Striking Examples From The Quran #17 Depths of Desperation
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Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
Series: Nouman Ali Khan - Ramadan 2024 - Striking Examples From The Quran
File Size: 47.14MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speaker discusses the transition from " 3rd" to "monthood" in Arabic language, which is due to the idea that "slack" is a fundamental communication feature. They also discuss the importance of thinking beyond the immediate crisis and creating a new one, as well as the struggles of people who have been begging Allah to save them and become successful. The speaker emphasizes the need for a crisis management process and rethinking the meaning of success when considering the future.AI Generated Transcript ©
Before you begin this video, just quickly wanted
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Today, really powerful parable that belongs to Surat
Yunus. This is early on in the Surah,
the 22nd Ayah. That Allah gives this parable.
It's very commonly known,
people use it in Dawah debates all the
time, this parable. Even though I think the
primary intent of the parable is a little
bit different than how most people use it
in their,
dawah type arguments. I'm not entirely against it,
but let's let's give it its own
do Insha Allah.
It's interesting to note that Surat,
Hood has some similarity to previous, like for
example, Surat Al Aham,
people asking for something visual to be able
to see, a miracle to be able to
see before they can believe. And Allah is
going to respond with something really powerful here
by way of this example. He's going to
say, you're looking for an outside proof,
while there's already a proof inside you,
and you're neglecting the proof that you already
have inside you,
and that's why you're so adamant in demanding
something from the outside.
This is
in other lang in other language, other places
in the Quran,
this concept is reinforced,
And the idea is that,
Allah has given us the tools, human beings,
the tools across history, across civilizations.
Every human being has the tools to arrive
at faith in God,
in whatever language, whatever culture, whatever century,
they can arrive at that conclusion on their
own. All the means necessary, all the necessary
ingredients
and components to arrive at that conclusion,
human beings were already endowed with.
And
it was in a in a sense, they
had the ability to look at the ayaat
in creation
all on their own, and to discover that
behind these ayaat, these ayaat are pointing to
someone greater, and that is Allah
They could've they could've arrived at that conclusion
on their own. So they did
of that which is inside
already. They denied what is inside already. They
denied the ayat already. And when they deny
revelation,
it's actually not their first denial. It's their
next denial.
It's like it's so it's almost as if
Allah describes that this is not this is
not the first act of disbelief you're doing.
This reaches its climax in Surah's later on
in the Quran, like in Surah
also,
you know,
in the skies and the earth, there are
miraculous signs for people who are going to
have strong complete
faith,
like faith.
Where did you get iman from? From the
skies and the earth. You didn't get iman
from revelation or a surah or a prophet.
You got the iman from the skies and
the earth.
Right? So that's actually one of the arguments
of the Quran that is universal.
Now picking on that universal imagery, Allah is
going to take us onto this
really interesting scene.
And the first thing I want you to
note about this scene, we're gonna talk about
today a little bit,
is
means transition.
So in order to make the best sense
of the the, the wording of the ayah
and the example that Allah is giving,
I want you to review a little bit
of
basic English grammar.
1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person. What's first
person?
I don't know. You told me. I know
it's a hard question.
I am I. I and we. Me,
us, that's first person. 2nd person is you,
you all, etcetera. Right? Or where I come
from in Texas, y'all.
Right? Yeah. Or Australia use,
You know? So there's different versions, but you
get the idea.
Oh, wait. The Guyanese, I like theirs, IUDs.
That's what they say for you all.
IUDs, Guyanese. Anyway, so that's second person. And
third person is he, they,
etcetera. Right? Now everybody knows when you're even
in 3rd grade English,
your teacher tells you if you're gonna start
your sentence in 3rd person, then continue going
in 3rd person. And if you're gonna start
it in 1st person, if your essay is
in 1st person, then stick to 1st person
the whole way. And if it's if it's
2nd person, then keep 2nd person the whole
way. And you have this idea of you
can't just switch persons because it's bad language.
Right? Now let's take a look at this
ayah from the perspective of person. Again, 1st
person, 2nd person, 3rd person. Let's begin.
He is the one who facilitates
for you. He is the one who creates
ease for you
in the land and in the sea. He
creates ease for you. What person is that?
That second person. Okay. So we're on board.
We're second person. Okay. Then he
says,
until the moment you end up on onboard
the ships
onboard ships,
until the moment you end up onboard ships.
We're still in what person?
2nd person. Okay.
And
the ships
start
sailing away with them
using a good wind. The ships, they start
sailing away with them
using a good wind. Them, what's what person
is that? 3rd person. That's 3rd person. We
started with 2nd person.
He made ease for you in land and
sea. He boarded you onto ships.
The ship starts sailing away with them with
a good wind.
And so so he says,
and they were
elated because of the wind. The wind is
because, you know, when you're sailing and you're
you're out at sea back in the day,
the wind really makes a huge difference in
how fast the travel is gonna go. So
if it's a good wind, especially in the
direction you need to be going, then the
captain is very very happy. This is a
good wind. Right? So they became very happy
that the winds are good, it's pleasant, and
it's moving forward. Okay. Well,
they were elated on account of those winds.
What person is that? They were elated.
3rd. 3rd person. So we we switched over
from second to third. Okay. Let's keep going.
He says,
a
A an an a violent,
abrupt,
crushing,
aggressive,
inconsiderate,
relentless
wind
came at them
all of a sudden,
and the waves started attacking them from every
direction.
From everywhere, waves started coming at them. So
there was a scene of the ship sailing
smoothly, and all of a sudden, there's this
wild wind, and it doesn't care for
what gets in its path, and all of
a sudden there's, you know, there's this terrible,
you know, danger of the ship or the
entire vessel flipping over. Okay.
And they were convinced that they are going
to be overcome.
Meaning they're convinced that they're gonna drown.
The waves are too big,
one big next slap of a wave and
it's going to be over. Okay.
They called onto Allah
with all sincerity and exclusivity
of religion going to Allah. Meaning, they made
their religion pure
only for the sake of Allah in that
moment and called on to Allah.
Now all of that is they, so we
kept in 3rd person now. We switched over
from where we started.
If you were to rescue us from this,
we will absolutely
become grateful
or be among the grateful.
If you rescue us
from this disaster,
we will become from the grateful. What what
person is that?
That's the first person. It's all one
This is all one. It started in the
second person,
it moved over to the third person,
and then it came all the way back
into the first person.
And so this is definitely not something your
English teacher can handle in 3rd grade.
This is something else. And this this is
called.
Big word in Arabic, but
easier word in English is transition.
Transition. And just a quick comment about transitions.
You know, of course, you guys don't watch
movies because you're from Manchester, Sharif.
So, or old them old them Mubarak. Yeah.
So these people in Leeds, you know, they
watch movies.
You know what they do in films? In
films, sometimes a producer will switch the camera
angle
immediately,
and they'll switch back to the camera angle.
And then meanwhile, back at the ranch,
and then they'll do something crazy and make
it black and white, and that's supposed to
be 20 years ago.
And then they come back into color, and
that's right now.
Or they will,
you know,
kind of show 2 contrasting scenes right next
to each other.
If you read the script, that sounds incoherent.
That sounds like, wait. Just finish one thing
and then go to the other thing. But
when you look at the cinematography,
switching the camera angles, switching the scenes, sometimes
some crazy movies, you know what they start
with?
They start with the last scene.
Guys falling off the building is you might
be wondering how this how this happened.
And then it says 2 hours ago, and
then there's the whole movie. I mean, you
wouldn't know anything about that again because ask
the people in Leeds. They will tell you.
Okay. So the the point that I'm making
is that in film, there's this technique
of switching scenes,
of switching persons, switching camera angles.
Right?
And what's remarkable in the Quran
as one of its fundamental
communication techniques
is abrupt camera angle changes.
Because the language of the Quran is actually
visual.
And the Arabs, you know, they lived in
the desert. Right? And the desert, there's not
a lot to look at. I mean, if
you've been, you know. I mean, you don't
you don't go to Mecca for the scenery.
You don't you don't go on a road
trip between Jeddah and Medina for, you know,
the oh my god. It's amazing outside. No.
You you don't. You just, you know, you
just have to imagine the amazing things that
happened here in history, but because right now,
there's not not much to look at. Right?
It's just sand.
So the Arabs of the ancient time when
they were traveling in the desert all the
time all the time,
there was not much to look at. They
weren't looking at beautiful,
majestic snow covered mountains, waterfalls. They weren't looking
at, you know, an ocean scape. They weren't
looking at lush gardens, and that's not what
they were looking at. That's that was not
their scenery. So you know what? One of
the things that happened with the Arabic language
even before Islam, is the Arabic language is
endowed with a very active imagination.
So the Arabic were words in the Arabic
language are very loaded with images.
The words themselves are loaded with images.
And then as a result of this desire
for imagining vivid things, the Arabs in their
poetry, in their language, in the styles in
which they speak, constantly they evoked and poked
the imagination
all the time.
And that's why the one of the great
features of the Arabic language,
the ancient, the classical Arabic language, is that
every almost everything is associated with something visual.
Something to imagine in your head. And then
even abstract ideas
are connected to some visual concept.
Right? And this is a a remarkable feature
of Arabic. Now one of those features,
not in the words themselves, but in communication,
is. So let me show you some things
that are happening by by way of and
we'll talk about this parable.
Now imagine, first of all, the camera. Let's
I'll use the camera example because now we're
in 2024. I can talk to you about
cameras.
So Allah says, in the very beginning of
this ayah, he says,
He's the one who made things easy for
you to to do, to to He made
He facilitated for you, created east for you
in land and in sea. By saying land
and sea, he's saying he made land travel
easy for you and he made sea travel
easy for you. So, of course, the Arabs
are in the they're landlocked so they're gonna
travel until they get to the sea.
Until you travel across the land, which was
made easy, and you made it all the
way to the beach and the docks, and
in the docks there's a giant vessel, there's
a ship that's being boarded,
and now there's this imagery, the camera is
at the docks, and there are people that
are going up the plank, and they're they're
boarding on to these ships. They're getting on
board. And there are some people that are
standing on the docks waving goodbye to their
family and friends that that are disembarking onto
the boat because some people are being left
behind, and they're waving at them and all
of that. The ship hasn't even left the
dock yet, and then they they lift the
anchor and it starts sailing away. Right? As
it starts sailing away,
in a few seconds, your cousin you could
see your cousin, Hey, hold
off this. Right? But send me a pigeon
or whatever. I don't know if pigeons can
travel across the sea, but whatever. Right? So
you're and and then the ship starts moving
and your cousin's face starts getting what?
It starts getting smaller and smaller, and before
you know it, the whole boat becomes a
tiny little dot in the distance, and you're
just standing there watching it become smaller and
smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. So
now from your perspective, you standing there on
the docks,
is that near or far?
It's far. And so Allah says
and it took them far away.
It the the sail the the the winds
sailed with them and they took them far
out. Now the sea
is an incredible place. The ocean is an
incredible place. If there's a sunny day and
a nice breeze, hardly anything is as beautiful
as the ocean.
Hardly anything is as beautiful as the gleaming
of the sunlight on the on the water
and the clean light light clouds in the
sky, and the blue skies in front of
you, and the seagulls, and the light breeze,
the kind of fresh air you can breathe
by the water,
incredible. Like, it's one of the most incredible
experiences, most serene experiences you can have. And
then imagine a ship sailing nicely in the
nice breeze
going into the distance. And now imagine that
you even though you're on board the ship
now I want you to imagine you're on
board the ship, but since you're far away
now, you've become a they to the rest
of civilization.
On the side note,
because the Quran makes a lot of reference
to sea travel,
I wanted to gain some perspective on sea
travel because I've I haven't done much sea
travel.
So I I spoke to a general in
the navy
from Pakistan,
a retired general. And I asked him about
these ayaat, like, what does what does he
see when he
contemplates these ayat of the Quran? Because he's
he spent his life at sea, you know.
And he's like I was like, what's going
on through a sailor's mind when they're out
at sea? He goes, you might be looking
at beautiful water. A sailor is always looking
at his death
constantly.
Because this giant beautiful body of water with
gleaming waves and, you know, the sun sun
reflecting on it and this this gorgeous scene,
they know at any moment,
at any moment,
this can turn into a monster
that is unstoppable.
And then this this vessel, this ship, as
large as it may be, as huge as
it may be, stands no chance
against this mighty beast.
It stands no chance.
This is, you know, one of the things
that sailors even in, you know, in the
in the western world, when they would sail
off, they'd say godspeed,
right?
Essentially saying you're in god's hands now.
You're you're you're not you're you're the most
vulnerable out at sea.
You could have all the protective gear you
want, you could have all the best engineering
you want on the boat, you could have
security and all this other stuff. But when
you're at sea, you're in the jaws of
death,
and you're hoping that if it's a let's
say it's a 1 month journey, let's say
it's a 6 week journey, let's say it's
a 3 week 3 month journey, whatever how
long journey that is, you're hoping every one
of those 3 months and every minute of
those 3 months, the ocean doesn't wake up
angry.
That's what you're hoping for. And so when
this when the when the journey began,
it was a nice wind.
It was a calm wind. It was a
pleasant wind.
Is 2 things. It's good and it's pure.
So they could there's a freshness in the
wind too. And there's a goodness in it
because the sails are just picking up and
even the crew is like, captain, this is
a good wind. He goes,
and then, you know, things are going forward
and he's if things are looking good and
you're looking confidently out at you're going to
make it. Right?
Now what Allah does in this ayah is
all of a sudden
all of a sudden by the way, He
says,
they were all they were elated by the
wind.
Because what did it do? What did that
wind do? All of a sudden it filled
them with hope. This is gonna be a
good trip. This is pretty good weather. I
think we're gonna get there ahead of time.
We might even beat the deadline.
And if it stays like this, this is
gonna be a really enjoyable journey.
Oh my God, I was nervous for no
reason.
They're really really happy about how things are
off to a good start. They're really off
to a good start. Now what Allah does
without any warning even in the language,
notice you'll notice here,
Allah says,
They were happy with it all,
an an
inconsiderate,
a ruthless wind
came at them.
He didn't say, then a ruthless wind came
at them. Or sometime later, a ruthless wind
came at them. Or soon after No no
qualifiers, no warnings. It says
it's not even or
or
nothing. No no warning. And this is actually
in the an indication of how things were
going so smoothly
out at sea, then all of a sudden,
the sky turned.
The ocean changed,
the rain started pouring heavy,
the ship starts wobbling,
they start seeing gigantic waves like they're standing
in front of a mountain,
and they're on the boat and they're seeing
water up they're supposed to see water down
there, they're seeing water up there.
And it's coming and it's slapping them from
one side, and they're like, okay, They're looking
for it to come from that side again,
and it comes from the other side.
And they're looking for it to come from
the other side, now it's coming from the
front, and the bone is about to tip
and tip it forward, and then it's about
to tip backwards. And the people on board
are just
getting tossed around
inside the boat,
inside this vessel holding on to things, crying.
You know,
the the the the sails are ripping open,
you know, some people have already fallen off
board,
there's people crying, there's people screaming,
there's people saying help, help, help.
All of this is happening out of nowhere
without any warning.
When that happens,
they then then Allah says
Then they all and they were some of
them were, you know, they some of them
worship
Some of them worship
Some of them worship Uzza. Some of them
were agnostic.
Some of them were thinking about I'm spiritual
but not religious. You know, I'm I'm thinking
about things at the moment.
Some of them were scientific,
you know, materialistic,
atheist, etcetera. There were all different variety of
religious beliefs,
variety of denominations,
variety of, you know,
convictions,
philosophies,
all of a sudden you find all of
them saying, oh god, oh god, please god.
I'm sorry.
Okay. Okay. I know I know I messed
up.
And they're having these confessions,
calling on God in whatever way they can,
And they're not calling on all of the
gods.
They're not calling on the list of gods
or the saints or the nothing. Just, Lord,
Lord, I know you're there. I know. I
know. I know. I've been ignoring you. I
know. I know.
And they're just making this massive confession.
I just I know I've been bad, but
if I if you just give me one
chance, just just please make it stop.
If you could just make a stop,
I'll be so great. I promise. I'll be
so grateful.
I promise.
I mean it. I mean it. And
that same person who was so composed,
so wealthy that they could afford to travel
by sea,
So wealthy that they could get the VIP
seat
on the ship so they can have the
best view of the ocean.
That same person who was getting served by
everyone else. And they were calling him Master
Master, he's now begging Master Master, save me.
He's crying,
he's turned into this like you know desperate
beggar,
child even, is
a child even.
In that moment of desperation,
I will promise you, we will absolutely be
from the grateful.
Now this parable, when I used to think
about it back in the day because I
haven't traveled by sea,
I've traveled by plane quite a bit.
And one time, there was an incident on
a plane that I was it was couple
of incidents.
One of them was
that we hit pretty hard turbulence. I was
asleep. I I I sleep pretty well on
the plane. So I I fall asleep before
takeoff. I wake up after landing. That's my
thing. Okay?
So I was gone,
and I wake up to
and the malakul mout math mask is hanging,
you know,
and people are like,
you know,
and and the the the the the flight
attendant is holding on to, like, 2 seats
and,
like, this is what was happening.
And I was like, oh, it's time to
go.
And the the guy next this is long,
many many years ago. The guy next to
me was watching a movie. He had headphones
on. He was watching it. There's a guy
on the other side who was listening to
some music or something. He was just,
you know But when I woke up,
they were both
that's what they were doing.
And you could hear people crying, and then,
you know, eventually the plane calmed down, and
they, you know, they came and they put
the masks
back in.
Right? And everything was calm. And guess what
this dude did?
And that guy put his headphones on, Hit
play again. Yo. Where was I?
In that moment, they became a different person.
They're like, oh, no, no. Okay. Alright, guys.
Okay. That was just a natural disaster.
Well, you weren't begging to nature.
You You weren't calling to nature.
You know, this is again something used to,
you know, mock atheists and sometimes atheists respond
with, well, you know, even if people do
that, it's a known
phenomenon that people turn to God in these
moments of desperation.
That's just desperation talking.
That's just desperation.
I'm like, okay. Fine. I'll give you that.
If it is desperation talking, and let's just
say it is, why is it that you
would turn to God in desperation? The one
thing that you've made your life your whole
identity is about the denial of God and
in your most desperate moments by the way
when you are facing
you're you're staring down the barrel you're staring
down the jaws of death
this is a moment where you need you
don't need to pretend about nothing You could
be a sincere and honest as you want.
Guy sitting next to his wife, the plane's
about to crash. You know, I've hated you
this entire time. I just want you to
know that.
Now he's making sure, he's really hoping they
crash now because
right?
So the idea
that they're in that moment when you're the
most authentic self, because it's done, you're it's
over.
They're turning to God,
That says something.
Something deep inside
you that you are so so adamantly intellectualizing
away
just emerges out of you, erupts out of
you and you can't even control it
because the ultimate proof of God, the ultimate
proof of Allah
lies deep within the fitra itself,
and when the human being all of a
sudden is moments away from meeting Allah, that
fitra
emerges and says, yeah, Allah, I'm not ready
to meet you, please.
And it just comes out. It pops out.
It's had a look.
And they're like, oh, show us a miracle
on the outside.
Show us something on the outside.
It's been inside you this whole time.
What's remarkable
about this parable also, if you look at
the, we didn't dive into the language, but
we will now piece by piece.
Allah didn't say
here. You know, their example is the example
of those who got boarded on 2 ships.
Something like that. He he didn't do that.
He just went straight into it
without even saying that's an example. Even though
it is an example, it's obvious it's an
example.
But other places so far we saw the
we saw
the and there's no
here. There's nothing. You just go straight in.
Why? As if to say something amazing. Like
I told you, I haven't done much sea
travel. I'm sure many of you haven't done
much sea travel.
And it's quite possible that the audience, the
majority of them haven't done much sea travel
It's quite possible
But this is Allah's way of something saying
something incredible.
You think those people out at sea are
in so much danger because they're surrounded by
the ocean and the waves can turn on
them at any time.
And that's why they're so vulnerable, and they're
so close to death.
And they're just a moment away from being
annihilated.
But what you know what none of you
realize is you're all out at sea.
This is your reality
right now.
You don't have to wait on to get
on board a plane or get on board
a ship
to be experiencing this reality.
You and I embark on things all the
time. Allah creates facility for us in every
one of our journeys. Some of you are
in an educational journey. Some of you are
in a professional journey. Some of you are
in a business journey. Some of you are
journeying or venturing into getting married. Some of
you are venturing to raise your children. There's
all these journeys that we take on. All
these ventures that we take on. And sometimes
we're at the dock of those journeys.
Just at the starting point of those journeys.
You just got engaged. There's a big smile
on your face.
It's 2 days before the wedding ceremony.
You're excited, etcetera. There's a
They're happy about it. They're taking pictures. They're
celebrating.
They're being congratulated left and right, there's this
goofy look on their face,
all the time.
That's you know, at that moment it's
And what does Allah do in life?
What Allah does in life doesn't matter which
venture whether it's marriage or children or business
or education, sometimes a wind comes out of
nowhere
and you get slapped with a wave from
one side and then another side and then
another side, and you're like, everything was going
so well,
and now everything has fallen apart.
I'm drowning here. What happened?
What happened? What You Allah,
I don't know what to do.
And so you might find yourself the business
is tanking
or you're being sued by somebody
or, you know, the the you're you're you're
you're you're you're in the trucking business and
your truck went on fire or this happened
or somebody filed a police report or this
happened or that happened. Oh my goodness.
Out of no or or sickness came
or a death came in the family,
there are so many waves that you can
get slapped with.
Right? And in those moments,
when they get hard enough, we just in
that moment of desperation, we turn back to
just
let us ride this storm, just make this
storm be over.
I know I've been ungrateful.
I'll never be ungrateful like this again.
The is really important.
Because the word
suggest
the immediate problem is so massive that I
can't even think beyond that anymore.
I don't
know what I don't think about the future,
I don't think about life. I don't think
about nothing. The old my entire universe has
become this problem.
Just get me out of this. That's all
I can think about.
You know, it's,
silly comparison, but
in the spirit of comparisons,
some people can't hang handle hunger.
I mean, Ramadan, Allah gives us unusual ability
to handle hunger and thirst, but generally speaking,
outside of Ramadan, when you're not fasting and
you're you're hungry for reasons of you forgot
to take your lunch with you or you
got stuck in traffic for a long time,
etcetera, etcetera, and you come home super hungry.
And
instead of the food being ready,
there's a conversation that needs to happen.
Hey. So I was thinking next month when
we're gonna can can we
oh, do you need to eat food right
now? Yeah. No. But it's really important. Next
month,
I just need to eat food.
You can't think past the food.
Right now,
I get get this off my
make this problem go away, and then I
can think about tomorrow.
There's this
the the the nature of crisis is it
blinds you of all things else. Everything else.
You just can't think about it anymore.
You know, this is an important,
side observation about the nature of crisis. The
Ummah has found itself in one crisis after
another after another after another,
and multiple crises at the same time like
right now,
for for well over a century. Like that's
just the that's our normal now. Our normal
is mass level disasters
in one place or another.
Right? Something's always on fire. Something's always some
unthinkable disasters going on. Some unthinkable
human travesty is going on with with the
omen, with humanity at large all the time.
And what's what's what's become of us
is that we're always looking at one fire
and we're like, if we could just get
out of this.
If you could just you Allah, just get
us get us out of this. And as
soon as that, then it's the next one.
Get us out of this. And get us
out of this. And get us out of
this. And get us out of this. And
we're constantly reacting to the next disaster.
We're just in this reaction
mode.
Now to give you a parable,
if
if there's a building on fire and you're
putting out the fire,
and while you're putting out that fire, the
people who are setting fire set building to
the next fire.
You're putting out that fire. And then they
set out the the next the next one.
And you're like, gotta do this one. Now
I gotta do this one. Now I gotta
do this one. And the people that are
setting fires are a lot quicker than your
ability to
put out the fire. Yeah?
And somebody says, hold on. Step back.
We need to figure out
how to take the ability of these people
to set fires.
Because if we don't,
we're constantly gonna be putting out fires, and
they're constantly gonna be
creating fires.
That's that's all we're gonna do. We're not
gonna solve this problem this way. We we
need to put out the fire immediately,
but we need to be thinking
beyond the immediate crisis.
We need to be thinking, are we gonna
be putting out fires 10 years from now?
Are we gonna be doing the same thing
20 years from now? Were we doing the
same thing 30 years ago,
50 years ago, 70 years ago?
Are we doing exactly the same thing?
Putting out fires again and again and again,
and we're not thinking about how to solve
the deeper problem?
And and where did they get the ability
to light those fires anyway? What gave them
that ability? What gave them that power? Why
don't we have that power?
What those those are important questions, aren't they?
Because if you're just going from crisis to
crisis, you can't plan anything.
Even in companies, some of you come from
the world of business. In companies,
you have you have teams that deal with
crisis management.
Some managers are very good at solving a
crisis.
Right? So if there's a
human resource crisis, a management crisis,
a deadline was missed crisis,
some some kind of financial,
They know how to handle that situation. They
know, okay. Let me understand the problem. Let
me fix it, fix it, fix it. Those
fix it people,
they're so used to fixing problems When you
say, Hey, we wanna grow the organization,
do something bigger, we wanna achieve higher goals,
they're they're not even capable of doing that.
Why? Because their entire programming
is to deal with
crisis and then sometimes those people, even when
there isn't a crisis, they create a crisis
so they can have a job.
Right?
But coming back to this parable,
let's look at the language again.
In the beginning, you're at the precipice of
a beautiful journey.
And those The beautiful journey represents blessings, like
the the boat is actually blessings.
It's a new life that people are going
to go into. They're gonna travel to a
new world. Start a new venture.
You know, begin a family. Start farming. So
do doing something. Right? So, there's this idea
of opening up new horizons for you in
life
that's encapsulated
in, you know,
You're you're entering into territory that you've never
entered before with optimism, with hope. That's what's
going on in your life. And as that's
as you're heading in that direction,
Things look good.
Things start looking good. So you went into
school,
classes are easy. You're passing them one after
the other after the other. You're on your
way to the honor roll. You might be
the valedictorian of the university. You might become
you got a full fledged scholarship. Things might
start really just falling into place. What is
that?
The wind start taking them, you know, start
sailing them away or they start getting sailed
away, the ships start sailing them away with
a good wind. Good wind means blessings come
and now things are getting easy. You you
start feeling like you've got the golden touch.
Anything you touch, oh, blessings.
You decide, oh, you're gonna open up a
pizza place, you start it, it becomes the
most successful pizza place in 1 year. Like,
I think I've got the golden touch, mashallah.
I'm gonna open up another one there, and
boom! It becomes the biggest pizza place. Then
a third one, a fourth one. You're like,
Oh, I think I'm gonna be the pizza
king.
I'm gonna keep going.
And so what happens when business is good
and when opportunities keep opening up and when
everything is successful one after the other? You
know what happens?
You you and I,
we start seeing dollar signs instead of our
eyeballs.
And we start thinking, oh, I gotta
there's
And then use you were things were okay,
but now you want everything to work and
you wanna try every new thing so you
get busier and busier and busier and busier
with 20 different projects because success has come
your way. Right? So you were busy already
but you made yourself exponentially busier because of
success.
Now, what does that symbolize? How is that
symbolize?
The wave
takes them.
The ship takes them with a good wind.
So they're not going, the the success is
taking them, the blessings are taking them, the
ship is taking taking them.
So the blessings themselves start moving you this
way or that way or the other way.
And you're just entirely lost in
these these good times.
And all of a sudden then, the problem
with that mentality also, success
is a is a pretty potent drug.
It's a very potent
drug. Whether it's financial success, social success, academic
success, it's a drug. You start feeling entitled.
You start feeling like you earned it,
You know?
And then Allah hits you with a disaster,
with a challenge, with a catastrophe, with a
setback.
The plans get destroyed.
You had projections for 5 years, now it's
all gone, washed away. You had these big
big dreams, all of them are just they
vanished into thin air.
You know, like like cryptocurrency
or your NFT just disappeared,
you know. And when that happened,
when all of that collapsed all of a
sudden,
then this call to Allah, So
let's look at that language again. Let's revisit
it.
I didn't tell you about
in Arabic is when you
violently
peel
off of the the the cob.
When you violently peel the leaves off the
cob.
Right? Or scrape the the crop.
Okay? For harvest. And then you have to
rip it off, rip it off, rip it
off. This is called
actually.
One of the ways that is also used
is for a violent horse.
When a horse is galloping really fast, and
doesn't care what's in its way, it's moving
with asf.
So it has the imagery of violence, and
quickness, and speed.
That's inside the meaning of our it's inconsiderate.
The horse doesn't care if it trampled over
a child. The horse doesn't care if it
broke a fence. It just now it's going,
it's a stampede, it's going.
The winds that come, they're not nice.
They don't care about you. They're not like
a You know how sometimes boxers, they realize
they're boxing somebody who's not that strong against
them, so they hold back their full power,
their punch.
This is not one of those boxers.
This win don't hold back. It don't care.
It goes full on against you.
This is what kids call me at back
in campus in in Texas. Sometimes we play
video games
and video game tournaments,
and I'm, you know, seasoned in street fighter.
And so I only play street fighter.
I don't let them play any other video
games, because why would I allow them to
win? Like, you wanna play FIFA? Like, nope.
So we play Streetfighter,
and I destroy them.
Like, even a 6 year old. Like, why
are you so mean? I was like, because.
No. No. No mercy. I will give you
every combo I know.
I'll beat you in 9 seconds.
You can cry, or you can learn to
get up.
But the idea of
a problem will come and you'll feel like
it has no mercy.
It's also interesting that the same thing that
was the blessing
was
And the thing
that's ruined your life
is
it's also a wind.
The wind was the blessing, the wind became
the curse. And what is perhaps Allah teaching
us in that imagery
is that sometimes the very thing,
the people, the businesses,
the associates, the employees, the friends, the partners
that were the biggest blessing, that were riding
the success with you, that were coming along
with, they become your biggest enemies all of
a sudden.
That same blessing became the biggest curse. You're
like, can I just get rid of it?
I don't want this property anymore. Can I
just get out of it somehow?
That same property when you first bought it,
you were like, My God, I can't believe
we got this. Alhamdulillah.
And now you're looking at it, My God,
I can't believe it's still here You Allah,
can I just get out of this property?
Too much litigation, too much legal problems, too
much problems with the city, too much the
the same thing became a curse,
the same thing.
And so Allah is teaching us that we
should not rely
on blessings
Because that same
that is
can
without warning
become
It can become
And maybe sometimes Allah does change
a good wind into a terrible one, a
ruthless one.
Just to remind the believer that the only
one you can truly rely on is Allah.
Just to remind you,
everyone else
everyone else
can have a change.
But Allah is consistent with you.
Allah is consistent with you.
So he says,
and they realized, By the way, if the
waves are coming at you from every direction,
you know what that also means, you can't
get help.
You can't turn to anybody for help. In
fact, this you turn this way for help,
a wave came from this way. You turn
that way for help, wave came from that
way.
It's also the image
of extreme isolation.
You're in a crisis, and you can't even
turn to help it towards anybody.
You have no trust with anybody.
And now in this moment, you realize you're
just completely going to be overrun, and you
turn to Allah, and you say that they
they turn to Allah
calling on Allah, making their religion entirely since
here for Him. What does that mean? That
they make their religion sincere for Him? All
the pretense, all the ignoring Allah, all all
of that disappeared. All of a sudden, you
just wanna be vulnerable and honest with Allah,
and pure have a pure real conversation with
Allah. I know this is hard to understand
because we don't deal with spirituality,
you know, as easily. So I'll give you
a parable or
a parallel rather.
You know, sometimes you have people in your
family, you wanna be able to have an
honest conversation with them.
Right?
But you don't.
You're just scared,
or you're like, they won't understand,
Or you're like, if they knew what I
think about them,
you know?
And so you have these conversations in your
head, but you never have them out loud.
You start living in your head, and you
start building whatever it may be. Maybe resentment,
it may be anger,
It may be judgment. It may be maybe
a scoffing,
a scoffing attitude towards the other, but you
never verbalize it. For whatever reason, then you
develop this
insincere relationship with this person.
So it it's good on the outside, but
there's nothing good about it on the inside.
There's nothing sincere about it on the inside.
And this is the it's kind of a
parallel with the kind of relationship people develop
with Allah. Allah is there. I know deep
depth in the depths of my being, I
know he's there, but right now I don't
wanna acknowledge his presence,
because I just really wanna do what I
wanna do.
I just wanna put the headphones back on.
So I I don't wanna deal with Allah
right now.
But when he removes all of your distractions
and takes away all of your blessings,
all of a
sudden, the way you turn back to Allah,
the way I turn back to Allah, begging
him
We will absolutely be from the grateful. It's
interesting that the words used were not, I
will obey you,
or I will be loyal to you,
I'll be grateful.
You know why? Because a person really learns
how to become grateful
when all the blessings disappear,
then you realize what a blessing they were.
Nobody appreciates health like someone who's sick.
Nobody nobody appreciates a car like someone whose
car got taken away.
Nobody appreciates,
you know, a job like someone who just
lost their job.
That's the nature of it.
Now, I'll realize that these blessings were not
something I was entitled to. Look at the
tragedy of the next ayah. Then
finally, when he did rescue them,
Allah did. They they turned to Allah. They
made this this begging plea to Allah. Allah
rescued them finally.
All of a sudden they start arrogantly defying
Allah in the land,
immediately turn back and they become arrogant and
defiant. You know,
the contemporary example of this that comes in
my mind is there are people that were
going through a really big difficulty,
and they were begging Allah at the time
to save them, and then Allah save them.
And then after that, they start decide deciding
that they're gonna teach other people,
self help and, success stories.
And they're gonna say, you know, I was
really down on my knees at one point.
I was really beaten down, but
it's my own
courage
and my own resolve,
and you have to be brave and weather
the storm, and you're gonna succeed the way
I succeeded.
At the time you were begging Allah to
get you out of it, once you got
out of it, who got you out of
it?
That's Man, the storm I was in.
You know what I survived? I survived the
storm in the middle of the sea.
Did you know?
That's not what you sounded like when you
were hanging by the raft,
off the dangling off the side of the
boat, side side of the ship, saying, oh,
what's it? Is it? At the time, you
weren't hanging saying, I will weather this storm.
Bring it on.
You
that's not what you were saying at the
time.
But now that that's over with, now you
can give a tech tech talk about it
and change your story. Right?
When Allah rescues them, all of a sudden,
they become
defiant and, you know, arrogantly defiant.
Has this idea of arrogance
and being supreme.
With no justification at all.
Allah says people, humanity, listen up.
Your arrogant defiance
only works against your own selves.
It only works against your own selves.
These are things to utilize and enjoy temporarily
in worldly life.
Then you will all be returned only and
only to us.
It's you're not even gonna be returned to
the bottom of the ocean. You're You're gonna
be pulled out of there and return back
to Allah.
Like, there there it's a far more terrifying
prospect
than even drowning at
sea, is to be pulled out of the
drowning sea, and be brought to trial in
front of Allah, and to answer for your
and
to answer for your rebellion, and to answer
for your fake sincerity.
In that moment, that temporary sincerity.
Last comment and and
I'll I'll translate the the ending of this
ayah. We shall inform you of the things
that you used to do. And I'll tell
you one last thing about this ayah that
I think is noteworthy,
in my mind. There's many more, but at
least one more.
There is such a thing as temporary sincerity.
This eye is evidence.
You can have a moment in which you
get clarity,
and you become
completely not a hypocrite,
not not a not a sinner, not a
defier, not a kafir.
You became
a full on sincere
believer.
Is quite
a compliment in the Quran.
That's not a light thing to say about
somebody.
So this person has experienced
pure faith.
Pure faith in that moment.
And so it's a tragedy that you experience
something so pure
and you still let it go.
You let that drown,
ironically.
Right? Allah didn't let you drown, but you
let this treasure that you acquired in the
middle of the ocean. You found Allah himself.
You went looking for pearls. You went looking
for whatever fish. When you were looking for
hunting for a whale, and you found god
himself,
and you let that go.
You what a tragedy.
Every one of us has to identify what
journey we're on, what boat we're on, what
waves are being hit with us, or what
waves are coming at us, what blessings are
distracting us,
what blessings are taking us away, and we're
just sailing away with them, And we're not
thinking about where Allah where Allah wants us
to be. What gratitude we're supposed to show
Allah. May Allah make us contemplate his beautiful
parables and may Allah bring us closer and
closer to him and make us grateful servants
of him.
Assalamu
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