Striking Examples From the Quran #22 Firm Roots & High Branches
Date:
Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
Series: Nouman Ali Khan - Ramadan 2024 - Striking Examples From The Quran
File Size: 63.29MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of learning to think individually and sharing good words to benefit others, as well as maintaining healthy deeds and deeds for petty harm. They also emphasize the need for mutual respect between animals and humans, as well as the benefits of sharing words to achieve petty deeds. The speakers emphasize the importance of trusting oneself and acknowledging one's worth in the workplace, as it is essential for building a culture of safety and integrity.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
on Bayina TV. I want you to enjoy
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also. Thank you.
Something. To because today's is that important, I
want you to make some a list of
observations.
Just write a keyword.
It's like item number 1, just 1 or
2 words, not a full sentence.
And the most effective way to take notes
is you you you just write those 1
or 2 words, and you'll remember what those
1 or 2 words represent. It could be
an entire paragraph worth of ideas
because when you're listening to something and trying
to write down notes,
then you're doing 2 things at the same
time. You're listening and you're writing. Right?
So most chances are you're gonna write something
down that makes no sense to you later
because half your brain was involved in listening
and the other half was involved in writing
and you're it's working in 2 opposite directions.
It's like trying to drive the car in
forward and reverse at the same time. So
the best thing you can do is take
a keyword, a key concept, and say, number
1, here's this key concept.
You know, it's just like the word just
the word seat. And from it, you'll remember,
oh, I remember the discussion about the seed.
And then later on, you can go back
and write something coherent
under that. Right? But there this is,
I'll I'll tell you the aya number we're
gonna gonna do today,
and this is Surat Ibrahim,
alaihi salam, and this is aya number,
24. 2425
is what we're gonna do today. It's one
of the very important,
parables and, that teaches one of the great
fundamentals of our religion. So inshallah,
we'll
begin
now.
Everyone once again.
The parable we're gonna discuss today is split
over 2 ayaat, ayaat number 24 and 25
of Surat Ibrahim.
I'll start with something that the ayaat conclude
with. Allah says
Allah strikes the examples for the benefit of
people so they can continue to make efforts
to remember.
That statement is not just some extra statement.
Allah put that statement there as if Allah
is letting us know this is one of
those things you should keep making an effort
to remind yourself of over and over again.
Like, that's Allah's way of highlighting this is
special over here.
Right? So even if Allah didn't say that,
the parable was complete, and we know it's
a. Allah said that in the beginning of
the ayat, but Allah highlighted that especially at
the end. So it ends with this exclamatory
emphasis from Allah
that is to let us know that this
is one of those special places in the
Quran. All places in the Quran are special
just like all important teachings are special, but
a teacher sometimes stops at some place and
says, I need your extra attention on this
one. Right? And that's this is one of
those cases
with the Surah. I've you know, in order
to not lose sight of, you know, dozens
and dozens of observations
that can come from this ayah, I'll I'll
share a number of them with you inshallah.
That's why I have my device open so
I don't miss anything from what I wanna
share. But let's begin first with, translating this
ayah briefly or these 2 ayah.
Didn't you observe
how Allah or didn't you see
how Allah struck the example of a single
word?
Or
Now this is a grammatical nuance here. This
is actually a kind of Bayan. So Allah
could have
said but he said
and that's actually in itself a really interesting
rhetorical thing Allah has done, to to emphasize
the role of the word.
And if this was like a tafsir halaka,
I'd spend some time on the language and
what's happening between the and the Bayan here,
but I won't do that for you. But
just to let you know, this is yet
another piece of the ayah
highlighting how important this what the example of
this one word is. So anyway, Allah says
didn't you notice how Allah strikes,
a remarkable example That is to say a
single word.
And then he describes that word as good,
pure,
and nutritious.
A good word, a nutritious word, a pure
word. Right? So that's the just
is like a good, nutritious, and pure tree.
Its roots
are firm, or the root of it is
firm
and settled,
and its branches
are going into the sky.
That's the first diet. So the roots are
deep and are settled, and the branches reaching
into the sky or pointing to the sky.
It provides
its
fruit. And I'm not I'm using the word
fruit very loosely because Allah didn't say samar.
He said
and so we're gonna spend some time on
the word when we get there.
All the time and it can also mean
every season.
So can have two translations. 1 is it
gives its fruit all the time and it
could mean it gives its fruit every single
because every season because you know fruits come
in a certain
season. So season after season it keeps on
giving. That that could be one of the
meanings.
By the permission of its Rabb, its master.
And Allah strikes examples for the benefit of
people so they can make an effort to
continue to remember, and that's the phrase I
started with. Okay.
So let's first take a moment to understand
that Allah started this this phrase with
didn't you observe?
And this is something that Allah highlights to
the messenger of Allah
in different places in the Quran. One of
them is the shortest surah one of the
shortest surahs in the Quran.
Many of you memorize that. Right? So what
does that mean? Literally quite literally, means
didn't you see?
And Allah is saying in that surah that
you're all familiar with, didn't you see how
your master dealt with the people of the
elephant? Ashabul Fil, the story of Ashabul Fil.
The the thing though is the prophet didn't
see Ashabul Fil.
He didn't see it. So how is Allah
saying, didn't you see how Allah dealt with
them? The words didn't you see is actually
a reflection of didn't you think about it?
But it's more than that. It serves
a a a further rhetorical purpose.
What it does is have you haven't you
thought about it so much that it's almost
as if you can see it happening in
front of you?
Like, it's asking to for you to go
above and beyond your just typical,
didn't you think about? Didn't you ponder? No.
No. No.
Didn't you think about it so much as
if almost you can see it happening?
That's how much Allah is actually asking you
to think about something. So it's the same
opening, alamtara.
But it's important to note that the word
alamtara does has 2 effects,
or maybe even 3 effects. One effect is
the most common way that scholars look at
the words alamtara is it's first and foremost
pointing at the Messenger of
Allah He's being told to contemplate.
So in a sense,
we are contemplating this ayah
in following with the sunnah of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, who's the first one
to contemplate these ayat.
Right? So it's also interesting that even even
the Messenger, alayhis salatu wa sallam, is being
brought to pay extra attention to this ayah
in that way with with alamtara. So it
has this special place.
The second thing is that alamtara could refer
to the individual.
So the Quran, for example, talks by the
end of these ayaat you saw, you know,
Allah gives examples for the benefit of people.
People is everybody, like your people sitting in
front of me right now. But
is not
Didn't people think,
or didn't all of you think? He is
did he's talking to 1 person individually.
And this is important because in in psychology,
you have something called group thinking and individual
thinking. Right? Group think, a teacher simple like
simple example to help you understand that. Teacher
comes into class and says, you know, students
should really do their homework on time. Students
should really come into class on time. Students,
students, students. When he's saying students in the
plural, these 30 kids that are sitting in
the class,
every one of them is thinking he's talking
to the guy next to me. He's not
talking to me
because I I'm okay.
But when the teacher starts pointing at one
student and says, hey, you, you need to
come to class on time.
Right? All of a sudden, all the other
students are like, is he gonna point at
me next?
Because that got a little too personal.
Because when the teacher was saying students,
good students behave this way, students do things
that way, then it was kind of a
diffusion of responsibility.
It's he's talking to everybody. It's okay.
But when he started pointing fingers and saying,
Abdul Karim sorry. If there's an Abdul Karim
here. Abdul
Karim, you came late,
but you're not the only one.
And then I haven't even said the next
name yet, but Zayd is thinking, yo. I
came late.
I don't know if he's gonna call my
name next. It becomes individualized.
And the effect
of something being spoken,
something being said to an individual is very
different
from the effect of something being said at
large.
You know, when
and this is this is important because in
larger groups what tends to happen is people
start thinking, Yeah. This is all of our
problem but not me personally.
Right? The ummah is so messed up. The
ummah is failing. The ummah is hopeless. The
ummah is bleeding. The ummah, ummah, ummah, you're
like, yeah, the ummah, not me though. It's
this darn rest of the ummah that has
so many problems.
Right? So
when you when you have this collective language,
there can be a sense of it's not
me. But the words
it's almost as if you're separating yourself from
everybody, it's just you alone thinking about this.
It's not it's like nobody else exists.
You're being you're being highlighted, singled out individually.
And this is this is a really interesting
thing to to to do,
particularly in the context of Surat Ibrahim,
because there's a special emphasis on Ibrahim alaihis
salam, who was a uniquely individual thinker. He
separated himself from his family, from the larger
society and was thinking for himself and none
of the conditioning of his society
and the training
of several 1000 years of culture or centuries
of culture that were part of his upbringing,
none of that was able to stop him
for thinking for himself
individually.
And that's actually one of the things that
the Quran is calling for when it comes
to the by way of parables, this educational
methodology Allah has used these examples as a
way of teaching people how to learn to
think for themselves,
how to learn to think so not copy
somebody else, but actually individually become thinkers. SubhanAllah.
So
And even the word
is kind of pointing rhetorically at the wonder
of this parable.
How does how does Allah give this example?
And so the more
the the more I'll contemplate it, the more
I'll I'll think,
how incredible is this? How beautiful is this?
How relevant is this? How true is this?
And the the word how is actually it's
it's almost like it's
it's almost as if it points a person
towards the wonder. You know when you see
something amazing you're like how did he do
that? How did they pull that off? You
know? And that so so that's also embedded
inside the word,
you know, or actually in the word.
So now,
let's start with the word the word a
good word is being compared with an entire
tree.
And this could be a form of majaz,
like majaz aqqli, maybe even Musa in a
sense. What that means is you're talking about
a tree, but the origin of the tree
was a single
seed. And so perhaps the word is being
compared to a single seed,
which grows into an entire tree, but Allah
is taking you to the final result.
You know, instead of walking you through the
entire process, it's almost as if Allah expects
you to know that already because enough parables
have been given that build that mindset already.
So the word is being compared to a
tree,
but what hasn't been spelled out is a
word is maybe like a single seed
which eventually grows into an entire tree, and
you can fill in those blanks yourself.
Right? So you don't have to spell the
whole thing out. Now,
if that is the case,
then a single word is actually very minimal.
It's very, very min it's just a single
word. The word word can be can be
reflective of a message. It can be it
can represent
a small statement,
one bit of advice. You know how even
in English, we say, hey. Let me have
a word with you.
Let me have a word with you. And
it's just some some one subject you wanna
discuss with someone, one matter you wanna discuss
with someone. So it doesn't have to be
literally referring to one word, but it could
be one conversation,
one subject,
one discussion.
But it is rhetorically referring to a very
minimal quantity of communication.
When somebody just wants to have a word
with you, that doesn't mean they wanna have
a 3 hour discussion with you. They wanna
share something brief with you. This is an
important indication
that Allah is teaching us that when it
comes to communication
and the power of communication,
quantity is not that important.
It's quality that's important.
It could be very brief. The interaction could
be very, very brief, but it could be
so profound. You know, there's dozens of examples
of that, and one easy example you can
think about is in Surah Al Hakaf,
for example.
So, you know,
had left Ta'if,
and he was bleeding,
and he was standing there reciting Quran that
was revealed to him, and the human beings
in Taif had almost killed him, rejected his
message.
And there there happened to be some jinn
passing by, And they just, in passing,
heard the sounds of the Quran, and they
told each other,
yo. Shut up. Listen. Shh. What is that?
And they all started listening to the Quran.
And they heard it briefly.
But when they when they were done,
not only did they accept the message, they
had these profound reflections on what they just
heard, and their reflections were so valued by
Allah,
he made them part of the Quran.
So in,
the the the impact that the Quran, the
Kalima of Allah
had on these jinn
that led to them having a discussion with
each other
and so on and so forth. All of
that got recorded in the Quran.
Right? Because that good word, that brief good
word that they heard impacted them in that
profound way. But they didn't hear 10 years
of dawah or 13 years of dawah in
Makkah. They didn't hear days days days of
the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam reciting to them
or convincing them or nothing. They just heard
a good word in a very brief
context,
and they were completely transformed.
Right? So it's not actually about
the quantity
of what you're saying. It's the quality
of what you're saying. It's the quality.
And, you know, my teacher, doctor Abdusamy, once
told me something really profound.
He because he wanted me to give, hutba
for the first time, and I was really
nervous. And he gave me a bunch of
advice,
very brief, but one of the advices he
gave me, he said, one day, you might
be talking, and there would be thousands of
people sitting there listening to what you're saying.
And thousands of people are spending, you know,
collectively an hour, 2 hours listening to every
word you're saying.
But Allah will decide
that for your sound to travel from your
mouth to somebody's ear, for that one person,
Allah will say, and
and it will that one word that you
said in the 38th minute
and the 46th second will go inside their
heart,
and that will change their entire life. And
he may not say that word for the
other 9,999
people, and nothing will change
for any of them because
Allah decided it won't. It's not you that's
bringing about any change.
It's Allah decides when a word will go
past the eardrums and reach all the way
to the heart and when it won't. That's
not up to you.
Right? But it could be a single you
could have been talking for years and it
could be a single word.
Right?
Like people come to me telling me this
all the time. They're like, I I watch
a lot of your videos but I mostly
sleep.
But this is one thing you said in
this one video. It was, like, 20 years
ago. I was like, so everything else for
20 years, I'm putting you to sleep. Yes.
But that one thing you said, meh.
That was good. I was like, at least
one thing was good.
But that is in fact true. It may
be for if if you think about, for
example, the advice your father has given you
or an elder has given you, they may
have given you advice for years years years,
but there's some one thing they said
that just got inside you and you remember
it to this day and you might even
be teaching it to your kids.
Somehow that made its way through, and that's
that's the power of an effective good word.
We don't know which good word is it
gonna be,
which word is gonna have that you know,
bear that fruit,
so that's the one thing about the the
quality and the quantity that I wanted to
bring to your attention. Now a little bit
about the word,
Just just some observations about the word tayib.
So the word tayib is used for water,
like and.
It's used for sweet water.
It's also used for food.
So if if food is tasty and it
goes down the throat smoothly,
then that's called. So it tastes good. It's
nutritious.
Right?
It's also used for
pure drink, so
like the the most dense pure
juice, for example, that would be
And, of course, land,
when you are preparing land for agriculture, you
have to purify the land. You have to
clean the land of insects and vermin and
impure elements of the soil and pebbles and
all this other stuff. When the land is
totally ready, that's actually
and
That's that's when it's called that. Right? So
this this the notion is that a word
that is pure, that is good.
Now what so so we have to think
about if Allah is saying, he's comparing a
pure word to a good and pure tree,
The the purity and the goodness of it,
we have to understand. The intention behind the
word
is that I am hoping to benefit someone.
I'm hoping to give, and it it does
2 things. 1,
food that is
provides nutrition. It provides a health benefit.
So I'm trying to say something that will
be of some kind of
sustained benefit to somebody.
Also, the way in which I'm saying it
is pleasant,
because
the part of the meaning of the word
tayib is that it goes down easy.
Right? It's it's something that's soft and gentle
and and and enjoyable to consume.
So the way in which I'm communicating
is taking into account that it will be
digested effectively. So there's 2 components.
It's what I'm saying
has to be good, beneficial, meaningful, and rich.
And 2, the way that I'm saying it,
it's what you say and how you say
it.
Both of them together become.
So for example, if I say, to somebody,
that's a that's a good word. But if
I say,
it's I mean, technically, it's supposed to be
a good word, but it wasn't said in
a good way.
Right? So it's no longer.
It's no it's no longer.
And we know that communication isn't just about
words. Communication is also about body language.
Hey. How's it going?
Well, it is
but that didn't look like
That look like I got a lot of
problems. Well, I'm just I'm supposed to say
the Islamic thing, so I'm gonna say it.
But
right. So it's
when Allah is saying,
then he's actually kind of giving us a
360
degree view of the word and how we
communicate that word.
Okay. So that's
a little bit of that. Now,
the let's go to the image
itself. A good word and by the way,
what is that good word? Some scholars said
it's
Some said this is the the word of
Islam. But actually, yes, it starts with that,
but it could actually be any good word.
It could include things like when Luqman was
talking to his son,
It could actually be even something that a
conversation you're happening having with yourself, because
and and
in the Quran isn't just something that comes
out of the mouth. It's also, you know,
They
say to within themselves, you can sometimes have
a conversation in your head,
thoughts,
you know, contemplations.
They can actually be an entire by themselves
too because words and thoughts are related to
each other. Right?
Now Allah says in this ayah,
if you're comparing it to a tree, the
tree was given 2 components.
One component of it was the roots are
firm,
and then the other was that the branches
are in the sky.
If you know anything about trees, you know
the more they grow, they grow in both
directions.
So the the taller the tree gets, the
deeper the roots get. If the roots are
not getting deeper as the tree is getting
taller, what's gonna happen to the tree?
It's gonna flip over. The next wind, next
storm, too much rain, the soil gets soft,
it's gonna fall over. Okay? So the tree
has to it can only be healthy and
sustained
if the roots are firm and then the
branches are high, and they're both actually growing.
Now let's
think about that for a second. What part
of the tree do we not see?
The roots. So the starting point is the
root, and it's also the invisible point. A
good word is like a tree that has
deep roots. Part of the meaning is when
I share a good word with somebody or
somebody shares a good word with me, it's
like they planted the seed, the beginning of
the root,
because it all starts with the root.
And when that seed opens up and something
starts happening, you don't see anything on top
of the soil. Something's happening inside the soil,
you'll see no effects of it on the
outside.
So you shared a good word with somebody,
and you saw that there was no impact.
Nothing happened, nothing changed.
You know, people used to often tell me
because, you know, Muslims were,
we put together big conventions sometimes, programs,
you
know, 8 programs, and you'll have like a
come or a bunch of speakers come, and
there'll be a bazaar, and
10,000, 20000 people, and they're all and then
people complain, we have these conventions and people
come and they listen and nothing changes.
Oh, really?
You know, you checked every heart
that was in attendance,
where they came from, what bus they took,
what train they took, what flight they took,
what fight they had with their family to
be able to even come,
what problems they were carrying,
and you checked every one of them sitting
in the audience that heard something about Allah
or something heard something about Allah's Messenger sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, and you made sure that
none of those messages that they heard had
any impact on any of them, no roots
formed in inside of any heart, and you
could just say, oh, nothing changed.
You know what that is? Well, I put
water, still no fruits.
That's not no. No. No. First, you gotta
get a tree,
then it has to grow,
then eventually, it starts budding a little bit,
and then you get fruits. You can't grow
a garden in the back, prepare the soil,
put the seed in, pour water one time
and say,
where's my oranges?
It's a process,
Right? But the most important part of that
process is invisible.
You have to give
the plant
time
before you see any progress.
You have to you have to have hope
that
Allah Allah is the one that tears open
the seed.
That something happening inside this person that I
cannot see,
that's something that is Allah's responsibility.
And even if I don't see any change,
I don't see this person heard a talk
and started praying 5 times a day. I
don't see this person heard a talk, and
all of a sudden, she started wearing hijab.
I didn't see that.
I didn't see that their company changed.
I didn't see that their filthy language changed.
I didn't see that their laziness or their
bad habits changed. I saw none of those
changes.
But I don't know
that a small change, a chain reaction
has already started. I don't know that.
I don't know that it's begun.
So I have to continue to pour the
water, and the sunlight comes from Allah,
and continue to just cleanse the soil and
remain
gentle with the soil. I can't start stomping
on the soil. I can't start yelling and
screaming at the soil or ripping everything out.
God, what's the point? I can't do that
because I'm not understanding the example.
So a good word, being like a good
tree, is also teaching me that if I
share a good word,
that my job isn't
to bring about the change.
My job is to just share the good
word.
The growth of that tree and how it
sprouts,
that's not up to me. That's up to
Allah
That's up to Allah.
And it takes away a lot of my
ego too
because now I'm not concerned, oh, you know,
I gave it because because some people get
a high, like, I gave a speech and
everybody scream
I'm like, okay. That had impact.
Now I know.
Now I know they're listening. But it could
be some of you are facing me this
way listening to this and there's a 13
year old in the back somewhere facing that
way playing a game on his phone right
now,
but something's still going in his ear and
he's like, hey, yo, how do you how
do you know about me? I know about
you, bro. Okay. Anyway
but let's say he's he's on he's on
his device, but something goes in there.
Something goes in, and that's up to Allah.
That's up that's not up to me. That's
not that's above my pay grade, if you
will. That's above my pay grade. That's not
my job to actually bring about a change
in that person. That is between them and
the
And so so this is an acknowledgment of,
you know,
like the the root being firm is something
that happens in an invisible sense. You know,
I'll give you one example of that in
the in the Quran
that was given to the prophet
In Surat Yasin,
Allah
tells him,
So the the the the
the here is very interesting. So you will
only warn those who follow the reminder.
And then Allah says, and they the you
can only warn those who have feared
who have feared.
And then he said
in the unseen.
So there's 2 ways to interpret that. One
is
al ar Rahman himself is in the unseen,
and they fear ar Rahman who is in
the unseen.
The other meaning
is,
Meaning, in front of you didn't look like
they have fear of Alayat.
But when they're by themselves, in their private
moments, they're actually developing the fear of Allah,
and you don't even know. In front of
you, you saw you thought that nobody listened
to anything you had to say, and they
walked away from the market. Or you gave
and nobody came up to you and spoke
to you. But you don't know that they
left with some fear of Allah in their
heart. You don't know that, so you keep
doing what you're doing, and its invisible impacts
are not up to you.
The same way when you and I think,
when the Rasulullah
made hijrah from Makkah to Madinah,
that the true believers left.
The believers left, and they went made hijrah
to Madinah.
And and then
years go by, happens,
happens,
happens, so much happens,
and now anybody who had any faith
must have already left and is already in
Madinah. And then finally happens.
And Hudaybiyyah
is all the way by the well of
Hudaybiyyah,
and there's that incident with Uthman who some
of you might be familiar with,
and the Muslims were about to attack Makkah
in the city, not on a usually, it's
the the battles happened on a battlefield,
But now, this was going to be a
a battle that was gonna take place in
the city of Makkah itself.
And Allah revealed at that time,
and had it not been for believing men
and believing women that you have never known
and
that you would trample all over them.
In Mecca,
all this time,
Allah is saying there are believing men and
believing women that the Messenger
and all of the sahaba, none of them
even know that they're believers.
Only Allah knows, and that's why you'd Allah
didn't let that happen,
because of the those invisible believers.
And this is Allah telling us sometimes people
harbor things inside their chest, they carry the
faith, they carry belief, and you can't see
it on the outside.
You know?
Sometimes it Allah teaches these lessons in the
strangest ways. I see these things in life
and I'm like, sometimes the ayaat just come
to life. I went to,
many years ago, my my my daughter one
of my daughters had a very strong allergic
reaction to anything dairy.
So we had to find, like, a vegan
because she really liked chocolate stuff. You can't
get any regular chocolate stuff because it's gonna
give her a crazy reaction. We found this
bakery
way out in Fort Worth somewhere that had
vegan cupcakes and vegan all this stuff. Right?
So no dairy product. So So I used
to go all the way out there, and
this is like a really hipster town, like,
you know, like, nose rings in places you
don't they're not that are not noses.
You know, like, and tattoos, like, all kinds
of stuff. Right? And the dude that was
serving the cupcakes was this big giant guy,
like a biker dude, you know, like
big old beard and, like,
rings over here and tattoos and bald head.
I was like, yeah. Okay.
And he goes,
here, by the way,
the,
well, that was really good.
And I'm up to Ali Imran now. I
don't know.
Bro.
He's he's he accepted the dean
couple of months ago, and he's learning.
You'd never know.
You'd you'd never think.
You wouldn't know.
Something rude. I mean, he's in an environment
where none of that is encouraged.
There's no reinforcement of any values. He's not
in an Islamic environment, if you will. Right?
But Allah puts something in him.
It
was 2 years ago, actually, right after COVID,
I went to do an event in Ohio.
I still remember. I hope this young man's
listening, and please don't laugh or kill me.
I'm I'm doing this event, and there's this
guy in the front row. He looks really
mean. Sorry, bro. But he he looks he's
just staring at me.
He was bald. He had a tattoo going,
like, side of his face down his neck.
Okay. This is straight up cartel,
like
okay.
And he's I'm like, is this is this
a hit job? Is he gonna, like, take
care of business afterwards or what? Because it
wasn't a masjid, it was like a it
was a hotel ballroom type play. And he
comes up to me and goes, I wanna
talk to you
in private. I was like, oh, I
I kinda knew this was coming.
So I go to the side, we start
talking. He goes, yeah. You know, I was
in jail. It's like,
okay. It's not going well.
I was in jail,
I saw some of your videos. I accepted
Islam. I've been learning the Quran since. And
I came out of jail, and I married
my girlfriend.
And she told me you're a different man.
What happened to you? And I said, this
guy.
And then she found out she's been following
you. She found out you're coming to the
city. I live 4 hours from here. She
goes, you better go there and thank him.
So I came here because my wife told
me to come say thank you. Also, can
I give you a hug? I gave him
a hug and, you know,
it all worked out in the end, but
that's not up to me.
I I wasn't targeting this young man
or his life. That's Allah put something in
somebody's heart,
And and the rest is with Allah.
The rest is with Allah. And there are
there are endless stories of these kinds of
impact that happened around the world, so we
shouldn't underestimate
the value of sharing a good word.
Right? Now we have to take another step.
Remember I told you the the roots have
to deepen?
What does it mean for roots to be
deep?
There are what does it represent in us?
One,
something is settled in my heart.
My heart is settled on this faith.
My foundation is strong.
But also,
I've really thought about this.
I'm I've really, like, contemplated
what it is that I believe
and why I believe it.
So there's a spiritual side of it because
our faith lies in our chest.
Right? And I have to have my heart
connected to my beliefs.
But it's also it's not just my heart
is connected to my beliefs, because even a
sincere Christian, their heart is connected to their
beliefs.
I would even argue a sincere Hindu, their
heart is connected to their beliefs.
A sincere Jew, their heart is connected to
their beliefs. They are, they are.
I don't doubt that.
There's something more, though.
For roots to truly be firm, I'm reminded
of the phrasing in the Quran,
those that are deeply rooted in knowledge.
There those who are deeply rooted in I've
thought about this, and it's not just that
my heart is content with this, and that's
good enough. I've thought about this, and I've
arrived at this at this faith
mindfully.
I've I've explored
intellectually
where I should be in this faith.
And that as a result,
whatever comes out of my mouth,
I really think about it before I say
it.
I don't speak on behalf of my faith
without really knowing what I'm talking about. So
now let's combine those 2 ideas. In the
beginning, I said it doesn't have to be
a lot of words.
It doesn't have to be it's it's quality
over quantity. It's a single word, a single
statement. But now I'm saying you really have
to know what you're talking about. That means
you don't have to know everything.
But the one thing you do know, the
2 things you do know, you should know
them really well.
You should know them very well.
How do we develop that as a methodology?
As a even as as an educational philosophy
for yourself,
especially for the young audience here, because you're
mostly consuming Islam from social media.
You're getting Islam from 50 different directions.
You're getting them in YouTube shorts, and you're
getting them on TikTok, and you're getting them
on podcasts, and you're getting them on long
form videos, or whatever else. That's how you're
consuming your Islam.
But if you could just pause for a
second and say, you know what?
I don't know a lot. I don't I
there's no way I can know everything,
but I'm going to take this year,
and I'm just going to really learn everything
I can about Surat Al Fatihah and Surat
Al Baqarah. This is my 1 year. I'm
just going to root myself
in just Faqarah and Baqarah for a year.
There's a lot to learn, and there's a
lot of quantity out there. There's still gonna
be so much I don't know. There's gonna
be so much I don't know. There's so
much history I don't know. There's so much
philosophy I don't know. There's so much so
many books I haven't read. There's always gonna
be an entire life
thousands of libraries that you don't know.
Relax. Relax.
And just concern yourself with, I need to
know this much, and I'm going to know
it well.
So that if I want to share something
good with myself or with anybody else,
even if I share one aya,
I can share it meaning I was rooted
in it first,
and that's why it came out as something
meaningful and rich. I experienced that for myself,
and now I'm able to give it to
somebody else.
Instead of saying, I'm gonna take a little
bit from here, a little bit from here,
a little bit from there, a little bit
from there, make a little bit of stupid
salad, and then say something,
right? Because it's just content. It's not just
content. It has to be rooted in something
deep. And so developing that mindset will actually
become bring me closer to
In the Quran,
Allah gives the analogy of revelation with water.
So Allah often compares the coming of the
Quran with rain coming down, like we saw
in. Allah also gives the analogy of the
Quran
using light.
So for example, Allah describes the Quran itself
as light.
Right? So Allah describes the Quran as light.
What's interesting about the analogy of the tree
is that it's being fed from the roots
with water,
and its its branches,
and its leaves, and what's above the ground
is being nourished by
the light. So actually, both analogies are coming
together in this remarkable example.
The water and the sunlight are all coming
together, and so this is a buildup and
even in a sense of preparation
for the climax of the tree analogy, which
will actually happen in Surat An Nur.
So that's this is kind of building us
up to prepare us for that analogy that's
coming. Subhanallah. Okay.
Now,
I I spoke to you about having, like,
a a deeply rooted sense. I wanna make
an additional comment about that. There is,
and I think I made some commentary about
this before, but it's it's important in this
context.
You know, there's,
in the in the age of
viral content,
how do you decide what is viral content?
You have to target one of the primary
emotions.
Right? So if you can target,
for example, sexual urges, you'll make viral content.
If you can target
the the urge for violence and you make
a compilation video of UFC fights or something,
you'll get viral content out of it. You
have to target
rage. So you say something that gets people
really upset, or you made a video essay
about something that's very upsetting, it's gonna go
viral.
Right?
You target people's desire for beauty,
you'll get viral. If it's a beautiful home,
beautiful interior design, viral content. Beautiful fashion, viral
content. Beautiful fascia
makeup, viral content.
Right? Beautiful clothing, viral content. So there are
these primal primary
urges that human beings have, and marketers
understand those primary urges, those pain points, and
they create marketing content material
that targets one of those emotions.
So for example, in the Muslim scene, especially
in Europe, because I'm observing more and more
about what's happening in Europe or what's been
happening in Europe. And wherever Muslims are a
minority, generally, there's this feeling that Muslims are
invisible or they're unwanted.
Right? They don't really belong.
Right? And then you have the next generation
of Muslims. Maybe they came from Pakistan or
Algeria or they came from Morocco or they
came from Sudan, wherever they came from. Now,
when they go back, they don't really feel
like they belong back home,
but when they're here, they don't really feel
like they belong here or in France or
wherever else. Right? So they feel a little
bit lost. And they feel like when they
scream about Palestine, or they scream about the
injustices happening to them in their own country
or their civil rights, nobody's listening. So they
feel
disempowered.
And they feel weak. And they feel
irrelevant almost,
invisible to the rest of the world. Nobody
cares about them. So, when you have this
pain,
nobody hears me, everybody thinks I'm weak, and
my cries don't get heard, and I have
no impact in the world. When you have
that kind of frustration,
then somebody can come along and say, Okay.
That's a good pain point. They feel weak.
Let me give them content that will make
them feel strong
and let me give them content where they
get to say, oh, people don't hear us,
they'll be afraid of us. So I'm gonna
make so much angry Islam content, and all
these young guys will be like, dhukmir,
I feel strong again.
And then you just get like this rage
content,
and young men feel like, yeah, this brother's
on the hook, man. That's the hook right
there. Oh, I feel
I feel the hook after that one.
You know?
And it's just it's just this dopamine hit
you get inside.
You it psyched you out,
and, you know, you you can have Muslims
for example,
you know, in places like, you know,
India,
right, where many Muslims are in very bad
situations.
Right? They're treated like 3rd class citizens. They're
ghettoized. They're, you know, all this stuff. And
then they might And those Muslims, because they
feel like they're being put down all the
time, they might find some content where there's
like a debate between a a Muslim and
a a Hindu,
and the Muslim is crushing the Hindu in
debate, and they're like, yeah. We got one.
Yeah. This is I'm gonna watch this
You know, because this is a because they
feel like beat up all the time. So
this is now it's picking on that emotion.
It's picking on that feeling of powerlessness and
feeding them something. Now the question is, in
my mind,
in my mind, is that?
Because actually,
the the definition of
is something that is rooted deeply.
Is this
something that is targeting deeply the mind, the
understanding, the worldview?
Is it something that's spiritually
meaningful
and and enriching? Or is this targeting an
emotion
that is being manipulated almost? It feels like
it's being manipulating
an emotion.
So I have a hard time considering
that kind of genre of material.
You know? May Allah, you know, protect the
integrity and the sincerity and the intention behind
all kinds of dawah. But I want you
to understand
what Allah is actually saying here,
and what impact should it have? It should
have long term residual impact. And what kind
of impact does it have? If you have
in Islam,
a message of Islam, that just makes you
angry,
and it makes you think you're surrounded by
and
and and and and
and so much.
And you're just just walking around like shirk
hating and kufr hating everywhere.
Right?
And you just you start developing this hard
shell around you,
and you just have this antagonistic view towards
the world, then you're not understanding this analogy.
Because when you have this analogy,
the weather
the weather is not kind.
The wind is not kind.
The heavy rain is not kind. The extreme
heat is not kind. But the tree that
has a firm root,
the tree grows, and the wind blows, and
the tree is still where it is.
The tree is not getting mad at the
weather, the tree can survive the storm, the
tree can survive the flood, the tree can
survive all of it. Why? Because the roots
are what?
The roots are deep. And when the storm
is over,
the root the the the even if some
branches broke, because the tree was so rooted,
new branches will grow.
And even if all the fruit got torn
off, new fruit will come next season. And
when that fruit comes, it's not just feeding,
you know, certain groups.
Anybody passing by the tree can have its
fruit. The fruit is providing shade the tree
is providing shade to everybody.
So long as the tree is there, it's
a universal place of shade, a universal place
of fruit.
In fact, it's even providing in strange ways.
There are insects
that are surviving because of the tree. There
are birds that have built their home on
that tree. There are bees that are resting
on that tree or maybe even building their
hive on that tree. The flowers that are
blooming from that tree maybe providing nectar to
some bees that are going and building
their their hive somewhere else.
All kinds of things are happening because of
And if you study trees, one of the
things you learn is their roots,
they actually take water that may be running
underneath and may be feeding rivers, and they
remove poison from the water, so the water
in the rivers nearby is cleaner because of
the presence of the trees. The trees provide
purification and benefit to their entire surrounding. So
if someone's really internalized a good word, and
now they're representing a good tree, then it
doesn't matter if they're in a Kufr society,
or a Sheikh society, or an evil society,
or a corrupt society, they are providing benefit
all around.
And people around them, they don't look at
the tree and say, stay away from that
tree, bro. There's there's a couple of trees
coming this way. No. No. No. They wanna
take shade under it. They wanna benefit from
its fruit. They might not even ever seen
that fruit before. They have some of that
fruit and say, wow, this is a good
tree. I'm gonna come back here again.
If you understand the analogy that I'm going
with, the people who internalize this message, instead
of becoming antagonistic
towards the world around them, they actually become
the most appealing part
of the world around them.
They become the shade that is universal, not
just for themselves.
It's interesting that by the end of this
ayah, Allah even used the word
humanity, people. Allah is giving this example for
people.
It's as if Allah didn't just want the
believers to hear this, but even the disbelievers
can be
beneficiaries of this remarkable example. So now let's
talk a little bit about
we've talked some some things about the roots
being deep and firm.
Now we have to talk about
The word,
you know, I'll come back to the word
in the end, actually, and maybe we won't
even finish the discussion on this ayah today.
But I will talk to you about farah
at least today. The branches are pointed to
the sky, or they're going into the sky.
By the way, the deeper the roots,
the higher the
branches.
Now what part of a tree do we
see?
We don't see
the roots. We only see
the branches.
Human beings
become very impressed with what they see.
And human beings love seeing what is above.
And, actually, when you're the more you're looking
at what's above, you're really not paying attention
to what is below. You're you're you're not
paying attention to that. The gardener is. The
rest of the people aren't.
The point of it is remember I told
you the the the the the taller the
tree gets, the deeper the branches have to
go?
For myself,
the more I am trying to do good
deeds
good deeds are visible,
but what's going on in my heart is
invisible. So what's going on in my heart
is like the roots,
and the deeds that I'm doing are like
the up above part above ground part of
the tree, the branches. Right?
The more good that I'm trying to do,
the more I better take care of my
roots.
So if you think of it in terms
of students and activism,
some students want to do a lot of
activism. They want to do dawah, right? They
want to set up an Islam Awareness Week,
and they want to set up like a
debate with atheists, and they want to do
dawah and, you know,
charity work, and all kinds of activism. Islam
Or volunteer at the masjid or teach kids
and all this other stuff.
Everything that's excellent.
That's
all going up,
but while it's going up,
you have to make sure the roots are
getting
deeper. You can't say the roots are already
set. Now I just have to work on
what is above.
In fact, I have to take care of
both together.
And if I don't, if I keep working
on my activism and my activities and my
Islamic,
you know, activities and stuff, and I'm not
deepening my own roots by the way, who
can who can tell if you're working on
your roots or not?
Only you can.
Only you can because it's invisible to everybody
else, right? People just see the outside. They
see the outside and they can become very
impressed with me, and they become very impressed.
Masha'Allah, look at all those Look at the
branches. Look at all this work. Look at
all this activism.
And people say that enough times and you're
like, Well, what really matters is that people
see what I'm doing.
And I keep doing it because they're encouraging
that so much. Nobody comes and encourages you
to deepen your ranches.
People say, may Allah keep giving more fruits
through you.
May Allah keep giving you
bringing out more benefit from you, because that's
all people can see.
The only one that can see what's really
going on is yourself.
You truly, what's going on deep inside and
what needs to be worked on is yourself.
And so the the
is something that doesn't just happen once. You
don't just get the roots, you have to
keep watering the roots, you have to keep
nurturing the soil, You have to keep the
If you want the tree to be healthy,
you have to maintain it.
And so we have to maintain ourselves spiritually.
The salah has to stay
healthy.
The recitation of Quran has to stay healthy.
Even you reciting the Quran and hearing the
sounds of the Quran, that's why we're not
like Bible readers who read the Bible quietly.
Right? We recite the Quran and we can
hear or the the ear gets involved,
The eyes get involved.
And because the faculties get involved, the body
gets involved. Our entire being gets involved with
the with the word of Allah. And that
has its own impact.
That has and the time I have to
have for dua, the time I have to
have for, the time I have to do
things with Allah that nobody sees.
That has to be there. That's my roots.
That's actually the core, and then the branches
will go into the sky.
Look at his branches up into Allah could
have just said the branches are high,
but he said,
There it's as if Allah is saying, you
know, like, plants, when they come out of
the ground, they point towards the sun and
they go towards the sunlight.
The idea of
is actually
interesting in another way.
The good that we do,
it's not focused on people. It's focused on
the source of the light. It's focused on
Allah.
Right? So you're not involved in petty politics.
You're not you're not creating a organization
and then looking at a competitive
organization and saying, how many views did they
get?
How much did they raise this Ramadan?
Then your branches are rising, but they're not
pointing up. They're pointing sideways.
They're they're pointing at the other, like, hey.
What are you guys doing? I gotta do
what you're doing.
But you're not concerned with what anybody else
is doing. You're concerned with whether your deeds
are re are reaching for a higher goal.
They're because if the roots are firm, then
the direction will be upwards.
If the roots aren't firm, the tree will
lean sideways,
and it'll be looking at other people. It'll
be looking the goals will become petty. The
goals will become popularity. The goal will become
money. The goal will become social status. The
these are petty lower goals.
They're financial goals or
ego goals, but they're not goals that are
higher.
The the
is a really beautiful expression
to describe the higher objective
of our our deeds.
And it's so incredible
that Allah separated
this ayah from the next ayah that's talking
about fruits.
The next ayah says,
It gives fruits every season. Remember?
So in this ayat, Allah talked about the
roots,
and he talked about the branches.
And he separated that conversation from
the fruits. Why?
Because fruits
are like new life,
that's in the hands of Allah,
that's in the hands of Allah.
You, even if you don't see any fruits,
keep working on the branches,
You just keep doing the work,
and you're not concerned with the result.
Obviously, somebody grows a tree because they have
a desire for fruits.
But it's as if Allah is saying, no,
you should be growing this tree just so
the branches are pointing to the sky, the
fruits are not your concern, the fruits are
my concern.
The fruits are the and if you're thinking
about the fruits, you're thinking about the wrong
thing.
You're thinking about the because the fruits aren't
in your hands anyway. The fruits are with
Allah.
It also could be that I give a
word, like a good tree is like a
good word. I share a good word. I
don't see any of its impact. I don't
see any of its fruit. Not in my
lifetime, not in a 100 years, not in
200 years. I don't see it. And later
much later on, somebody finds the benefit of
that word,
and then you see fruits of it 2
centuries later, 3 centuries later.
And it's blossoming and it's growing and growing
and growing and growing and subhanAllah,
you find the history of scholars in Islam
who in their own lifetime, they were ridiculed,
they were mocked, they were not taken seriously,
some even called them.
They they were,
some of them were executed,
you know, and that's our history that happened
within Islam. And those same scholars
who were even kicked out of their own
hometown,
some of their works
were able to
quite literally save the faith
of tens of thousands of not hundreds of
thousands of people 2 or 3 generations later.
Right? So they did the work pointing to
the sky,
except
from them, but Allah decided that the fruits
will come in a different season.
Right? So
and also even the words
Allah didn't say you will eat the fruit.
Allah didn't say that.
Allah said it'll produce
consumable fruit, meaning ripe fruit.
Guys,
I can hear you.
Okay. Since I can hear you, I'm gonna
call you out,
and then I'm gonna keep going. 5 more
minutes, and you can speak as much as
you want. Yeah.
Okay. Good.
Alright.
Next time I hear you speak, I'm gonna
make you famous. I'm gonna bring you up
here, show your face like a mugshot.
They're gonna play that at your wedding.
It's not gonna it's not gonna be a
good look.
It's gonna happen, though. I'm telling you.
So you can hide your face. How long
are you gonna hide a boot? Okay. So,
anyway,
what was I saying? Something about Islam?
The fruits. Yes. So the the final thing
about fruit. Yeah. Yeah. You got you gotta
do so you can't
in in my opinion,
children should be welcome to participate, and kids
will be kids. Right?
And it's okay for us to give them
in this way because they're all our kids.
I would treat these kids as I would
treat my own kids. If my kid was
sitting here acting up, I'd be like, come
here.
Come here.
And so we should be loving to our
children, we should discipline our children, and we
should treat other people's kids with the same
love and discipline we would treat our own
kids, unless you're beating and cussing your kids,
then stay away from children.
Okay?
But there's supposed to be a a level
of collective,
almost a collective parenting
sense that we should develop.
Right? And that that means we should have
mutual respect for each other's families and our
children.
May Allah give to our kids,
and,
and that that they learn. They don't take
anything as like a hit to their ego.
The the the role of our elders is
to lovingly,
and in a friendly way, and sometimes even
in a joking way, correct them. And that's
that's part of being part of a community.
You know, if kids are running around and
you're making salaam, and some kids are making
noise in the back when the salaam is
done, sit down with them and say, hey
guys, there's people trying to pray here, You
guys are you guys are having fun, which
is cool, but you could see how it's
bothering them. Right? So if you wanna keep
playing, that's a better corner,
or maybe you should pray a little bit,
but that's up to you. But you should
be you know? And we should we should
treat our kids with that kind of,
with with that kind of attitude, and I
think you'll see show a lot of results.
Unless you you wanna stick to the status
quo, kids are playing in the back, is
going on. As soon as happens, hey. Why
are you doing over here? Come
on.
Right? That's
you could do that too,
which works wonders. It's amazing. Like, that's like
really
You know, like,
that's gonna stick in the child's soul in
a
beautiful way. It'll come back to the masjid
with all his heart. Anyway
So, just leaving you with one last thing
to think about. Allah didn't say who's gonna
eat the fruit. He said it produces fruit.
And I told you it Allah didn't mention
fruit. He said
which has a few benefits. One of them
is
Allah didn't say
fruit by saying. He's saying the kind of
fruit that is ripe and perfect for eating
because it could be fruit that's not edible
or fruit that's not quite ripe. But
is, you know,
You
know? It's it's.
So it's actually.
Right? So it's so that's one of the
meanings of the word. But also
is. It's it's more vast, meaning I was
telling you,
insects are eating from the tree,
birds are eating from the tree, bees are
eating from the tree,
other creatures are eating from the tree. Right?
So the the the the soil is actually
getting nourished by the tree too,
You know? So it's actually feeding and it's
now we know the trees are actually feeding
the environment. They're they're pushing oxygen into the
environment which is making making breathing easier, which
is pretty cool because the previous parable was
about breathing easy when you have faith. Right?
Right?
So
the the the imagery kind of starts binding
together. What's also really cool, I didn't know
until today,
was trees, if you study
like groups of trees together,
they actually cooperate with each other, share nutrition
with each other. You'll notice trees are all
the similar height when they're together. Not one
tree grows super long and the other ones
are still short. There's actually a level of
cooperation among them just like good sincere words
come from good sincere hearts that
do with each other.
Right? They cooperate with each other. They don't
compete with each other. They don't wanna cut
each other down. So it's an incredible thing
that Allah gives this analogy of any good
word will find cooperative
sentiment with any other good word. You'll actually
come to common terms
to get just because you're it's rooted in
something good and pure
by not mentioning who's going to eat from
the tree.
It's as if Allah has told us, you
don't have to worry about who's gonna eat
from the tree.
You don't have to worry about that.
Allah will decide who who it's gonna be.
You know, a farmer
grows his garden,
grows the fruits, and he's like, in my
mind, I'm gonna take I'm gonna pull these
these fruits. I'm gonna take them to the
market, sell it in the village. The people
of this village are gonna eat this fruit.
He's got his customer in mind. Whose mouth
is this orange gonna go into or this
apple gonna go into? He's got it in
his mind. But if you look at the
analogy of the Sira even, of the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, Rasul
is giving the good word, the best word,
the Quran. For 13 years, he's giving the
Quran to people,
and majority aren't listening. And then randomly during
one Hajj season, a small group of people
comes from Madinah, and he hears him speak
about the Quran. They hear him speak about
the Quran, and they go back and an
entire city is ready to accept Islam, and
they haven't even met the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. Right? Because Allah decided that this
word will turn into those fruits
somewhere else. That's up to Allah. Don't worry
about who the where the fruits gonna come
from or when it's gonna grow and and
who's gonna be the recipient of it. Right?
So this it's not up to us. We
don't know what impact and what kind of
impact
will good words have and where they where
they're going to go. At a personal level,
you know, one of the most,
humbling
things that has ever been said to me
for myself, and I don't deserve it. I
I know that I don't deserve it. I
went to Pakistan,
and, a few people came up to me
and said because I'm a student of doctor
Asar Ahmad Rahmullah, those of you that are
from Pakistan know who that is.
And I, you know, my my first exposure
to the Quran was through the work of
doctor Sarrahmad.
And,
I I only got a chance to meet
him 3 times, and I had a total
of very brief, three conversations with him,
in my life. But I consumed thousands of
hours of his work, and I tried to
really internalize
what he was saying over the years. And,
so people met me in in Pakistan, and
they're like, you know, you are continuing the
work of doctor Sarrahman. You're the continuation of
his legacy. I was like, woah. Easy, tiger.
That's a that's a that's a bit much.
You know? But, you know, the the the
the crazy thing the crazy thing about that
is when doctor Saab was alive, doctor Saab
used to come visit America every once in
a while. He had the most
intense,
intimidating,
powerful presence.
Like, if you're in the room with him,
you lose £5 just sitting there. It was
a couple of kilos just weight loss program.
Like, straight up. Like, I was I remember
I was 20 years old one time invited,
and I was sitting in the same room
with him. And the our host,
he deliberately left the room just to see
what happens with me.
So there's me, and then there's doctor Zarahema
sitting there.
And he even took his hat off.
That was like, he had like this slick
back hair, and he's just staring straight at
me, and I'm melting into my sofa.
And then he said to me,
you don't talk much.
And in my head, I was like, you
have no idea how much I talk.
But all I said at that time at
that moment was, gee.
But he didn't know he didn't know I
was just this kid who just listens to
his lectures or You know? And we never
really had any kind of interaction. Now, the
year before he passed away
he told one of my,
you know, people person I consider an elder
brother who was close to him. He said,
this, Noman boy in America, he's doing some
good things. And I was like, he knows
my name?
I melted in my, like, chair, like but
the the point is he set up an
institute in Lahore, in Fazlabad, in Karachi. He
had thousands of students across, you know, diff
different parts of the world. He used to
even go to the Khaleed and give lectures
there and set up his organization in different
places. He had a plan to cultivate people
to do his work, etcetera etcetera.
I wasn't part of that plan.
I was not part of it at all.
But Allah decided
somehow that real I accept whatever little work
that I'm able to do, that I could
be part of a legacy that he started.
You know, So
the same way I think of, you know,
even the the the work that I'm trying
to do with teaching Arabic education, Quran education,
and things like that, sometimes I meet people
I have no idea who they are.
Right? So many of you have seen
cartoons made from my videos on YouTube,
like animated things. And like millions of kids
are watching them.
The young man who was making those cartoons,
I never met him. I never spoke to
him. He just decided to do this on
his own
and then kept doing it. And then I
like years later, I ran into him. I
was at a convention in Malaysia, and he
flew flew from Indonesia and said, hey, you
know the cartoons? That's me. I was like,
ah. You know? And so much came from
that, and so many kids were watching, like,
the of Surah and things like that. How
would I have known that? Like, I have
I would have no idea
that that's happening. Right? So what Allah will
do, if you if you and I can
maintain sincerity,
if we can maintain sincerity,
we don't know what
what good can come from a good word.
What could what and where that's going to
lead?
Where that's going to lead? Like, I often
give the example. I don't get tired of
it. I'll end with this example today. There's
more things to share about these ayat, but
that can wait till tomorrow. And that's the
example of my dear friend,
who shall not be named because he hates
it.
But he
just saw something in me, and then he
just drove me to a masjid one day,
even though I didn't used to pray.
And he didn't make me go inside. He's
just like, Hey, I'm going to go. You,
you want to stay in the car? I
was like, No, I'll come.
So I I went in. And I hadn't
prayed in so long, I didn't know how
many rakah there were for Maghrib.
And they were praying the 3rd rakah, and
I said salaam with everybody else.
Because I didn't know what to do.
Right?
But it got me, and I felt something.
When I was there, I felt something.
One of the meanings of
is actually something that tastes good.
When you hear a good word, sometimes
it makes you feel something no song ever
made you feel, no movie ever made you
feel, no hang out with your friends, no
no jokes.
None of it made you feel what that
good word made you feel. And you want
to be draw you're drawn to that in
a way you're not drawn to anything else.
And that just happened because that one
dear friend decided to give bring me into
contact with a good word.
That's it. And may Allah reward him anything
good that I'm able to do. He gets
commissioned endlessly,
you know, and what my students are able
anybody else is able to do because of
just one little gesture,
Just one sincere gesture. That's all. That's all
it takes. May Allah
accept from all of us and make us
people that have endless good words coming out
of our lives, that Allah can multiply in
ways we can't even imagine, and keep on
giving those fruits. Look at look at
in every season. We're not going to be
alive every season, but the good word, the
good tree will keep on giving fruits every
season, even when we're gone,
even after we're gone. May Allah make us
of those who leave a good word behind.
Assalamu alaikum everyone. There are almost 50,000 students
around the world that are interested on top
of the students we have in studying the
Quran and its meanings and being able to
learn that and share that with family and
friends, and they need sponsorships, which is not
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students on Bayinah TV, please do so and
visit our sponsorship page. I appreciate it so
much. And pray that Allah gives our mission
success, and we're able to share the meanings
the world over.
the world over.