Striking Examples From The Quran #14 Narrowed Chests
Date:
Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
Series: Nouman Ali Khan - Ramadan 2024 - Striking Examples From The Quran
File Size: 41.72MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The concept of guidance and mis panics in the Quran is discussed, including the importance of guidance and mis panics in the world of Islam. The speakers emphasize the need for strong commitment to staying on the same path and expanding one's chest to feel relaxed and relaxed. The use of guidance and mis panics in the internet and online media is discussed, including the use of "imational state" labels on the Quran to describe the state of those who believe they are free. The speakers also emphasize the importance of hyperventilation and the use of the "imational state" label on the Quran to describe the state of those who believe they are free.AI Generated Transcript ©
Before
you begin this video, just quickly wanted to
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One outstanding thing from the last, parable that
I should have mentioned, but I think it's
it's important to mention now it'll connect to
what we're talking about today. These two parables,
this is, what I'm gonna talk to you
about today inshallah is ayah number 125
of Surah Al Anam. And the last time
I spoke to you was about
122, so they're pretty close to each other.
There Allah talked about just as a quick
reminder,
as for the one who was dead and
we gave them life,
meaning someone who was spiritually dead, they hadn't
realized their faith, and then Allah brought them
to guidance. And that was compared to someone
who remains in darknesses.
One observation about that that's important I think
is
when someone is in misguidance,
and then Allah does give them guidance, and
they do leave
the dark or death
lifestyle,
and they come towards, Allah,
they have an appreciation
for where Allah brought them.
They can remember the times when they were
in darkness, and now they can see
what Allah has given them. So they have
a value for what Allah has given them.
If you compare this to the 2nd group,
this the contrary group that was mentioned,
Allah said the one who is in darknesses
and or,
you know, in shades of darkness,
he's not gonna come out of them. They
never saw any guidance anyway.
Like, they don't even know what they're missing.
Right? So they see no value in coming
to guidance because
it's like they've it's not something they've ever
experienced.
So there's actually a
contrast being drawn between someone who can appreciate
where they were to where they are now,
to someone who can't appreciate guidance because
it's just not something they have any experience
with. They just they don't care for it
because they've never it's never been a part
of their life.
So this is, you know, a matter of
appreciation also.
Today,
we're taking the next step. What Allah is
giving us is the next step in that
imagery
of guidance and misguidance.
So the previous one was about the journey
towards Islam itself.
But now it's almost as if now that
somebody has come towards Islam
or they've
realized it,
how do they stay guided?
So there's arriving at guidance, and then there's
kind of remaining guided. And so this parable
is about remaining guided. The previous one was
about arriving to
guidance. So
Allah says, and
that's I'll translate it accordingly,
and whoever Allah might intend then,
that they that Allah would guide them or
continue to guide them. I'll translate it like
that. Okay. That Allah would continue to guide
a person. Allah says
Islam. Allah would then
a rough transition will be expand their chest
for Islam.
I'll explain what that means in a moment,
but for now we'll go with rough translation.
And whoever he might intend, this is gonna
be a bad translation, we're gonna fix it
in the course of our discussion.
And whoever he might intend to misguide,
because it
it sounds wrong, Allah
wanting to misguide someone. And we're gonna have
to work on that, figure out what that
means. Right?
Allah makes their chest, this person's chest
constricted,
tight.
Extremely
tight. Extremely constricted. So there's 2 words used,
one bad and then the other one worse,
right next to each other.
As if this person is climbing
up towards the sky or into the sky.
That is how Allah places filth
on those who don't believe. So this seems
like a pretty obscure,
translation, but we're gonna try to take this
bit by bit by bit. The first portion
of this is Allah intends
to guide.
Allah has mentioned in other places in the
Quran what Allah intends,
and what Allah wants,
and what Allah doesn't want.
And he has mentioned in, you know, on
multiple occasions
that this guidance, this Quran, is guidance for
everybody.
For example, in the Ayat of Al Baqarah,
we're talking about Ramadan. He described the Quran.
He said,
It's a guidance for all human beings.
Right?
So it's not like Allah wants some people
to be misguided or some people should go
to hell and other people should be guided,
and that's what Allah wants. If Allah wanted,
you know, this message to just be for
some people, he wouldn't call it
guidance for all people.
So let's keep things
super simple without making them sound philosophical or
complicated.
You have a a teacher in a classroom.
He's got 20 students. Right? This teacher has
20 students. The teacher wants all of these
kids to succeed.
He wants to see all of them pass.
He's going to provide them all the same
lecture,
give them the same homework,
give them the same preparation for the test,
all of it.
But then he says
he says in the end, he says, well
the only ones that are going to pass
are going to be the ones that complete
their homework assignments.
He's basically and you're not gonna be able
to do do well on the test if
you haven't been doing your homework. It's just
not gonna happen.
Right?
He's not saying he wants some people to
fail. He's just saying, look. I want all
of you to pass, but all of you
have to meet the requirements in order to
be able to pass.
Whether you choose if you're one of those
20 and you choose to do the assignment
or not do the assignment, that's not the
teacher's fault. That's your fault.
You didn't do your part.
He opened it up for you. He provided
the education. He provided the examples. He provided
the review. He was there to answer your
questions, etcetera, etcetera.
Similar concept to when Allah talks about guidance.
We sometimes make it as if Allah forced
guidance on some people and forced misguidance on
other people. It's not that simple. And that's
actually even that can lead to a lot
of misconception also of what Allah means by
guidance and misguidance in in his book. But
anyway, Allah does mention that whoever Allah intends
to keep on guidance.
Where where does that come from? This is
a principle in the Quran that everybody should
understand.
And that principle is
Allah says it himself.
We turn a person in the direction they
turned themselves.
Allah says in the in a good direction,
Allah says
Those who make struggle to come towards us
in our path, we keep opening up our
pathways and keep guiding them to our pathways.
Meaning, when you show Allah initiative,
Allah gives you extra
benefits.
When you turn towards Allah seeking guidance,
Allah opens doors for you to find guidance.
That's the formula with Allah. When Allah sees
any of his slaves in existence,
turn towards him looking for guidance. There is
no way someone turns to Allah for guidance
and Allah does not give it to them.
That's just the that's Allah's rule. That's Allah's
rule. And the more you come to him,
the more he comes to you.
In the in the famous hadith paraphrasing of
the prophet,
you you you walk to him, he runs
to you.
Right? So this this is the idea that
Allah will respond in kind and even much
more
to your initiative.
You have to show the step and then
Allah responds, Allah responds, and Allah responds. Right?
The same is true of the opposite end.
But this is this one's interesting.
I I wanna remind you of an example
in the Quran that is not here, but
it's related to this, the misguidance side. Even
though we're still on the opening guidance phrase,
I wanna tie that in together now.
The the word in Arabic, the verb
is used for
tying up,
beams of construction. So back in the ancient
world,
you know, nowadays when you have columns or
different kinds of planks of wood or, you
know, steel or whatever, we weld things together.
We nail them together. We drill them together,
etcetera. But back in the day, they used
to have these logs of wood, and the
way they would hold them together is they
would bind them together.
They would rope them together. Right? Now, obviously,
you're familiar with the concept of tying a
rope,
or tying a knot, like you're tying your
shoes is also tying a knot. But you
can imagine that the rope that you use
to tie columns together, that's a pretty serious
kind of knot.
That's that you you tied in a way
that you're intending that it never gets undone,
because the entire construction depends on it. Right?
That kind of a knot where you, you
know, you double up the rope, you coil
the rope, you twist it multiple times on
one angle, the other angle
wrap it up, then again, then again, then
again, then again,
That kind of reinforced tying was called Ibrahim.
Now keep that image in mind. Allah uses
that image to describe
a phrase,
about the kuffar, a a sentiment of the
kuffar in Makkah. He says,
So I'll translate that now. Have they made
up their minds?
And if so,
we have made up our mind too.
But what the literal language is, have they
tied their rope?
That's the literal question. Have they tied their
rope? And if so, we've tied ours too.
What is Allah saying?
These people have made such a strong commitment
to remain
it's the same as the one who ties
the rope
and ties it in a way that's designed
to never be undone.
The commitment to tying it did not come
from Allah.
The commitment to tying themselves, binding themselves to
kufr came from them.
And as a result of that, Allah says,
fine. I'll let you keep it.
Fine. I will tie it too.
You want to seal the deal? I'll seal
the deal also. It's the same as when
I want to come to Allah for guidance,
Allah will guide.
When I wanna show any any human being
wants to show Allah commitment to misguidance, Allah
says, fine. Another way this phrasing is used
in the Quran is,
We turn this person in the direction
they turn themselves.
You yourself turned in that direction. Allah says
fine.
Have it your way.
This is also another way to think think
about this. This is a spiritual reality. You
can also think of it in in ways
of fitra.
Allah has given us in this fitra it's
a it's a really remarkable thing that things
that happen in nature happen in spiritual world
too. So many of the young guys here,
for example, you work out. The more you
exercise a muscle and you keep giving it
proper nutrition,
the stronger that muscle gets.
Right? The more you're using it, the stronger
it's getting.
It's just the way it's designed.
The opposite, if you
covered one of your eyes, this is a
muscle, you covered it, and you didn't open
it for a year.
2 years you didn't open it
what's going to happen when you open it
you're going to be blind
you're not going to be able to see
this it's going to lose its ability if
you lie down in a bed and didn't
get up for a year 2 years then
you're going to have muscle atrophy you're not
going to be able to use your legs
The
if you don't if you if Allah has
given you an ability and you don't use
it,
then you will, by nature, lose it
Lose it. The same is true of guidance.
If Allah has given you an opportunity, given
me an opportunity to accept Allah's guidance, And
I reject it. And I reject it. And
I reject it. And I reject it. Eventually,
Allah will not
give me unlimited
ability
to even make that choice. My ability to
accept guidance
will die.
It'll be atrophy, spiritual atrophy. It'll be dead.
Right? So that's what's gonna happen.
Now with that in mind, on the on
the first end, on on the guidance side,
whoever Allah intends to continue to keep on
the path of guidance or to guide them,
He says,
I translated this as He expands their chest.
The word in Arabic actually means a slice
or a cut of lean meat. When you
slice a wide cut of meat and you
put it on the grill, that's actually called
a
or also. Right?
And the idea of then became something that's
wide open or easily open.
Okay?
And the the word is then used in
the figurative sense for expansion.
Like you've many of you know the Surah
famously, Right?
So Allah says, he expands their chest.
Now what what does it mean to expand
or open up the chest?
Lean open the chest. What this this is
the idea of someone finding comfort in something.
Actually, the figure of speech in Arabic,
and
is, you know, you're making a decision and
you feel calm about it.
Then you have
or
And you're making a decision and it's bothering
you, it's not sitting well with you. That's
actually.
Allah is saying, when Allah intends to guide
someone, an additional benefit He gives them
is then Allah will put something in their
chest, extra something in their chest from Allah
that they will feel calm,
they will feel relaxed,
they will feel like they can breathe.
Like the idea of expanding the chest is
you're breathing in fresh air.
You know, if you're in a room that
has smoke in it, if you have a
if you have an area that has a
lot of smog or it's stuffy or something,
you can't breathe properly, your nose gets stuffed,
allergies happen, all this stuff. But you go
somewhere and you can breathe the fresh air.
Like you're going like at a beach or
something like that. And you can breathe the
fresh air. The the chest expands.
And that's the imagery Allah is using to
describe what Allah does to a person who
Allah intends to guide. They feel a certain
way about the religion.
But Allah didn't just talk about this with
iman. He
said Islam, which is really important here. Islam
as opposed to iman, iman is what you
believe on the inside,
what you've accepted as the truth. Islam
is your
surrender
to the demands Allah makes.
So Allah says pray, you pray. That's Islam.
Allah says stay away from this haram. You
stay away from it. That's Islam.
Islam is actual practical
surrender. So iman is on the inside,
Islam is on the outside. You can think
of it like that. Iman is on the
inside, Islam is on the outside. Now here
the the reason this is important in this
case
is that,
you have
it's it's easy to accept
an idea
theoretically,
but it's a lot harder to act on
the idea even if you agree with it.
Some people might agree, oh, this is an
injustice or this
this this politician is doing something bad or
blah blah blah or this is we we,
you know, this is wrong. You know, you
could you could watch a video and agree
with it.
You agreed with it.
But then are you gonna become an activist
for that cause and go out there and,
you know, become become a soldier in the
in in the movement or something? That's a
little
that's the the the transition from agreeing with
something to acting on something is a big
journey.
And it takes a lot for someone to
not just agree with something, but actually
do something about it. Right?
What Allah is saying here is when truly
Allah intends to guide someone, they don't just
agree with the teachings of Islam in theory.
Allah
makes their chest comfortable
with obeying Allah. The
the actual acting on the mandate of Allah
is something they find comfort in.
You know? The the question let let's keep
things as simple as possible again.
You have, for example, someone said, you know,
why do you have to pray 5 times?
It's a lot.
You know?
And,
you know, yeah, do you can you have
to pray, like, that early? Can you just
kind of delay it until later and just
combine them or, you know, kind of should
be some kind of a discount program.
You know?
The idea
of
I know it's a lot it's a lot
to ask,
is someone whose chest has not yet been
expanded
for Islam.
When the chest is expanded for Islam,
then it's not, oh my god, it's
again. It's, oh my god, it's
You're you're excited because your chest opens up
for this act of surrender.
You feel the joy of being able to
pray.
You feel the joy of it. And there's
a deep sadness if you overslept.
There's not just a shame and a regret
or, oh well.
No. No. No. There's actually you missed out
on a joy. You missed out on the
expansion of a chest.
You missed out on something that feels deeply
good inside, and there's a there's a there's
a sense of loss.
That's the gift Allah gives to those he
intends to guide.
And then on the flip side,
and whoever he intends to misguide. Now, again,
let me fix that translation now. Whoever he
intends to leave in misguidance is probably the
sense I would agree with most here.
The the previous parable we saw,
The example of the one who is in
shades of darkness himself
won't come out of them on their own.
That's they made their mind up. Remember
the thing? The the tying rope thing?
Well, if they made up their mind, they
don't want to come out of the darkness,
that's the person that Allah intends to keep
the way they want to stay.
Allah will not go out of the way
and, you know, divine intervention pull them out
of darkness when they don't wanna come out
when they don't wanna come out. Allah says,
Allahu
Allah is the protective friend of those who
believe.
He pulls them out of darknesses into light,
but the so the idea of getting someone
out of the darkness towards the light is
something Allah does.
But then there are some people who like
being in the dark. And Allah says,
Fine. This rope is not for you.
You don't want it? It's not for you.
That's the simple rule of Allah.
What does Allah do with people like that
though? There's an additional
something that comes from Allah. It's almost like
a punishment you could say that comes from
Allah. That this person decided to hate Islam,
Allah says, okay.
I'll give you an allergic reaction to Islam
too.
Here's their allergic reaction.
He makes their chest this person's chest becomes
tight.
When they hear about Allah,
can we change the subject?
When they hear when they see somebody praying,
something bothers them.
Why these people have to pray in front
of everyone?
Can they go find somewhere else to pray?
I hate these people with their
hijabs and their
God.
You know?
There's there's a discomfort in them
when they see
anything to do with Islam.
Allah makes them feel something terrible inside.
This is not just even about a non
Muslim. You know, you could you you might
think, oh, this is talking about the people
that stare at me on the plane when
you walk in.
You know? They see they see the guy
with the beard and then you'll
You
know? Because they're about
to. Right?
No. But if this is even referring I
would argue because Allah says,
Whoever Allah intends to give guidance to, whoever
Allah intends to keep in the darkness, they
wanna keep
they wanna keep it. Look,
guidance and misguidance isn't about Islam and kufr.
You could be in Islam and still be
in misguidance.
You could be Muslim
on the outside,
but not really be connected to Allah's guidance
on the inside. And it could be that
you're Muslim
and you feel discomfort.
It bothers you.
It makes their chest tight,
restricted,
like you can't breathe. This is like a
this is the image of hyperventilation. You guys
familiar with the term?
Right? You're running out of breath. Isn't this
the opposite of when your chest is expanding?
There's
open breathing and then there's hyperventilation.
And then he uses the word
on top of that.
Is actually used for,
you know, higher areas
where there are trees that are so close
to each other in a hill
that the shepherd that wants to graze his
animals, he can't take his animals there because
the trees are too tightly close to each
other that the animals can't get through in
between.
Right? That's actually the word
So it's an extreme form of tightness
that even animals can't squeeze through. So Allah
took the word
and added the word
as if to say this person feels discomfort
and that discomfort gets significantly worse.
It it doesn't get better. It gets worse.
Their anxiety gets worse.
And their hyperventilation,
they're running more and more and more out
of breath.
Now this is let's take a quick step
back and understand something remarkable about this phrasing.
The idea of hyperventilation
is when you get really tired.
Right? And if you're climbing or you're, you
know, if you're on a treadmill on an
incline or something, and
eventually, it starts catching up with you, and
you start breathing heavy. And if you keep
pushing harder and harder, then it's gonna you're
just gonna start panting and panting and panting.
By the way, heavy breathing and difficult breathing
is actually one of the common images in
the Quran.
Right? Allah uses this this the the the
imagery of breathing quite a bit in the
Quran.
Like even
is also the imagery of breathing in the
Quran. But anyway, so
why is this important? Because this is towards
the end of the phase of Mecca.
Hijra is around the corner.
Even though Quraish know
this Islam thing, we tried to get rid
of it by calling the man insane. We
tried to get rid of it by calling
him a liar. We tried to get rid
of it by calling him a poet. None
of those tactics worked. We tried to get
rid of it by beating up some of
his followers,
by torturing him,
by humiliating him, by boycotting him. None of
that works. Some things this is
we need to do something.
This is getting the anxiety is building up.
And the people who are following this religion,
by the way,
as the years went by in Mecca, Islam
was getting harder and harder to follow
because you were being beat up and tortured
and the aggression was increasing and yet Allah
is saying as
difficult as things were getting, the people who
are following Islam, Allah was giving their hearts,
their chest a calm.
They're the ones getting beat up and their
chest are calm.
And the Quraysh are trying to destroy Islam.
They're the ones in power. They're the ones
that are ripping people in half. They're the
ones that are putting boulders on
chest. They're the ones that are, you know,
making halab al arat lie on coal, burning
coal and then stand on stand on him.
They're the ones doing that, but they're the
ones hyperventilating.
It's not going away. Come on. It's
it keeps getting worse.
What? Omar, he became Muslim? Hamza?
What are we gonna do?
And there there's an escalation happening with them.
There
you would think because they're in a position
of power, they should be the ones breathing
easy, we should be the ones hyperventilating.
It's not like that.
Then Allah says
What an apt image.
Pointed out very beautifully today, you know, we
were discussing.
As if he is climbing up into the
sky. The word is used very few times
in the Quran. If
you know in the battle of Uhud when
Rasulullah
and the Sahaba were climbing back up the
mountain to escape the enemy because they had
come back around. Right? And that's where was
used then. This is which is actually the
form of.
Became
which is an Arabic way of creating
a friction attention in the word.
So as if someone is climbing
up into
the sky. The word sky is not used
as in they're climbing in thin air.
Is used for mountains or very high places
too. So it's the image of someone climbing
up a mountain.
And they are the more they're climbing, the
air is getting thinner,
and it's getting more and more dangerous. And
they keep getting more and more exhausted.
And this this the the disbeliever, the one
who wants Allah intends misguidance for them, they
keep
going up towards the sky
running out of air. For example, firstly, out
of exhaustion
which is already the chest is becoming tight
But on top of that, the air is
getting thinner too.
So it's
and it's There's 2 dimensions.
Right?
As if he's climbing up into the sky,
into the heights like he doesn't even know
where when it's gonna end. This is so
remarkable because if you notice,
last
especially yesterday I told you in this surah
they said how come there's no angel that
comes down? How come no book comes down?
How come no miracle comes down from the
sky? And Allah says, and these people want
something from the sky so bad. Their anxiety
is like someone trying to climb up into
the sky.
Right? And they're running out of air as
they do it.
And so the
this is the
remarkable imagery of someone who thinks that they're
going towards freedom.
Getting away from Islam, if you talk to
people that don't wanna follow Islam,
even if you're not having a condescending conversation,
the idea is that Islam is very restricting.
This is haram. That's haram. Can't do this.
Can't do that. Wake up at this time.
You know,
pray this, eat this, earn this, don't earn
this, don't have this kind of bank account,
don't do this kind of transaction, don't, you
know, don't have this kind of relationship.
There's a restriction on the kinds of relationships
you can have, restriction on the kind of
food you can have,
restriction on kind of the kind of money
you can make, the kind of money you
can spend. There are restrictions.
And they're like, why do I have to
follow these restrictions? I could be free.
And you know what better image of freedom
than the open sky?
Right? And Allah turns that image on its
head. He he it's a counter intuitive,
you know, rendition of the image. Why? You
would think the sky will give you freedom.
And this person's climbing up into the sky,
and what is it giving them? Lack of
oxygen.
This is what it's giving them.
You want that freedom? Go.
Go for it.
You know,
And look at the other the one who
obeyed Allah in the beginning, who surrendered before
Allah, what did Allah describe?
They're free to breathe.
They're free to expand. Inhale
all the way into their chest and exhale
comfortably.
What a beautiful
contrast made. You would think the per the
person who thinks they're running after freedom
is running after their own suffocation.
They're suffocating themselves. And the person who's running
to surrender themselves to Allah is truly enjoying
a breath of fresh air. They're truly enjoying
freedom. This is Allah
reverse engineering
our concept of freedom and liberty.
Is really powerful.
I I I talked about this many years
ago. I'll share it with you because I
think it's relevant.
I when I I went to
8th grade in Pakistan,
because my dad was stationed in Pakistan briefly,
so 8th grade was in Pakistan. And before
that, we were in. So in, we were
also in Pakistani school. And Pakistani school is
like an all all boys school and you
have the uniform. Right? We're all everybody's wearing
the same exact clothes, so you can't really
say, oh, this guy's white shirt. That's all
everybody's wearing a white shirt.
You know? So the the best you could
have is your shoes are shinier than somebody
else's. So that's pretty much all you got.
Right? So the the the
because human beings always have some kind of
class structure even in the school in the
classroom, the the the best thing you could
have in your to to demonstrate your superiority
was the pencil case.
If you had a superior pencil case and
if you had an eraser,
Now that this this guy's made it. You
know?
So
come to America.
When you come to America, I'm I'm I
know 9th grade,
signed up for, we we lived in Queens,
so we my parents put me in public
school.
And I went from 8 years of being
in a Muslim environment
and uniform and, you know,
respect for teachers and all. And now I'm
in my 1st day in high school in
Queens, New York.
Right? And I was confused whether I'm sitting
in a classroom or in a train station.
I I couldn't tell the difference
because you got people dressed however they want.
Some people not very dressed at all.
You got some dudes with his feet up
on the desk.
Some dude chewing gum, which is apparent
that would have been the death penalty in
Pakistan. I don't know.
You know? And the teacher's talking and people
are talking to each other.
They're not even listening.
And I for a moment, I was in
shock like, what is this?
What what alt reality is this?
But the reason I'm bringing up this
that that time of my life,
I realized these people can dress however they
want.
They can be they can say whatever they
want. They have freedom. I never saw freedom
like that before in my life.
But these people have so much freedom. They
can even talk back to the teacher.
They talk about their parents.
They don't even say my my dad or.
They say Frank.
Yeah. Samantha was giving me a hard time
to do who's Samantha? My mom.
And you're alive?
Right?
They have freedom.
But then after a couple of months, I
realized something.
They were the goth kids.
There were the hip hop kids. There were
the the, you know, there were the heavy
metal kids. There were the, you know, surfboard
kid. There were different groups, and each one
of them dressed
a certain way.
I mean, if you were on the hip
hop side back in the day, you had
extra baggy jeans. If you remember, some of
you remember, you had to have the Nautica
and the Tommy Hilfiger and the Timberland boots
and all of that stuff. And you had
to have t shirts that were basically the
size of thobes. They were they were
like, they're pretty cover your aura and then
some. Right?
But you had they had a certain kind
of uniform.
And I was like,
I thought they're free. Why are they dressing
the same?
Why are they talking the same?
And you realize something.
And and I by the way, if you
don't fit in one of those groups, you're
gonna get bullied.
If you just wanna dress normal and go,
oh,
yo. What's up what's up with you?
So now if you don't wanna get beat
up
or you don't wanna get humiliated,
you better put
a hat on, you better put some extra
baggy jeans on, you better do this, you
better do you know, You better conform.
You better put one of the uniforms on.
In fact, you even had to walk a
certain way
to fit into a certain group. Each one
of them had a different walk. You had
to strut a certain way.
What I'm trying to tell you is
there's the illusion,
there's the false image of freedom.
There is no
open chest.
There is no I can just be myself.
I can breathe.
No. I have to surrender to this group
or this group or this group. But this
isn't just about a high school in in
America
in the nineties.
This is about every society in the world
and every age group in the world.
There are people here
that are that have daughters that are that
are looking to get their daughters married.
And their cousin already, you know, their their
those girls cousins already got married. And they
got married in some wedding hall here somewhere.
And it was a nice wedding and all
of that. And now they're about to get
their daughter married, and they have to keep
up.
They have to take a loan. They have
to,
you know, get very overpriced expensive catering.
They have to invite at least 300 guests
because their cousin invited 270.
We gotta beat the score. So we gotta
invite at least 300 guests,
and you're gonna put on all this difficulty
on yourself
and you're gonna give up Allah's guidance in
the in the process.
You disobey Allah in the process. Why? Because
there's something else you're surrendering to.
You're surrendering to a social standard.
You're surrendering to the need to demonstrate that
you got money too,
Or you you gave a big party to
your daughter's wedding too. Or you did the
you know, and we're doing this. The elders
do this in their own way. The high
schoolers do this in their own way. Kids
do this in their own way. Everybody is
breathing heavy, climbing up into the sky, trying
to conform to something else. And this is
actually the the height of misguidance.
What Islam did
is so incredible.
You didn't have to impress anybody. So long
as you're doing the right thing,
you're fine.
You shouldn't be ashamed of
how tall or short you are, how much
money you make, what kind of clothes you're
wearing.
You don't have to be ashamed about what
what, you know, what kind of education you
have
and what business you none of it. So
long as you are living by the principles
Allah has given you, he has freed you
from needing to surrender to any other standard.
He freed you. He liberated you.
And the people who have not been liberated,
their chest
always has anxiety.
Always.
This ex it will always because you're always
trying to please people.
You're always trying to fit some human standard.
Allah's standard is very liberating.
People's standard is a prison, man.
It's a prison. Some people live their entire
life
trying to please other human beings,
their entire life.
Just because they don't they want they're they're
afraid
of the displeasure of other human beings.
They're afraid of the comments of other human
beings. You ever heard in Urdu, they say,
What are people gonna say?
That's that that this is they might as
well put that sticker
on the the haram. That's what they do
too. What are people gonna say?
They live their entire life for that.
This is
It's as if someone climbing up into the
sky hyperventilating.
Any alternative,
any path that leads away from Allah, any
alternative to the guidance Allah has given, is
going to lead you to hyperventilation,
anxiety,
tension,
stress,
depression.
You're gonna feel like you can't breathe.
That is how Allah places
the The ending of this ayah is terrifying.
That is how Allah places
filth.
A in Arabic is used for many bad
things. It's used for filth. It's used for
contamination
or pollutants.
It's used for something that spoils something.
Like, if you some rajs fell into your
food, you can't eat the food anymore, or
the water well is poisoned, etcetera. That's also
rajs.
And so it was also used for a
very aggressive camel
Right? So it's it's it's bad stuff.
Allah says that is how Allah puts
filth
on those who don't believe.
What is the filth?
What is the filth that Allah put on
those who don't believe? The filth is these
cultural
ignorance
standards,
these desires,
this
what your came up with, what social media
came up with, what your consumerism came up
with is a bunch of filth
that's eating away at you.
And your Allah just allows it to be
poured on you. You want it here.
You want it here. And what's incredible in
this imagery is that Allah says he puts
it on them, So
it it you know, if some if if
dirt if
fill fell on you, if garbage fell on
you,
right,
you would have a stench.
You You wouldn't be you'd you wanna be
able to wash it off. Right? And what's
what's the best way to wash off any
filth? It's water.
Revelation is in the Quran, revelation is compared
to water, rain.
These people reject revelation,
they reject purification.
If you reject purification,
then you stay dirty.
This is how Allah play that is how
Allah places filth on the people who are
not going to be believing.
There's a remarkable, remarkable image that Allah has
given us in this ayah
to describe
the state of those who think they're free
while they are
buried in filth
to the point where they can't even breathe.
And yet, they're trying to sell to the
world that somehow this is a goal to
aspire towards.
You know,
especially for the young people here, I'll make
some closing comments,
having to do with, the world of influencers.
Right? So you guys many of you in
your twenties,
you don't even know of a world that
existed before social media. Like,
for you that's that's like normal,
you know. So you don't you don't know
of a world where you had to hang
up or you had to get off the
Internet so you can make a phone call.
Yeah. You don't know that world. You you
come from a different time.
Right? And in your
a lot of young people come up to
me They say, hey. I really like your
content. You're a YouTuber. Right?
Why?
I suppose I am.
I'm a content producer now.
But, you know, influencers, the idea of being
an influencer, the idea of being someone that
is followed, liked, appreciated, etcetera.
There's an image that's being projected.
And then what what these influencers end up
becoming is some kind of icons or idols.
You wanna be like them. You wanna be
you wanna,
idolize them in some way.
But let me tell you, no matter what
image they present themselves with
on camera,
there's a dark reality off camera.
And over and over again,
their dark reality emerges.
And you you just realize,
what are you people selling anyway?
What do you people have to offer?
Don't fall into that fake,
you know,
influencer
life.
Rasool
the the prophets of Allah and the final
messenger of Allah, he is the he's Allah's
inspired
influencer.
Take influence from Allah's Messenger
and it's liberating.
And when you take, you know, influence from
all of these fake,
selfish,
self absorbed people,
then,
you know, you're you're you're setting yourself up
for failure. InshaAllah, actually, there's gonna be a
parable that's coming if we get there in
Ramadan in Surat Ashura
of influencers, of entertainers.
There's a parable in the Quran about them.
He talks about them too
Because they gather masses all the time. Right?
Prophets are trying to influence people
and entertainers are also trying to influence people.
So in a in a sense, entertainers were
competing with the prophets.
In fact, one time the prophet
was reciting Quran in the marketplace and the
Quraysh paid money to a bunch of girls
to start dancing and singing and start a
concert in the middle of the market so
that people would pay attention to those women
and not listen to the prophet, alayhis salaam.
Quran It's in the Quran.
So there is a direct,
clash
between the and
the entertainment industry.
Even in the Quran,
they're both pulling for humanity's influence.
Like they're
they're demanding
influence or attention from humanity. Subhanallah.
So here we think we're gonna turn to
those things to calm ourselves,
to breathe fresh air, but actually according to
this image, all it's going to offer us
is suffocation.
May Allah
make us of those who can find contentment
in Islam and our chest open up for
Islam. And may Allah
give us the kind of conviction
that other people can see it, and say,
I wanna feel what you feel.
You know, so because humanity needs it. Everybody
needs fresh air. And the only ones who
have it are people who Allah has chosen
to guide. May Allah choose to guide all
of us.
Everyone. There are almost 50 1,000 students around
the world that are interested on top of
the students we have in studying the Quran
and its meanings and being able to learn
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