Striking Examples From The Quran #15 Panting Dogs
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Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
Series: Nouman Ali Khan - Ramadan 2024 - Striking Examples From The Quran
File Size: 56.93MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the Parables of the Bible, including the importance of being aware of one's actions and the use of "has been inspiring" to encourage people to think about reality. They also discuss the transformation of the worldview and the importance of understanding the concept of "the eye of the person" in research. The speakers emphasize the need for intentions and embracing the journey towards Islam, and stress the importance of not just knowing and not being recognized for being a Islam person, but acknowledging and embracing the journey towards Islam. They also touch on the negative impact of media on people's emotions and the importance of understanding the word to achieve high deeds. The transcript also touches on the misconceptions of the title of "the Hail Marys" and the importance of sponsorizing students to study the Quran.AI Generated Transcript ©
Before you begin this video, just quickly wanted
to let you know that so much of
the work on the Quran has been completed
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gift also. Thank
you.
We've reached
quite a few parables by now, and we
are doing our first parable from today.
This is one of the most
interesting and deep and heavy passages of the
entire Quran on
a particular subject.
I've the more I was reading even today
and thinking about it today, I realized this
is one of those subjects that should give
be given special treatment on its own. So
one of my intentions in the future is
to actually dedicate some time to a deep
dive into this passage particularly
because Surah Al Araf is a long Surah,
so
usually what I do is when I
get in the study of 1 Surah, then
I just drop everything else, and that's the
only Surah I'm doing.
If I did that with Surah Al Arab,
I'd be in the Surah for a year
at least or 2 or something. So that
that can't I won't do that yet, but
at least, this passage. But I'll tell you
something about it. It's starting from
169,
the passage that I the the portion of
the ayat that I think are, important for
this discussion,
and they go until
179.
And these ayats
are probably the most comprehensive place in the
Quran talking about the concept
of.
Means heedlessness,
unawareness.
Someone who doesn't realize what's going on around
them
is Someone who's utterly unaware is
It can be used in a good way
too. Like Allah used it to describe,
women that are decent dignified women,
and there are other women that are
gossiping and talking about them and do all
kinds of other stuff. And because they never
involve themselves in any kind of gossip,
they have no
idea that that's being said about them.
Right? Because they're not in that circle and
they're not They don't surround themselves
with conversations about other people, so they're utterly
unaware of that world and that's why they're
called
So one of their descriptions in Surah An
Nur is
So it's actually a good thing too in
that sense. Some things it's as if Allah
is saying, it's really good for you to
be unaware of some things.
You know, some people watch a lot of
nonsense online
and say, you know, you gotta be aware,
you gotta keep up with what's going on.
Right? This is kind of Allah's response
to that attitude. No. There's some things you're
better off not being aware of, you're pretty
good.
You know, you're just frying your brain for
no reason.
But generally, the word is not used in
a good sense, it's used in the sense
of you not being aware of something you
should be aware of.
And there are people who behave in a
way that,
they they they think that Allah isn't watching
or they're not realizing that Allah isn't is
is watching. So Allah keeps responding with
it isn't Allah that's unaware of what you're
doing. That's how I'm rhetorically translating that as
it isn't Allah that's unaware of what you're
doing. It's as if Allah is saying, it's
not Allah, it's you. You're unaware of what
you're actually doing.
It's flipping it on its head. But regardless,
this is the passage where the concept of
how does a person become unaware? How do
they become disconnected from reality?
You know, how do they lose that sense?
This is the passage that describes that in
in great profound depth.
The parable that we're gonna talk about in
some sense is actually 2 parables.
Sometimes, you know, this was a difficult,
choice selection to make in the Quran
because
as I talk about each parable, you you're
noticing I'm kind of painting a picture every
time. Right? Allah is
describing a scene, and from that scene, we're
learning something. Right?
But by that definition alone,
there were already 100 and 100 of examples
that we skipped
that we didn't do. We're up to surah
number 7 now, but we skipped them. Why?
Because there's actually imagery
and figurative imagery in the Quran virtually on
every page.
In fact, it even starts in the
When Allah says the straight path,
it's not literally talking about a road that
you walk on, but it's making you think
about the image of a road that is
straight.
And now we're gonna use that image to
understand something about the path Allah wants us
to take in this life. Right? So the
imagery in the Quran
from the first from the very beginning, there's
imagery and it continues
constantly, constantly, and constantly.
So,
and and, you know, those of you that
are familiar with a little bit of Arabic,
you know,
and is a huge part of Arabic literature
and of the Quran. It's actually fundamental
to the study of the Quran.
So in this parable, there's gonna be a
little bit of that
There's gonna be that a touch of that,
but then there's gonna be the the full
on image, and I'm I'm gonna hope to
cover both of them. I'm okay with not
being able to complete this today. If we
get to it,
If not, we'll complete it tomorrow. There's no
rush. I'm all about quality over quantity
Okay.
So the ayat that I'm particularly gonna talk
to you about are gonna start from 175
and go on to 176. These are the
2 ayat that are on the agenda.
Read onto them
as if recite onto them,
make them aware of
the news of the one or the story
you could even say, the report
of the one who We gave our miraculous
signs to.
Allah is saying, tell them about the person
who We gave our ayat to.
So the question first, the question became, who
is this person
that Allah gave his ayat to? The Sahaba
had multiple opinions about who this could be.
And, you know, there's a figure named Balam.
There's somebody else or somebody else, and they
have stories behind them and what kind of
person they were,
and perhaps this is talking about that person
or that person or that person. The way
I would interpret that, and the the way
I would present to you what I find
the most convincing interpretation of that
is when,
Allah said recite onto them the news of
the one who fits this description. We gave
our to them
that he slithered out of them,
that he got away from them. He removed
himself from them, shaved himself off from the
aat.
Strange language, and I'll explain what that means
in a second.
Then the devil got right behind him and
he became from those that are lost.
So
just to paraphrase and to make it easy
for you, Allah is saying, give the example
of a person who person who we, Allah
himself, gave a lot of his ayaat to,
gave revelation to, gave knowledge to, gave wisdom
to, gave guidance to. This person had all
of that, and then they decide to walk
away from it all.
They decide to slip away from it,
and then the devil got behind them,
and they became from the lost, which is
similar to the parable you already heard me
talk about where the person used to be
on guidance and then the devils were able
pull him down into lower land and he's
wandering. Right?
And he's not coming out of that lower
steep land. We already went through that example,
but this is taking a different angle and
talking about it slightly differently. Now the the
the rhetorical interesting thing to note here is
Allah says,
First of all,
news,
which seems very specific.
You know, news is like an actual specific
report.
And means specifically the one who we gave
our eye out to. So Allah is being
very specific about the person
who this is.
But Allah goes so far to be specific,
and then he stays ambiguous and doesn't say
who it is.
And the Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
who received this surah in Mecca
all this time
from Mecca all the way to the end
of the seerah, the Rasulullah
never once says who this is.
He doesn't say it and the sahaba have
that's why the sahaba have multiple opinions on
who this is Because if the messenger of
Allah, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, opens his mouth
and says, this is who this is referring
to, the case is closed. Khalas, that's it.
There's no discussion left.
But that we don't find that in any
narration.
Even when the Sahaba reports something, they're not
saying they got this from the Messenger of
Allah
Right? So how do then why do we
have these multiple opinions? Because you can see
clearly that the Sahaba
saw that the description Allah is giving here
fits this person,
but the description also fits this person, and
the description also fits this person. What does
that tell you? Allah is inspiring the companions
to think about what he said
and to make them look at reality and
say, oh, wow. That fits exactly like that
person, Oh, that sounds just like this person.
Or I learned about that person. That fits
these too.
What does that teach us as the legacy
of the Sahaba? Not just to know who
they pointed at,
but it's actually teaching us, hey, you've got
to you've got to learn from the ayat
of Allah, and then you've got to see
where that reality fits. You've gotta look inside
the the world of revelation, and then you've
gotta look at the outside world with that
lens. Then look inside again, then look outside
again. That's the process of engaging in Allah's
words. It's supposed to change your worldview or
help you see things that you didn't see
before. Identify things that you didn't identify before.
In order to make true sense of these
aat,
and I told you this is a passage
on.
I do wanna say a couple of quick
comments, maybe it'll take 5:5 to 10 minutes,
about the concept of ayat itself,
which I think is is important to note
for this particular discussion.
Some of this is gonna sound philosophical and
a little high fi. I promise it won't.
It'll it'll I'll make it as simple as
I possibly can. The world has now moved
towards increasing
specialization in sciences.
Right? No matter what you're study if you're
studying history, you're not just studying history. Within
history, you're studying, let's say, Egyptian history. Within
Egyptian history, you're studying the pyramids. Within the
pyramids, you're studying the pyramids built within this
region to this region to this region. Within
those, you're specifically studying this particular
design of architecture, and you're doing your PhD
down to the most
particular detail, like you're you're subspecializing,
subspecializing,
subspecializing.
When you're studying neurology so I don't I
don't know anything about neurology. It's it's
too too much brain work, literally.
But,
but if you're studying neurology and somebody's studying,
like, the frontal lobe or something or they're
studying one kind of proton in the brain
or what one kind of so sorry, protein
in the brain or some kind of chemical
or something, some hormone, and they're specializing in
that. And somebody else is studying another part
of the brain, and they're specializing in that.
And they're they're so specialized
at the end of their 20 years of
research that it's almost it's even difficult for
them to have a conversation with each other
because they've been in their own little world
of specialization for so long. Forget the fact
that that person who's so specialized in one
area
of medicine or of research
can have a normal conversation with a cardiologist
and a functional conversation with the cardio. It's
a tough one. Right?
Not to mention, how are they gonna have
a normal
historian or with a political scientist or with
a, you know, a regular person? So the
more specialized you get, the lonelier your world
becomes because the people who know that knowledge
are very, very
few. Right? If you're in, you know, if
you're in microchip engineering and design,
then if you start talking about your field,
you'll have nobody left in your family that
loves you.
Right? So
so because
nobody knows what this stuff is. Right? That's
that's too specialized in your field.
So the same and and this became a
problem for modern philosophers because if if knowledge
is being so segmented and so separated,
the more we learn, the more separated knowledge
becomes,
Then what is is there anything that can
unify all of knowledge together? Because then it's
all gonna get keep keep defragmenting and defragmenting
and separating and separating.
How do we all how do we put
it all together? Because then
that's also a problem if there's so many
areas of knowledge, but these 2 these areas
of knowledge aren't speaking to each other.
They're not communicating with each other. Right? And
so you have some attempts to do that
in universities. So you have, like, you know
you know,
biomechanics,
for example. So the mechanical
engineering is working with some areas of medicine,
for example. Right? And there's some cross sectional
kinds of of, disciplines, but that's only the
beginning. I mean, how do you look at
the whole world as a unified
body of knowledge? Right?
What's interesting what's the and that sounds like
a very again, like, sounds like a really
philosophical thing. What's so remarkable about the Quran
is Allah used this one term, aya,
and it's the all encompassing unified term for
all human experience.
So so the revelation is ayaat.
The mountain has ayaat in it. The camel
has ayaat in it. The clouds have ayaat
in them.
What you feel inside you in your
are also
Allah will show you inside of yourselves, what
is out in the universe
is also
History
is
also What is coming in the future are
also
The past, the present, the future, the perceived,
the thought, the felt,
the seen, the physical, the non physical, all
of it is described with one word,
Aya.
And then what's what's remarkable about this word
is it's used not only for all of
reality in some way or the other, it's
also used for Allah's revelation.
These are the ayat of the Quran.
But what's the difference between what what this
is? You know, some say,
you know,
Right? So there's Ayat of the Quran and
the Ayat of the universe. I would even
argue there are other Ayat, Ayat
There are there are other Ayat. They are
not
in that sense. They have other implications.
But what combines all of them? I just
want you to just get a quick glimpse
at that. If I give you an analogy,
if I if you see a rock
and there's a diamond inside it,
if you if you beat it up and
break it, you'll find a diamond inside it,
But you just see the rock on the
outside. Would you know just by looking at
it that there's a diamond inside?
You wouldn't know because you can only see
it on the surface. You don't know what's
inside.
You can't see within it. Allah didn't say
interestingly, in the Quran, Allah didn't say the
mountain is an ayah or
the the camel is an ayah
or the sun is an ayah. He said
there's an ayah in it.
There's a fee always there.
There's an in it. What's the purpose of
an? It takes you back to Allah.
And Allah is the one and only source
of all things
of all things. So it's the he's the
unifier of all things. Right? Now if there's
an ayah in the rock,
then you have to have some ability to
see inside it, and if you can't see
inside it, you're not gonna see the ayah.
So a disbeliever, an atheist, a believer,
everybody can see the rock.
The difference is the believer can see the
rock, and they can see the ayah inside
it.
How?
Well, the way to do that is what
the revelation does.
What did the Quran do?
If you saw from the beginning,
there was imagery.
You can call some of those things out.
There was a night fire.
There was travel in the desert.
There was the sky. There's mountain.
Right?
There's rain.
We we we're gonna see animals, farm animals.
We're gonna see a dog today. There's gonna
be an example about a dog today.
We've seen a little bit of a reference
to, you know, calling on animals like shepherd
and sheep.
These are things as far as just imagine
the old Arab world.
These are things these people see every day,
isn't it?
These are everyday things.
They've seen a shepherd call on sheep.
They've seen the night They've seen a fire
lit in the middle of the night
They've seen the rain They've seen these things
These are everyday things
What is the Quran doing? The Quran
is saying,
you've seen these things,
but you never saw the ayah in them.
So he's changing their perspective about that.
So now what happens is the next time
it rains,
the next time there's thunder in the sky,
All of a sudden, the rain
triggered the ayat of the Quran.
Now these ayaat reminded them of
those ayaat and all the lessons that came
with it, all the wisdom that came with
it. Now they didn't have to sit in
a of
tafsir of those ayaat
to be reminded
of those ayaat, the rain becomes
the.
The next time it's night and they're walking,
and there's a I have. I have. It's
right here. Yeah. Yeah.
It was really cool, though. It was a
good sneaky approach. I saw you coming on
the side. I was like, okay.
So
you you you know, the next they they
see an somebody light up at night, a
light in the middle of the night, all
of a sudden,
the whole image comes back in their head.
The next time they're climbing up a mountain,
which they did quite a bit of, they're
walking out and they think of someone who
can fall down, and they're just wandering aimlessly
in the pasture or in this in the
endless desert scape.
Right?
So what is the Quran doing? The Quran
is actually turning
the entire world that they see all the
time.
The animals that they see, the the well
that they draw water from, the rain that
comes, the clouds in the sky, the desert.
Everything is turning into an aya. Everything is
turning into a spiritual experience.
Their entire world.
You know,
the way we think of it nowadays, modern
it's unfortunate that Muslims, we've lost this too.
We think of when we're in the masjid,
we're in an Islamic environment,
and we're hearing about the ayat of Allah.
But when we leave here, there's gonna be
a sky outside. Outside when you're driving, there's
gonna be a sky outside.
There's gonna be the breeze that you feel,
because the breeze is also an ayah in
the Quran. Allah gives a parable of it.
Then here, I mean, here, it's mostly raining.
So the ayah is in your face all
the time.
Right?
And you you'll see ayah after ayah. And
then when you leave the city
and you go a little bit out, you'll
start seeing farm animals
on the side of the highway. I know
it. In England, yeah, it's basically mostly farm.
Right? So the the the the So as
you travel, you're gonna see You're
gonna see a lot of people walking around
with their dogs.
It is it is Europe after
all. Less kids, more dogs. It's a thing.
Right? So
and you're gonna see an eye of the
Quran.
And
this is actually a world view
where
you're never not
as a believer, you're never not surrounded by
ayaat.
You're never not surrounded. Either you're immersed,
either you are drowned in ayaat of the
Quran,
or the ayat of Quran have empowered you
to see the ayat everywhere else.
They were always there, but they were inside.
Like the diamond inside the rock, they were
inside. But now you can see them.
Now you can see them. It just completely
changes your outlook. It completely changes your world.
This is not just a set of beliefs.
This is not just a set of,
ideas.
This is how you look at reality.
Literally, it's your outlook. This is your worldview.
It's like you put Quran glasses on
and now you see, like you know, I
used to give the example to kids. If
you put tinted glasses on like red tints
and you put them on, everything looks red.
After looking studying the ayaat of the Quran,
internalizing the imagery of the Quran, What happens
over time?
You start putting these Quran glasses on,
and now you see something that other people
don't see.
Right? This is actually the idea of becoming
truly aware.
And people like, you know, Allah will give
other place in the Quran. Allah will give
the example of the tree
and describe how if you are doubtful about
Allah bringing you back to life,
why don't you look at the earth when
the when the when the seed splits and
the earth shakes a little bit, you
know, 3 verbs are used. It shakes, it
rises,
and it sprouts.
Right? And so the Hajj.
This this imagery, it shakes, it rises, and
it sprouts. What's gonna happen on judgment day?
The entire world is gonna what?
It's gonna shake, and then the graves are
gonna rise, and then we're gonna sprout.
And then now you look at a you
know, they have those cameras that are, like,
fast forward,
you know, the frames per second,
and you can see the fast forward sprouting
of a of a small
seed coming out, and they do the fast
forward thing. Right? Allah says, if you're in
doubt about resurrection, just look at that.
I make resurrection happen every day.
Just just look at it. So now you're
looking at a tree after that, and if
you're if you maintain that conscious awareness, you're
looking at a tree, and you got an
entire khutbah on judgment day.
And somebody else who did a PhD
on botany in specializing in trees in the
Manchester Oldham region,
can tell you everything about that tree. They
can tell you how old it is, how
many of them are in the area, what
kind of species they are, how they evolved,
blah blah blah blah blah. I can tell
you, but they can't see the one thing
they're supposed to see.
So they could they could see it, but
they don't see it.
That's a ghafil.
That's a person who's I know they
that's the idea that Quran is actually demonstrating
in this passage. Now
having said that, now we come to the
scary part. Yesterday, we saw the imagery of
someone who Allah wants to keep guided. Remember?
Their chest becomes comfortable.
Now we're looking at the worst case scenario.
What about someone who had guidance?
They had every they had knowledge,
and it's not just some knowledge.
We gave them our ayaat.
Allah didn't just say he knew a lot.
Allah said we gave them our ayaat suggesting
Allah intervened in allowing this person to learn,
to acquire,
to build more than others.
This was special case. They learned so much.
And the attribute the attribution to Allah himself,
could've he could've said
or he said
So every component of the language here suggest
this was not some
regular average knowledge. This was
incredible that Allah allowed this person to learn
and gave them so much of his signs,
so much of his knowledge.
So Allah gave all this knowledge, and then
what happened?
Allah describes
that they
it's it's hard to translate, they pulled away
from it,
but the way that it's used, the image
is better to describe it. This is the
I was referring to before.
When a snake sheds its skin, it's called
when the snake removes gets away from its
old skin.
When you sheer the sheep's skin off, like
it's walking, and you just sheer as it
keeps walking, and you just you took took
off the the skin, that's also insalaha.
So the idea of
is you remove the fake cover. The cover
wasn't the real animal, it was just a
it was just a cover, and you removed
it.
So it's as if we gave this person
so many of our ayaat,
but none of them truly went in. They
were just a cover.
They were just they they looked religious. They
looked knowledgeable. They looked spiritual.
The look was perfect.
But these these people, they maintain that facade,
but the truth is they've actually pulled away
from that from within.
That they they they escaped that disguise.
There's someone else entirely.
That's just a fake skin on the outside.
That's just dead skin.
It's actually similar to the imagery we saw
before in the garden.
You remember how there's a garden on top
of a rock and the rain comes and
it just shaves off the whole garden,
and only the bald the bald rock is
left. It's the same kind of image.
So now there's people that can have knowledge,
people that can have lots and lots of
signs from Allah, and signs from Allah is
not just knowledge. It could be they saw
miracles in their life that guided them towards
Allah. Maybe some amazing events happened in their
life that brought them closer to Allah.
But just because you were brought closer to
Allah, doesn't mean you're guaranteed to stay closer
to Allah.
You could have had an amazing start and
a terrible finish.
Happens in sports all the time, doesn't it?
You have the first over and you're like
And then you lose that match.
Just because you had a great start, doesn't
mean you're gonna have a great finish.
Great start.
Then you start getting lazy,
little by little start slipping away,
people start getting impressed with you.
You're
you're so knowledgeable. You're so young, so knowledgeable.
Your recitation, Allah.
Allah. I wish I wish I had a
daughter like that. I wish I had a
son like that.
And you're like, yeah, you wish.
You know?
And then
you the the the praise starts coming. The
appreciation starts coming. The acknowledgment starts come. People
start coming and asking you questions. So what
do you think about this? Or what do
you know about this? Or can you tell
me more about this or that? And you're
like, well,
I mean, I don't know, but I'll pretend
I do.
And you start getting, like I mean, people
look up to me.
That's a pretty big responsibility.
I'm,
and now you're being put up on this
pedestal more and more and more and more
and more,
while
now the while
you started this journey towards Allah.
But as you started this journey towards Allah,
you got surrounded by people
who are appreciating your journey so much, you
got distracted by that and now the journey
was no longer about Allah, the journey became
about the people.
It became you you got focused on them,
and what they like, and their questions, and
their this, their that, the the the people
are now driving what what you're doing and
how you're thinking.
I'll tell you,
something strange happened in my life a long
time ago
when I was
I was in my mid twenties. So this
is the year 18/37.
In my mid twenties, I was giving
in New York, and back then, I used
to wear,
you know, I really liked wearing thobes back
then.
And I also wore a turban,
and I had a much longer beard. And
I had
they call them Jesus slippers. Well, I used
to have Jesus sandals. I have one of
one of those. I one time actually,
was walking down the street, and some guy
across the street goes, that man look like
Jesus. I was like,
so I I had to look, if you
will.
Nothing against the look.
I give.
I give Khutba. People come up to me
with their children.
Please make du'a for this kid and and.
And old men with white hairs
are coming in these.
What do you do? I'm not the pope.
Why is this happening?
I realize something. It's
to to a lot of people, I look
holy.
I look sacred.
Because I look like that,
they
are assuming that I have some station with
Allah,
and therefore I'm in a better position to
make dua to Allah than than they are.
And while I have nothing against that kind
of
clothing,
and that's not a lecture on clothing,
But I've decided
deliberately to stop
dressing a certain way.
And I'm I I defend the way that
I dress. I don't I don't need to
defend but I'm I'm perfectly there's nothing un
Islamic about the way that I dress, and
I'm convinced of that.
But things changed.
The attitudes changed.
There's no longer brother, you
used to look Islamic.
Gotcha.
This is good. This is much better.
It was actually almost uncomfortable, the level of
kind of reverence that was being given. Based
on what? Appearance.
Based on appearance.
And we created this culture of there's a
holy look.
There's a holy look. Now there there is
such a thing as a holy look in
Christianity.
The the pope has a certain look.
There's a holy look in the rabbinical tradition.
There's a holy look in the ancient temples
in Hinduism. There's a holy look. But you
know what? Some of the Sahaba were working
out on the farm, and they had their
shirt off, and they were working on the
farm, and then they were leading the salah
just like that, that happened.
And if you walk by, they wouldn't look
holy to you.
These people, they're But
they were the Sahaba.
They were the There's a there's a there's
an emphasis
on the appearance, and the problem is, okay,
that's the people, that's their problem. But no,
you're a human being,
so when you get appreciated
for what people see,
you start telling yourself,
they think I'm a big deal, they can't
all be wrong,
I must be a big deal.
I mean, they're
they're right. They're onto something.
I better catch up.
So now you
you start becoming a big deal to yourself,
and that's how Allah gave you aya to
journey towards him,
but you slither out of that and you
become focused on people,
and that happened to people of previous religious
traditions.
That's that's what happened to them.
And nobody will know that that's happened because
it's still gonna be Masha'Allah, Alhamdulillah, Jazakallahu khayran,
in nalillahiwanalahi
rajiro. All the right words will still come
out of your mouth.
It's still gonna be the, you know, the
the the qira of the Quran, the leading
of the salah, the giving of the chubba.
All that stuff will be there
that the way it's always been. Nobody will
know that the focus has changed.
Only you will know. Nobody else will know.
You know?
And so Allah says,
then shaitan got right behind him.
And shaitan just is actually means to follow.
Would be the
form of it, and it could also
be in the
meaning 2 meanings here, the devil got right
behind him, one meaning. The other meaning is
the devil made others get right behind him.
So
so the devil got other people to just
follow him
and reinforce this false image
and reinforce it and reinforce it, push it,
push it, push it even more.
Then he became from those that have lost
their way.
In Arabic is to lose your way. Like,
you were going in the right direction, you
took one wrong turn, and you ended up
somewhere you didn't even know where you are,
and, you know, that's that's
and that's the word that's being used to
describe here. Now Allah says,
So this is not just talking about some
guy who never knew about Islam or some
woman that never knew anything about religion and,
you know, they went the wrong way. No.
No. No. This is talking about somebody knowledgeable.
Knowledgeable,
appreciated for their guidance by the people, and
the reality of it is, they've slithered away
from it like a snake has slithered from
its skin.
And they're they've got they're lost.
They're lost.
And Allah says,
Had we wanted,
we would have elevated this person by means
of those ayaat, those very ayaat. Now now
this person has those ayaats,
but those ayaats are being used
to impress people.
Those ayaats are not being used to come
closer to Allah.
Now teaching someone, sharing what you know, this
is actually a mandate from the Rasul of
Allah
communicate on my behalf even if it's a
single ayah that's amended from Rasulullah
himself.
But everything,
everything in this religion is about intention, everything.
And if that became theatrics,
Oh, I'm gonna tell this story and it's
gonna be
awesome. I'm gonna put this together. So now
you're you're no longer sharing from the heart,
you're putting together a performance.
You're putting a performance together.
Allah says had We wanted, We would have
elevated them by means of these zayat.
And by the way, when Allah
mentions raising someone, he's not raising them necessarily
in the eyes of people.
Sometimes those two things go hand in hand.
Allah raises someone towards him,
raises their ranks with him, and their rank
with people also goes up.
That happens.
And
is an ayah that indicates that reality too.
Those who believe and do good deeds, Allah
will put love for those people in in
the hearts of others.
That that'll happen.
But the opposite is also a reality.
There are sometimes people
that
the crowd loves,
everybody loves, but that's not because Allah endorsed
that person,
it's because they pursued
that. That's what they wanted. They wanted the
crowd to love them, they wanted a massive
following, they got it.
They got that's what they wanted. They got
it,
and that's a very low use of something
very high.
I'll I'll share again an anecdote,
but I think it helps you get the
point here.
It was a young man many many years
ago. If the same conversation was happening now
with a young man, it'd probably be a
different
in another country, and, he came and met
with me, and we were talking. He was
I was like, so what's your what's your
goal? He goes, my goal is to be
on the main stage on the con national
convention one day.
I named the conferences. He wants to be
the main speaker.
Oh, that's such a low goal.
He goes, you can they're gonna fly me
to the convention. I'm gonna give the main
talk at the
I said,
You're learning something so high, the word of
God, the word of Allah.
And you're learning you're learning it for such
a low goal
and like a captive audience,
that's your goal?
Like, that's not a goal.
That, the audience, is a means to an
end.
The end is Allah has given us a
mission.
Whoever wants to listen can listen. Whoever wants
to leave can leave. But we have a
mission
to to understand the word to the best
of our ability and to share it to
the best of our that's it. That's all
that is.
Everything else
is a distract These are all tools, these
are not goals.
It's like saying the gas station is your
goal. No. The gas station is just to
stop. You can get so you go. You
have other things to do,
but they they get distracted by the the
means, and they turn them into the end.
So I said, that's a very tragic thing
that you just said. It really hurts me
that you said that. And I said, it
would be a different conversation if that was
happening today. Today wouldn't be about a main
stage at a conference. Who cares about that?
I wanna have more followers than you on
TikTok
Inshallah, for the sake of Allah.
I wanna have a bigger YouTube chat. I
wanna get that plaque from YouTube.
For the dean.
It's for the dean though.
This is why you're so can you tell
me like some I add that I could
talk about or some stories that could be
like viral?
I've had those conversations, and I'm just
dumbfounded. I'm looking at you like a deer
in a headlight.
What? Yeah. You got a lot of viral,
ideas. Right?
Do you have, like, a meeting about that?
Really?
This is what it's come to.
Something so high, the word of Allah being
used for the attention of people.
The the problem is ancient. The technology is
new,
but the problem's always been the same.
No. However, this person, they
stuck to the earth.
They stuck to the earth.
Now the idea is Allah wanted you to
look to the sky.
Allah wants you to have high objectives,
but the the imagery of
is
you just have objectives that all come back
to this world.
You can't even think beyond them.
You became entirely obsessed with this world.
Now here again, I think Muslims tend to
have certain extremes. I'll point both of those
extremes out.
One of those extremes is Allah wants you
to be successful. Allah wants you to be
happy. Allah wants you to
And And on the other hand, this duniya
is nothing. This duniya is not even a
mosquito. This duniya is, you know,
is every all the food you eat will
go in the bathroom.
And all this dunya is, that's the reality
of dunya my brothers. Dunya is nothing.
You're like, yeah, dunya is nothing.
And your mother says, hey,
come come do the dishes. No. Has nothing.
Your dad says get a job. No. But
has nothing.
If is nothing, your mom is nothing, your
dad is nothing, your job is nothing, your
house is nothing.
Everything is nothing.
Where did you get this idea from?
The Quran
wants us to please Allah, reach Allah
through the ayaat.
The Catholic church wanted you to deny the
world,
and and and and,
you know, this new brand of Christianity,
evangelical Christianity and prosperity gospel, they want you
to embrace the world.
They want you to love the world. Catholicism
wanted you to hate the world.
Islam wants neither. Islam wants you to live
in the world, engage in the world, make
the most of the world, and through the
world don't get distracted by the world and
reach Allah.
It is the best of this world and
the best of the next.
It's the bells of the 2. But you
find both of these extreme tendencies that other
religions have,
sometimes those extremes
find their way in some version of Muslim
conversations.
And we have to detox all of that
and come back to what Allah is actually
teaching us.
So so He says,
and he ended up following His desire.
This person knowledgeable knowledgeable person. People look up
to this person
Everybody thinks they're amazing and in the end,
they end up becoming entirely materialistic, following nothing
but their desire, and then the example. What's
the example?
Then their example
is exactly like the dog.
Now they're being compared to a dog.
And the the parable of the dog is.
2 meanings of.
1 is if you attack the dog, if
you
do you do that to the dog?
It's gonna stick its tongue out and start
panting.
And if you leave it alone,
it's still gonna be panting.
Another meaning of is if you
is if you put some difficult task on
the dog. You know, like in the snow
areas, they have bought the sleds, dog sleds,
and you, like, put a leash on the
dog and it helps you pull.
And sometimes dogs were also used to, you
know, pull prey,
like they hunted the animal, but they tie
it and then they would pull the prey
and things like that. So you put a
burden on the animal,
burden on the dog, and the dog is
helping you do something. Right? And when it's
of course, if the dog is exerting energy,
it's sticking its tongue out and it's doing
that. And the Quran is saying, their example
is like the dog, when you shoo it
away,
it pants, or the shooing away can also
mean, if you put a burden on it,
if you make it work hard, it pants,
and if you leave it alone, it still
pants, it still drools, it still sticks its
tongue out.
That's that's the that's the image. Now what
does that image mean? This is actually it's
in interesting. These ayaat
were about 2 audiences.
This is a Maqan Surah,
and in the Surah, Allah
gave us 2 audiences.
1 is immediately the Quraysh,
but the Quraysh were slowly starting to run
out of questions to ask the prophet
because all their questions were getting destroyed,
Like they were just getting hit out of
the park.
So like, we need some new ammunition.
We gotta we gotta find somebody to help
us out over here. So they go and
meet with some Jewish tribes, and they say,
hey. You guys know about this religion, prophet
stuff? We heard you talk about this stuff.
This man's claiming to be a prophet. What?
Prophet.
Yeah.
Here's what he's saying. Oh, oh, that's a
problem.
Okay. Okay. You know what?
Don't tell them we told you,
ask these questions.
We'll keep giving you questions.
We know how to fix this problem.
So now the Quraysh, who don't know anything
about prophecy,
don't know anything about revelation,
are secretly going to who?
The Jews. And the Jews are like, we're
gonna get you some legit riddle questions, and
he's not gonna have the answer. It's gonna
be awesome.
Like, one of the trick questions they wanted
to ask is, who are the people of
the cave?
You know why that's a trick question? First
of all, the people of the cave cave
are not in the Bible.
They're not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. It's
not a Bible story.
2nd, it's not it has nothing to do
with the Jews.
The the story has nothing to do with
the Jews. 3rd, it actually has to do
with the Christians, and it's actually only 1
century before the prophet
that the story happened.
By some are 1 century, a little bit
more than that, that the story happened. So
it's not a Bible story, it's not even
a religious Christian story, it's just an incident
that happened
a century and a half ago in, you
know, in in some region that even the
the Jacobite Christians knew about, etcetera.
So I ask him something. Now if he
answers it,
then he's gonna think that this is a
sacred story, and it's gonna be wrong. And
if he doesn't answer it, well, he didn't
answer it. We'll get him either way.
And the Quran
got him good with that one too.
But they were trying to be sneaky
behind the back.
And what did Allah do in these ayat?
Allah was talking to the Quraysh
about their but
in between Allah also brought up, oh, when
we raised the mountain above them it was
hovering over them and Allah said, hold on.
The Quraysh are like, there was no mountain
hovering over us, what are you talking about?
So they go back to the Israelites, say,
hey,
you know anything about a mountain hanging over
anybody and hold on to the book? Oh,
we don't have no book. He's like, did
he say that?
Wait, he said what? He talked about the
mountain hanging over
Who's giving him this information?
The Quran was
calling out the apparent critic,
and the Quran was also calling out, Your
secret helpers
from behind.
And of course, who's been given the ayat
of Allah that slithered away from them, and
became lost, and became entirely materialistic, even though
they had the ayat of Allah? Who's the
prime case of that?
It was
the Israelites.
They were the case of that.
So now now the the example of a
dog is, Allah and Surat in in the
Quran, eventually, what will Allah do? Allah will
let know that you were chosen.
I chose you. I gave you My revelation.
I gave you more Prophets than everybody else
and you messed up, you no longer have
that title. I have chosen this new Ummah,
Ummah that's
what he's gonna tell them
It's similar to the dog that comes to
the master because every time the dog sees
the master, it thinks the master is going
to give him some meat. It's gonna give
him some food, so the dog comes running,
sticking his tongue out.
It's gonna come, and the dog the master
says, shoo.
But the dog, does it stop panting?
No. He's still no.
It's still gonna happen.
It's gonna happen. He's gonna give me.
But if you left it alone, it's still
sitting there sticking its tongue out anyway.
It's almost as if even though they found
out from Allah himself in the Quran that
you have lost this position,
because of how you've behaved.
You've lost this position.
No, you haven't.
Still ours.
Doesn't matter if you tell them or not.
They're not
didn't make a difference.
The other imagery is if you put a
burden on the dog, remember you tie something
to the dog, you make the dog work
hard. And this is really interesting.
In,
in in in Jewish literature, in Jewish, rabbinical
literature, there are oral traditions. And in the
oral tradition, they have a lot of their
wisdoms and kind of their spiritual sayings and
things like that. And one of the ways
they describe themselves, the Jewish people, the way
they describe themselves and one of the rabbinical
sayings
is they say
that
we are like they're talking about themselves.
They say we are like the donkey,
and the rest of the world, the nations
of the world are like dogs.
We're the donkey, and they are? Dogs, and
imagine the donkey and the dog at the
bottom of a hill,
and you put a burden on the donkey
and you put a burden on the dog,
And then they started both the donkey and
the dog started going up the hill.
And the dog started panting, losing its breath,
it couldn't go up the hill anymore. And
the donkey
went all the way up, it was able
to reach the top of the hill. That
is why the Israelites that is why the
Israelites are like the donkey because they were
able to carry the burden all the way.
That's why God gave us the burden of
the revelation
of his word, the Torah,
and that's why the other nations couldn't handle
it. They're like the dog. What did the
Quran do with this amazing story?
The Quran says, yep, donkey. Yep. Surat Al
Jumah, I'll give you your you you were
like the donkey.
And but here's what you really were like.
And so he took the the same image
that they used.
He used that and described them in Suratul
Jum'ah.
And then he said, Oh, you mean others
were like the dog? No. No. No. Actually,
and you're like the dog too.
So indirectly, he came at them here too.
Now what's the what's the argument here? A
person who had knowledge of revelation, had knowledge
of scripture,
they're being compared to a dog when they
walk away from that even though they give
the impression that they're religious.
They're the impression that they're committed to Allah,
but it's all it's all materialistic now, it's
all a business to them now,
then it's the same whether or not you
give them the most powerful ayat,
the most incredible surahs,
the most incredible powerful message, the most beautiful
sunun of the Messenger sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
none of that will change anything.
They're still looking for the piece of meat.
They're still looking for what? Their agenda doesn't
change.
So they can recite the most incredible ayaat
on the 27th of Ramadan.
And you know what's on their mind?
Oh, the masjid better be generous this year.
I did a really good recitation.
They better
that's not gonna be good, because I was
good this year.
Or they're like,
oh, that that camera better not have turned
off
because this one's gonna be mhmm.
It better not have a bad Wi Fi
connection.
What's on your mind? Where where's your head?
You know what that is? You have the
most powerful ayaat in the month of Ramadan,
in the month of the Quran, with the
angels descending, and all you're thinking about is
what a dog thinks about
the next bite.
And if you didn't have that, if you
weren't in this spiritual environment, and you were
just like, you'll still be thinking about the
next bite.
Scary example,
Terrifying, terrifying example. How do how desensitized
a person of religion can become. May Allah
never allow us to stoop that low, and
if we have fallen, will
Allah help us
contemplate these ayaat not just with our minds,
but with our hearts.
He
says, That is the example of those who
call our
then tell them the stories.
So that they can think deeply.
Allah, by the end of this, didn't even
talk about the
the
examples. He says now from here on for
the people who want to elevate themselves,
keep telling them the stories of the Quran.
Go back to the stories over and over
again, and it will make them think. It
will rejuvenate them.
These are 2 very big core elements of
the narrative of the Quran. The parables of
the Quran and the stories of the Quran.
And now you see a
cooperation between the 2 of them. The parable
at the end of the parable, Allah is
saying go tell them the stories.
There's more to talk about because the the
the we're still gonna stay in this passage
on
on my heedlessness.
This was the scariest part. Why is this
scary? You're super knowledgeable, which means you should
be more aware than anyone else.
You're knowledgeable.
How can you lose your way?
Well, this is what happens
when you lose your way. Knowledge
is not enough
to save someone. People ask the most simplistic
question. People say, how come somebody asked me
I was in Pakistan, somebody asked me,
I'll say it in English,
but I'll say it in a Pakistani accent.
The people in the Arabia countries,
right,
they're, like, speaking the Arabic. They understand Quran.
Why there are corruption over there?
Hanji?
We have Arab countries. You they speak Arabic.
They understand the Quran when it's being recited.
How come there's corruption in the Arab world?
Like, who told you that knowing something is
enough?
Just because you have the And by the
way, we don't judge the Arab world. Who
are who are where are you standing before
you judge the Arab world, bro?
Like, look at us.
And do we become Muslim today that we
don't know Arabic? We've been Muslim for a
few centuries now. So the fact that we
don't know Arabic is not nobody else's fault.
It's not like you became Muslim 3 hours
ago and therefore you don't know Arabic.
It's not an excuse.
So but but the the point I'm making
is the Quran is telling us that having
knowledge is not a legitimizer
of one's righteousness.
That was the mistake of the Israelites.
They're they're knowledgeable, were considered
almost godlike.
Perfect.
Do you find this misconception in the Muslim
world?
A scholar is almost treated like a pope.
A scholar is almost treated like they're walking
holy, walking on water.
If the imam
with all due respect to every imam in
the world, with all due respect to every
scholar in the world, when the imam walks
in, everyone's like,
who just walked in? Is that Jibril?
He's
just a he's a human being, a person.
The the you know? And then this this
overly,
you know, like,
What do you Why are you doing that?
Why are you doing that? People didn't even
do that with Rasulullah SAW He didn't allow
it. People used to walk into his company.
People didn't know who which one is the
Messenger of Allah SAW because he used to
sit among the people.
Haramal Khattab used to sleep on the floor,
you couldn't tell he's the ruler, you couldn't
tell. And now if you walk in and
there's
some of those self declared spiritual
giants,
and you walk in and you sat down
without kissing the ring,
or you walked in, you didn't didn't show
your proper respect, and you just sat down
and say, hey, it's already thought. Okay.
And you started eating. I'm like, oh, you
you didn't show proper respect to the shaykh.
Who's over there?
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't realize.
I didn't realize. Where where do I put
where do is there holy water also?
I think I could sprinkle some holy water,
and
where do you say the Hail Marys?
Oh, this is not the Catholic church? Why
are you acting like it then?
Where did
this come from?
You know, we created this
culture,
some of it
respect for our elders, respect for knowledge, respect
for our teachers is part and parcel of
our deen,
but
isn't.
And this kind of
sanctification
of other human beings
is not
because anybody can slip and fall.
You know what this does? Last comment for
today, what this does is either you turn
people into saints
or into devils,
and you fail to see them as human
beings.
Because a saint
well, if you turn them into saints or
angels, then they can never make any mistake.
So if you hear that your favorite scholar
made a mistake, you're like, Oh, what are
you saying? I wanna kill you. Say it
again. Say it again.
Or
that's one reaction.
Or the other reaction is the what? They
made a mistake? Oh, that's it.
I'm blocking their channel.
I hate that guy. They made a did
you they made a mistake?
How dare they?
After being an angel?
They should be more like me who never
makes any mistakes.
How can I follow someone who makes a
mistake?
This is the psychotic
This is the craziness
that millions of people are infected with. It's
not a small problem. This is a millions
and millions of people problem. We've turned people
into either saints
or devils.
And it's it's taken our ability to have
decent conversation,
decent disagreement,
decent like, okay. They made a mistake. So
what? Okay. We're all human. We all make
mistakes. Move on.
No. But you remember what this had one
time in 1987,
and
do you remember what you said
yesterday?
You know?
So we we have
to internalize these ayaat, not just about ourselves,
but about the entire culture that we've developed.
Why does a person like that feel like
they have to keep a fake appearance?
Because there's an entire culture that loves the
appearance,
that adores the appearance,
that
encourages the appearance, encourages the facade, instead of
having genuine
discourse, genuine conversation.
That that's where the problem lies.
When when millions of people come to somebody
who looks more Islamic and say, you please
make dua
because I'm very bad person.
You make dua.
When they do that, what have we actually
done? We've told people that these are people
that graduated above the school of sin, they're
already in the clear, they already got their
pre booking in Jannah,
The rest of you better catch up.
So since you already made it Hey, can
you can you put in a good word
for me?
It's
absurd. This is absurd.
Every doesn't matter how much knowledge a person
acquires,
they are still in danger of becoming a
dog.
That's why this example is given.
Nobody's safe.
And by the way, the higher you are,
the harder you fall.
The more in danger you are. The more
in danger you are.
This is a reality check for myself, for
every one of you. You don't have to
be a famous scholar, or Aleem, or you
know, somebody You could just be
the religious guy in your family.
It could be that. You're like, Oh, Sheikh
is here.
It could be that. It could be the
only Hafiz among your siblings
or some something. You you know, you don't
have to be in in the world to
be known that way. In your world,
you could become that figure, and then that
becomes your facade. May Allah protect us all
from the false image, and may Allah
make
every every endeavor, every act of worship,
every act of service, every act of learning,
every act of teaching, anything that we do
for this deen, may Allah make its focus
Allah
and only secondarily the people, but may our
intentions never be the people.
Assalamu alaikum, everyone. There are almost 50,000 students
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