
doing it. Even though if it's bad, it
has no purpose. It doesn't benefit you. It
only harms you, but you're gonna keep doing
it because it's a it's been beautified to
you in your mind. Right?
So their preexisting
habits
have been beautified for them. And that's the
contrast between them and the one who finds
light, the one whose seed pops open, and
they seek light. They they leave their past
behind. They leave the dead state behind, and
they're able to emerge a new thing altogether.
Someone who finds Allah, someone who finds guidance,
it's like they were recreated.
It's like they're they're not even the same
person anymore.
That was that was something dead, this is
something alive.
That was a seed, this is a tree.
SubhanAllah. May Allah keep all of our faith
alive, and may Allah allow us to become
a means by which others who are seeking
the faith will find
this truth.
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