Striking Examples From the Quran #25 Enslaved
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Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
Series: Nouman Ali Khan - Ramadan 2024 - Striking Examples From The Quran
File Size: 51.68MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss various topics related to Islam, including animals for time management, the secret of sharing secretive information, and the concept of "byproductual culture." They emphasize the importance of practice and not just giving people information, as well as the importance of showing faith in Islam and not losing their job. The speakers also touch on the idea of slavery and the use of slave labor as a means to profit, as well as the importance of understanding the depth of the analogy that someone is owned by someone who provides for them and that anyone who provides for them is a slave.AI Generated Transcript ©
Before you begin this video, just quickly wanted
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Once Once again everybody.
Today we're going over a rather interesting and
thought provoking example.
It's something that another it's another illustration of
how
recognizing where Allah places the example is as
important
as understanding the actual text of the example
or the wording of the example.
Just like in any education, when the teacher
gives you an example, it's part of a
larger lesson.
Right? The you don't you don't begin with
an example. There's a concept that's being taught
or multiple concepts that are being taught, and
then all of those concepts are coming together
in the example. Right? And that's something that
we should be mindful of, especially in the
longer surahs when Allah places examples.
Is such a case. It's actually it seems
at firsthand a rather complex example. I'll first,
you know, there could be multiple approaches taken
to explain this stuff to you. I'll start
by just reading you a very straightforward
translation of the example, and then we'll go
back to the Surah and look at certain
themes that are being built up over time
by the time we get to this example
that are all being summed together.
Allah says,
Allah has given Allah has struck a an
example
that of a slave that has been owned,
an owned slave.
Who has no control over anything.
It can also mean he has no capability
to do anything, so it's no control over
anything,
no ability to do anything. 2 possible meanings.
And on the other hand implying on the
other hand,
someone we provided from with from our own
behalf, meaning Allah went out of his way
to provide someone,
with beautiful provision,
and out of what we provided him, he
spends on it secretly and openly,
are they going to be equal?
All praise and gratitude belongs to Allah
instead or the fact of the matter is
most of them will not know. They're not
going to to to get to know. So
it's a it seems a rather complex example,
but let's take this one step at a
time, and it'll all start making sense. So
the first and first thing I wanna share
with you is the beginning of this Surah.
One of the recurring themes is Allah describing
things that serve human beings, that are servants
to human beings. And some of those things
are living things, and other things Allah made
into servants to us. So for example, from
the very beginning And and by the way,
the idea of things serving us before Allah
even starts talking about that, he talks about
how we ourselves
were rather useless, and Allah turned us into
a full fledged human being. So So one
of the early statements in the surah in
the 4th aya is
the human being. He created the human being
from a fluid,
meaning from the sperm, and all of a
sudden he's out openly making arguments debating against
God.
Right? So here you are, this pathetic fluid,
and Allah transforms you into a full fledged
human being, and here you have the audacity
to challenge your maker, your master. Right? So
that's just a a comment that Allah makes
early on in the surah. But then he
starts talking about things that serve us.
And cattle that He He created all of
them.
This is actually the the grammar of it.
Allah could have said he said.
In grammar, they call this
or. What this means is the the object
of the verb is mentioned once as a
noun and once again as a pronoun.
And what this does is actually Allah Even
though I know I'm getting linguistic here, but
that's okay, you'll get over it. It's the
object of a verb is actually secondary,
but there's a rhetorical way of keeping it
the object yet making it primary as if
Allah wants special attention on the cattle.
Cattle, look at it. We created it for
all of you in which you get warmth
and all kinds of benefits and from it
you
also
eat. And when you're traveling and when you're
when you're relaxing, you find beauty in the
cattle.
And these cattle and these animals, they carry
your burdens. They carry your luggage and take
you to places you could not have reached
yourselves
except by breaking yourselves, meaning breaking your backs.
And you know horses, and mules, and cat
what do you call it? Donkeys. So you
can ride all of them
and as a mark of beauty for you,
And He's also created things you don't even
know yet.
And so this was about animals that serve
us, right? Now He says, He put the
water from the sky in our service,
from the water that he sends from the
sky, there's drink for you.
And from it is what trees begin to
grow. Then
he grows out of these the the water
that he sent, he by means of it,
he grows crop for you, olives for you,
palm trees for you, grapes for you, all
kinds of fruits for you. Okay. So now
the the the the the rain, the clouds
have been put in our service. The animals
have been put in our service. Then he
says, the seas have been put in our
service.
And is used actually for animals. Animals that
have been domesticated are called animals that are
You subdue them. And Allah uses the word
subduing for the ocean and he says he
subdued
the, you know, actually first he mentions he
subdued the night and the day and the
sun
and the moon and the stars,
all of them subdued,
all of them staying in a place so
you can benefit from
the seasons, the rising of the sun, the
exact calendar.
Time was made manageable,
you know, we're able to calculate our time,
you know, throughout the year and in our
entire existence because of the sun and the
moon. From the Islamic perspective, the sun is
our clock
and the moon is our calendar, right? So
and that's the 2 devices you need for
time management, right? You need a clock and
a calendar, and he subdued both of them
for you, put them in your service, you
don't have to set them, Allah set the
alarm for you for the sun and the
moon, right?
So he did that, and then he talks
about how the he did this with the
ocean.
So he he subdued the ocean for you.
Then he talks about the earth,
and he placed
mountains on the earth lest they start slipping
away from you. Mountains become stable, you can
make pathways between them, build real estate around
them, build entire towns. Have you ever seen
entire cities
and populations built on a mountain?
Like you're you're you're landing in a city
somewhere in, like, South America
or sometimes in some parts of Eastern Europe,
you know, Albania, I've seen that, and and
Kosovo, I saw a lot of that. There
are parts of America where you see that
in California and other places. There are people
that build entire cities on the mountain,
and the roadways are built within the mountains.
Had Allah made mountains unstable,
had Allah made mountains something that shifts, what
would have happened? It's not just that those
towns would have been destroyed, the rock falling
and the the the earthquake that would been
created would have destroyed every everything in the
valley too all the way through. Right? So
Allah says, he subdued the mountains for you
and, you know, so and then he says,
and
and the stars, he you you start finding
navigation through the stars, suggesting that he subdued
the stars in your service. So that's one
large theme. I've collected different ayaats from different
places in the Surah that are kind of
making the same point. Things have been put
to your service.
This in a sense, as massive as the
stars are,
and as massive as the sun is, as
massive as the moon is, and how much
insignificant we are in comparison
as the species on this earth, this planet,
but those massive creations
have been subjugated
to my service according to Allah.
They he they've been put in that place
so they can serve me and benefit me.
The earth, which is much more powerful than
me, the earth can open up at any
time. You know? Think of think of what
happened to.
Right? He had a mansion in a poor
neighborhood.
Right? And what did Allah do?
Allah, like the earth, Allah says, we made
him sink along with his home
into the land. The earth just collapsed and
it just went in. You might have seen
some because, you know, you spend a lot
of time if you're from Leeds watching, YouTube
videos late at night, and you'll see, like,
on a road, people are standing in traffic,
and all of a sudden, the road itself
just caves in. It's on the bottomless
hole, and and people just disappear into the
hole. Right? Imagine if the earth was like
that. Imagine if the the the soil itself
was like that so unstable.
Right? So you have the these these things
that Allah did in our service, that's one
theme.
Another theme, interestingly,
has to do with secrecy
and openness and its connection to arrogance.
So you'll find in the in this surah,
you'll see
Allah knows Allah is the one who knows
what you keep secret and what you make
public.
And because this is a and it's again,
one of the main targets of the are
the elite of the Quraysh, one thing you
should know about the elite of the Quraysh
is they put on a lot of big
shows. Remember we already talked about in previous
parables how they threw big parties?
Right? And they were they were people of,
you know, of of, Ramad,
you know,
Right? So they and they they made a
show out of, you know, giving generously
when they slaughtered an animal, they gave some
of the meat away, When they won some
big winnings and, you know, in a gambling
game, then they gave some of it away.
So they made a big show out of
that stuff, right, of their generosity.
It's kinda like nowadays when they have, you
know, some billionaire
writing a check to a hospital, and they
have a check the size of a dead
human being.
Right, and then they're they're taking picture with
the check,
right, because this this is the check that
they wrote us. Right? It's not nobody's gonna
take that to the bank. I'm pretty sure
nobody's carrying that over, and how are you
gonna fit that through the deposit window? I
I don't understand. How many times are you
gonna fold it? But but the idea is
it's a show. It's it's display.
Right? That they're they're doing that. Oh, they
do a ribbon cutting thing.
Right? Because that's that's their show of generosity.
But those same people, Quran exposed,
they were so generous and giving and you
know, people are clapping, Wow. They've given such
a massive donation. And those same people in
their personal lives,
They push the orphan around. They even they
don't even give small things. They're the same
billionaires that are writing the big check, that
are underpaying their employees.
The they're the same people that on the
one hand are being known for their generosity,
and on the other, they are deplored, like
depleting entire villages
of their natural resources, and bankrupting entire countries
by bribing corrupt governments to make their corporations
bigger, but they write a big check.
They they cut a big donation. Right? So
this this scam
of what they are openly and what they
are secretly, this is what the Quraysh were
also in a sense. And so Allah says,
Allah knows what you make public, Allah knows
what you keep secret.
Allah knows that you try to show this
righteous side of you in public, and there's
this, you know, disgusting, dirty, evil side of
you in secret, and that's the one Allah
exposes.
Similarly, Allah says,
Now he makes a direct connection. He says,
there's absolute it's absolutely the case that Allah
knows what they keep secret, what they make
public, and it is certainly Allah who does
not love the arrogant.
So now he's calling them, they think nobody
will find out, and they think this is
a way of aggrandizing their position. In fact,
Allah is even saying, the show of goodness
they do in public is just a projection
of their own ego. It's just arrogance.
That's all it it has no sincerity behind
it. Right? So the second theme so the
first theme was there's creation that is in
service to humanity.
And then the second theme is there are
people that are so arrogant,
they think that they make a show out
of serving humanity in some way, but actually
it's really them serving themselves. And Allah knows
what they're really about in secret. So this
this idea of arrogance keeps coming up over
and over. For example, Allah says in the
same Surah, What
a terrible out you know, end place there
will be, a long term stay there will
be for those that are arrogant. May Allah
not make us from them. In fact, Allah
even mentions in the surah, there's an ayah
connected to the ayah of sajdah, of the
angels who submit themselves before Allah, and one
of the descriptions of the angels who are
so much higher in rank with Allah than,
you know, these people, Allah says about them,
and they're not the ones who show arrogance.
They don't show arrogance.
Now, it's also interesting, the first theme I
mentioned to you was how things are
serving us. And one of the things Allah
mentioned was the animals that carry our luggage.
That you couldn't be you wouldn't be able
to carry it and the animal was carrying
it for you, right? You remember that. Now
look at what Allah says about these people,
Speaking of carrying burdens,
these people,
these evil
elites,
they're gonna be carrying their own burdens on
judgment day, and the burdens of those they
misguided
without even realizing it right now. What a
terrible burden they're carrying. You see how you
took the image of animals that serve you?
By the way, who owned lots of animals
and lots of luggage? It was the rich
people.
That was the rich of the society. They
owned lots of animals and lots of luggage,
and now Allah is making them, He's depicting
them like the animal that's carrying luggage
on judgment day. So He's flipping the image
on its head, and that's one of the
things that you probably already noticed as we've
gone through these examples in the Quran. Allah
will take an example, an image that the
Arab mind or the typical mind is expecting
something, and he just creates something unexpected from
it. He just reverses the thought about that
that that imagery in his in his remarkable
way. So that's the second theme.
Another theme.
Because they had multiple gods and, you know,
different religions and even corruptions,
and all kinds of corruptions in the religions
that they made up. Because if you don't
follow the real true religion, then you make
a religion that's based on your preferences, and
it serves your agenda.
Right? So the religion has to serve a
larger agenda. Like, a great contemporary or recent
example recent history example of that is what
the Catholic church was doing in bed with
the Roman Empire.
Right? With the you know, so so the
church
was crafting the religious sermon and crafting the
message for the public
to support the empire, and the empire in
turn was supporting the church. So they were
getting political security and backing from the empire,
and the church was providing them funding and
was providing them, you know, this this safe
haven and security. It was almost a to
be a good Christian was to pray for
your king.
Right? So there was this dirty, unholy marriage
between the 2.
Right? There was a there's there's a there's
a they called it a holy trinity, but
between the elites and the rulers and the
religious class, there was the unholy trinity,
right, that existed in in, the Christian empire.
And, actually, a version of that made its
way into Islamic civilization too,
But that's a story for another day, that
that kind of that model actually made its
way into the Muslim world. And some places
in the Muslim world, it still exists, that
you'll have corrupt politicians
that have a lot of corrupt religious leadership
in their pocket,
and they work very closely with the corrupt
wealthy class.
And these 3 are this unholy trinity that
exists
in in many many societies. Right? So that's
that's But that's another conversation for another day.
But anyway, now, coming back to this.
They said, okay, so they have all these
false religions, Allah says Allah describes how they
will not come to the right religion,
it seems, until listen to this,
This is a very important concept to understand
today's parable.
Allah says, are they waiting until the angels
show up? Meaning judgment day begins? Because that's
when the angels are gonna show up. Are
they waiting until Allah's decision finally comes? Because
people like them used to do the same
thing before.
But Allah says, they Allah did not wrong
them, they're wronging themselves. You know what Allah
is saying here? Allah is saying they act
this way and they feel like unless Allah
forces them to obey because judgment day, you
don't get to disobey. Right? So until that
happens, we don't have to obey because there's
no forcing us.
In fact, that attitude is even further elaborated
by them when they say,
The people of shirk openly said, If Allah
wanted us to worship only Allah, He wouldn't
have allowed us to do any shirk. He
would have cut our hands off, He would
have cut our tongues off, He would have
cursed us, He would have destroyed us, He
would have killed us. If if this god
was so powerful, the moment we disobeyed that
god and worship false gods, he would have
stopped us from doing it but we made
up our own religion, and He seems to
have no problem with it. The fact that
we have this freedom
that we can make up whatever religion we
want, that is itself proof that that god
has no problem with it, or has no
power to stop us.
And this is them undermining the very fundamental
premise of why we're on this earth. Allah
gave human beings freedom. Allah did not force
you to pray. Allah didn't force you to
stay away from haram. Allah didn't force you
to accept a prophet. Allah didn't force you
to accept Islam. Allah.
None of this is forced on you. All
of this has to be entirely your decision.
And the fact that they have the freedom
to make that decision, now they're saying, well,
it's this freedom, that's why we're this way.
And this is it's interesting because their their
religious narrative
Some some some young lady came to me
during the course of this month. She told
me she has a lot of friends that
are leaving Islam.
And I was like, so tell me what's
their common
like, why are they leaving Islam? And they
said it's because they keep saying it's a
religion of fear. I was like, what book
are they reading?
Religion of fear, really?
This religion?
Unless you know some people that just they
have that fear issue, and then they presented
all of Islam as a religion of fear.
This is a religion of thought. This is
a religion of exploration.
This is a religion of contemplation. This is
a religion of gratitude. And yes, among other
things, it's also a religion that has fear
in it.
But fear in some capacity is healthy, and
if you want no fear in your in
your life,
you want no fear, that means you don't
want any consequences.
That that that actually That's another
kind of extreme. But to reduce the religion
to a religion of fear, that must mean
they already have a preconceived bias. I said,
look, because she was a young girl. She
must have been college age, maybe 19, 20
years old. I said, beta, listen. A lot
of the kids your age,
they probably got nagged a lot by their
mom or got yelled a lot by their
dad. And their dad said, you're going to
burn in hell, you know, something. And now
they're mad at their dad, and they're scared
of their dad, and they made Islam the
religion of fear. No. You have dad issues
or mom issues, not Islam issues.
You you like to pretend those are Islam
issues, but that's just you and your mama.
That's not that's not Islam.
So, you know, kinda work that out.
Because you're not gonna go in front of
Allah and say, Yeah Allah, I know judgment
day is pretty scary right now but that's
exactly my point.
It's my mom, she triggered me.
Good luck with that one.
Anyway.
So the point I'm making is, Allah has
given human beings
freedom to operate. And now this seems like
2 contradictory
things.
Allah is in complete control over all things.
Allah is the master of all things. Nothing
happens without the permission of Allah, and yet,
Allah gave human beings complete freedom to operate
in this world. In fact, if we didn't
have complete freedom to operate in this world,
the angels would have had no problem when
Allah said, I'm putting the Khalifa on the
earth. The the only problem they had is,
why?
Why are you giving this creature
the re the the the the freedom to
be left behind, Khalifa, to be left behind,
to to operate according to their own devices,
to figure things out for themselves, they're gonna
kill each other. This is a bad idea.
And Allah says, I know something you don't
know. So the idea that somehow
Oh, we're not we're not behaving because we
have too much freedom, or there If this
God was true, He would have forced our
hand to obey. That's just not Allah. Allah
has given humanity freedom. Whoever wants to accept,
they can accept. Whoever wants to walk away,
they can walk away. Allah is in no
need of you. It's an open invitation, but
it's not a forced invitation. And even the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when he would get
too worried that people are not listening, Allah
would say to him, Listen, you're not in
charge of them, you're not in control over
them,
You're just there to remind, you're not in
control,
Maybe you're going to kill yourself with grief,
don't worry about it.
Stop stop worrying about them so much. Don't
worry about it. It's okay. It's okay. It's
okay.
It's a reminder, whoever wants, they can remember.
It's their choice. It's their choice. It's over
and over again in the Quran, it's people's
choice. People's choice. People's choice. Don't force it.
Don't force it. Don't force it.
So what fear? Fear of thinking?
Is that the fear?
Because, you know, that's really one of the
fears that Allah points out in the Quran.
You're afraid of actually
using your intellect, because then you have to
face a reality, you know?
Anyway, so that's
one
interesting
thing that they bring to, account that Allah
has not punish us for our disobedience, therefore,
we're doing it.
Allah says in response in the same Surah,
he says,
whenever we want when we whenever we decide
to do something, all we have to say
is to be and it is. If we
wanna destroy you, we can just say and
you'll be destroyed.
Right? Then Allah spells it out.
Are they feeling safe that the earth will
not swallow them up like?
Are they feeling safe from that reality? Oh,
they think Allah won't do it? Allah can't
do it? They're just feeling secure from it?
Oh Or
punishment will come from where they can't even
imagine?
Or Allah will kill them, seize them while
they're tossing and turning in their beds, and
they will not be able to overpower the
attack.
And similar similar concept, Allah mentions again,
Had Allah started punishing people for the wrong
that they're doing, there wouldn't be a beast
alive on the planet.
That's what Allah says. Meaning, Allah is saying,
that's not what Allah does. Allah is not
punishing humanity for the sins that they're doing.
On a side note, even though that's not
my subject today,
it's important for, especially South Asian Muslims. I
don't know why they see Muslims,
we come up with the weirdest stuff, man.
And then we spread it in the 1,000,000,
in the tens of 1,000,000.
You know, Assad, I lost my job. Why
is Allah punishing me?
Your your your brain is punishing you. Allah
is not punishing you. Allah has given us
in this life, Allah has made it very
clear. Good things that happened to you in
this life are you being tested, and bad
things that happened to you in this life
is also you being what?
Tested.
This is not a life of you being
punished. This is a life of you being
tested. If you're interested in a life where
you're being punished in this world, then you're
interested in the Christian doctrine. This is the
other religion. This is Islam. In Islam, you're
not being punished in this world. You're being
tested in this world with good and with
bad. That's all it amounts to. All it
amount And to see how will you react,
how will you respond to this difficulty. That's
all. That's all it is. So this constant
because you know what happens? Somebody has a
miscarriage.
Allah, protect our families from that kind of
a difficulty. But somebody's tested. Somebody's family's tested
with a miscarriage.
And somebody in the in law's side, or
their cruel mother, or sister-in-law, or somebody is
making or even a cruel husband is making
comments, Oh Allah is punishing you because you're
not a good wife, or Allah is punishing
you because you weren't a good daughter, or
Allah is punishing you because you talk back
to your in laws, Allah's punishing you. And
this this lady is like, I lost Allah
punished me. Allah Allah took the life of
my baby because I have a big mouth.
What
is that Hinduism? Is it what where did
you get this from? Because it's not Islam.
I don't know what that is, but millions
of people doing this stuff
in households that say, La ilaha illallah,
in households that say that. So, Allah is
saying, had Allah started punishing people for their
sins,
no creation would be left alive.
You know, that's the response from Allah, so
let's internalize that a little bit.
Now,
they you know, they what they do with
what Allah gives them So the Now, coming
back to the arrogance. So the first theme
I mentioned to you, I just wanna I
don't wanna lose track myself. The first thing
was
how everything is in service to us,
right, especially the wealthy who have the animals
and the cattle and the luggage and all
that good stuff. And the sea being subdued,
obviously, those who can afford sea travel or
invest in sea voyages
and pay people to go on sea voyages
for them. It's talking about the wealthy. Then
it was this the arrogance
of those who show righteousness in the open
and are, you know, filthy and secret, right?
In
the private lives. Then it was they're not
gonna comply until they're forced. Then it was
Allah has the absolute power to punish you,
He's choosing not to. So don't be confused
that He doesn't have the power to punish
you. Now we get to this theme,
Allah is now saying, and I've given you
so much,
even though you disobey me,
even the one who openly and defiantly disobeys
Allah, is blasphemous against Allah, does shirk with
Allah, denies the existence of Allah, Allah gives
him rizq also.
Allah gives her rizq also. Allah says,
And among them,
what did they do? Allah says, And they
take from what We gave them, Allah provided
them, and they take a piece of that
and put it in front of an idol.
Right?
Of which they have no knowledge, they just
come up with it. From what Allah provided,
Allah says, I swear by Allah, I will
you will be asked about these things that
you make up, these things that you create.
By the way, why did they put things
in front of idols? It was again the
wealthy coming and putting a nice piece of
meat or a freshly baked chocolate cake in
front of the giant statue, and everybody else
is watching and saying, oh,
this is so generous. And
and all of this the the that's that
same food he could have given to the
poor. He ain't given it to no poor.
He's giving it to this dead statue.
Right?
All all for show and display to look
religious. You know? The modern version of that
is, you know, when when politicians go to
churches and kiss babies.
This is a show. It's a show of
religiosity. It's a show of a donation to
the church, or we're gonna build a new
street and only in election season.
Right? This is right before election season, you
start seeing a lot of visits to religious
institutions. I bet you even in this country,
politicians show up in election season,
you know, And and so so they they
practice a lot. They you gotta give them
credit. They do practice.
You know, they rehearse every day. Sometimes, they
mess up. One time, this one guy came
at Eid salah in America,
and he wanted to he was a county.
He's running for county elections around the time
of Eid. Right? So he showed up and
asked the masjid if he can just speak
to the Muslim community, and he got up
there, and he's like, I like to speak
to all my Muslim brothers and sisters.
And I was like, you gotta practice some
more, bro.
I I was sitting here, like, the 3rd
floor. I I I said it quietly, I
was like,
But then now another theme. You remember Allah
said what you show and what you hide?
So Allah is not gonna talk about one
of the things they hide.
When one of them is given the good
news of a daughter,
their face turns dark,
and they start swallowing their rage.
They hide their they hide themselves and avoid
people. They don't wanna make public contact. Hey.
So was it a boy or a girl?
They don't wanna be asked that question because
it's embarrassing answer because it was a girl.
Like, they they they they are they are,
you know, from the from the evil of
the good news, he was the bad news
that's supposed to be good news that he
was given. He doesn't even wanna talk about
the fact that he had a daughter. And
so he's hiding his face from people.
Is he gonna keep her alive and live
with the humiliation?
Or should he just bury her in the
dirt?
These are the thoughts he's going Allah is
exposing the thoughts he's having in his head
about the daughter that was born.
What an evil decision these people have made.
These for these people who don't have any
iman in the is the worst example. So
now we're transitioning to another component. There were
the weak in society,
the helpless in society, the baby girl, for
example.
Why did the arrogant
think about think like that? Why did they
think like that about children and about girls?
You know why? Because everything to them is
an animal.
Just like the donkey will serve me, the
camel will serve me, the horse will serve
me, the son will also serve me.
But the daughter, she's just an expense, and
then she's gonna be used as a hostage
against me later. She's gonna marry some guy
from the other tribe, and then they're gonna
put pressure on me to give up some
of my land or give me some of
the camels, give them some of the camels
or this or that. So the she's a
she's an expense. She's a liability. So
they start because they're true capitalists. Right? So
they're looking at everything as, what does this
bring to the table for me?
Right? So the daughter doesn't bring anything.
The daughter doesn't bring any material good to
them, so this is a problem for them.
It's also a shame for them. Right? So
because it's not I wasn't man enough to
have a a son, that that kind of
thing.
Now another, notice,
Allah says,
Allah created you, some of you He takes
away,
or Umar rather. And among you are those
who are taken to very old age. So
Allah mentioned baby girls,
then He mentioned very old people. And what
happens to very old people? They're also seen
as what?
Liability. What do they what do they bring
to they're just eating food. They're getting sick.
You gotta take care of them all the
time. Unnecessary
expense.
Right? Because this how how are they benefiting
me? My young sons can benefit me. In
fact, the young sons that were benefiting you,
now they're older, you're super old, and the
young sons are waiting for you to die.
The young sons are like, oh, this is
old guy, man. He's just coughing all the
time and bosses us around. He doesn't even
he can't even tell night from day, and
we're supposed to listen to him.
Just be, you know, just go man your
time old man your time is over. Just
get out of this planet already. Just go.
You know? So among you are those who
are so powerful at one point,
and then you reach old age.
And then Allah just so so Allah mentions
the second kind of people that they consider
liability,
risk
Allah makes mention of, Allah has given some
of you more than others. Please understand this.
Allah did not reveal to us
communism,
Like all of us should make the same
amount of money, all of us should live
in the same kind of house, humanity should
be equal in every way, that's not Islam.
Allah designed this world
with disparity. There will be some people that
will be wealthy, there will be some people
that will be poor. Being wealthy in and
of itself is not a crime. Being successful
in business is not a crime. Being poor
is not God didn't bless you. You know,
because the prosperity gospel of Christianity is if
you're poor, God didn't bless you. But if
you're wealthy, God has blessed you. Right? That's
not our understanding. Allah has given some
more than others. And some people have been
given more blessings, and more opportunity, and more
business, and more income
than others. Some people have been given more
power than others.
That's the design of Allah. That's that's that's
the way the nature of things. But then,
some people when they have these blessings,
they start thinking of the people who work
for them as lesser than them.
So because they're the boss, they own the
factory, they own the farm, they own the
land,
then all the employees are basically cows and
sheep for them, right? So the thing with
cows and sheep is you just got to
give them hay and you keep them in
a barn, and they do for you what
they do. Other than that, you don't have
to worry about them.
But there you're not gonna feed
your cows and your sheep the same food
you eat yourself.
You you wouldn't want that. They're not gonna
drive the kind of car you're gonna drive.
They're not gonna live the way you live.
They're not gonna eat the way you eat.
They're not gonna dress the way you dress.
You gotta keep a
kind of a class difference between the boss
and the employee.
So Allah says, Allah has provided some of
you more than others but those that have
been given more, you would never give what
you have to those who you own, your
slaves.
You wouldn't do that. You're stingy with what
Allah has given you.
And so
in
which case they would become equal. Then Allah
also mentioned, so we saw baby girls, we
saw the elderly, now we see
So Allah then mentions your spouses,
your children,
your grandchildren,
He mentions all of them, and says, He
provided you all kinds of good. All of
these are of Allah. Now, having said all
of that, I set the stage for all
of it to get to the parable. Now
we'll quickly go through the parable. Okay? Bear
with me.
Allah says, Allah has given the example of
a slave that is owned.
The first thing I want you to notice,
Allah didn't just say, a slave. Obviously, when
you use the word slave, it already means
owned, doesn't it?
So why say slave and then add
means the one that's the one who's owned.
The word in the Quran is coined for.
It's coined as the servant of Allah. Right?
And all humanity are actually
Right?
All of us are just the of Allah.
However, Allah distinguishes
the of Allah from the to someone other
than Allah with an additional qualifier,
Because the Quran listener, if they just heard
they would actually immediately assume,
But now
changes that a little bit. It changes the
way you think you process the phrase. The
other important thing
is that is an
which actually could suggest
that it's an unnatural state, meaning
he wasn't always
As if you because is a so it's
an inherent quality.
So somebody is a slave, and that's their
identity. But they came to be owned. The
way you can put that in English is
they came to be owned. So that's not
their natural state. As if the language already
is suggesting that being enslaved or being owned
by anyone other than Allah is an unnatural
state to be in. So that's
And it's also suggesting there was a time
when you weren't owned. This person being described,
they were actually free and they were just
the Abdul Allah but then they became Mamluk.
They got owned by somebody else. Now what's
that scene because the you know slavery was
a massive institution globally in the world at
the time and it was a very normal
part of Arab life too So what did
Abdan Mamlukkan look like? Somebody went to the
market where they're buying sheep and horses and
camels and cows, and there's also a line
of young men and women, and you could
buy slave
people too.
And you're you're going to go, and if
you need somebody who works on the farm,
you need a strong slave.
Right? You need somebody to, you know, impregnate
so you can have future generations of slaves.
You're going to look for a slave girl.
You People went to the market just like
you go to the market for, you know,
buying the a certain kind of laptop, a
certain kind of car. They went and they're
looking for a certain kind of slave.
Right? They're looking for a cert So they're
looking in the market for the task they
have, and they're gonna find the one that's
gonna fit their job for a task.
Right? So the owner bought the slave for
a particular
purpose, for a particular agenda.
The the same way the owner buys a
cow and checks, says, this this got good
milk or what? Can I have kind of
a taste taste test before I buy this
cow? Because he finds out he he comes
back, and he buys the cow, and finds
out the the cow is lactose intolerant. I
don't know that. That's gonna be a problem.
It's
a bad purchase, you know. So
means okay. So somebody bought him, and somebody
obviously put thought in before buying him. Right?
And slave owners, obviously, they put thought in
before spending money
on on purchasing these slaves. Okay. So And
then Allah says, This is the qualifier.
It's very brief parable. But So the brief
language requires us to think even more.
One meaning of it is, the slave is
incapable of anything.
What this could mean is he's capable of
his own freedom. He can't get out.
The slave is not able to go wherever
he wants to go because he's owned.
The slave is not able to do anything
with his life that master says, Look, I
bought you to work on the farm. You
will Your your greatest dream in life is
to work on the farm
And on the best day of your life,
you will work on the farm. And on
the worst day of your life, you will
work on the farm. And 10 years from
now, you will work on the farm. This
is why you exist. And by the way,
one day you'll get too old, and then
that's it.
Or I'll sell you to somebody else.
Until
you die, until your back breaks, you're going
to work That's all I bought you for.
The same way I bought the sheep for
a very particular task, it doesn't need to
do anything else. I bought you for this
purpose, this is why you exist.
He's not able to do anything other than
what the Master has told him to do.
He's very limited in his scope,
almost like a human being being treated like
an animal.
Now people look at hear about slavery. I'm
not going to give you a lecture on
slavery, but people hear about slavery and say,
you know,
that bothers me so much. There used to
be slavery, and Islam didn't stop it, and,
you know, and all of that. Another
discussion for another time. But really, like slavery
stopped?
Honestly, do you want do you want to
know anything about slavery? Slavery was associated with
debt. You know that?
When somebody was in debt, couldn't pay their
debt, they ended up becoming a slave. Okay.
Well And it used to be slave to
a master and the master used to have
a whip and used to put a chain
on the neck or chain on the ball
of the foot, so you can't run.
Now, the the masters decided to get together
and form corporations,
and banks,
and decided we don't need chains. We can
just have your,
you know, your social security information, and your
fingerprints, and we can have your ID, and
we can have your bank information,
and now we're going to put you in
debt, and now you're going to work your
entire life
living in rent, we're going to own You'll
never own anything because you're a slave,
so you just work as a slave to
that this company, or that company, or the
other company, and by design, you'll never make
enough money to be able to own anything
yourself, And even if you think you own
something, you probably mortgaged it, and you're enslaved
to another bank, you're making payments every single
month. And if you think you're free to
walk away from this whole thing, there's going
to be bankruptcy financial consequences,
maybe even jail time, all your assets are
going to get seized, but no, you have
freedom. They used to have slavery back then.
Right.
Right. So this idea that somehow we we,
you know, we got out of
the world doesn't have slavery anymore, doesn't it?
Doesn't it?
It's just that the fence became invisible. That's
all. The chain became invisible. It's a digital
fence.
It's a digital ball and chain,
but it's still there.
It's still there. And just like the engine
behind slavery was debt,
I mean, think about debt,
and think about how many families are buried
in debt, and how many people are killing
themselves driving Ubers, and working extra 3 jobs,
working from 1, you know,
shop to another, to taxi, to then
the butcher place, and then driving a bus,
and then doing this and do and still
not making enough money.
And all of that to make the minimum
payment on the debt that they owe.
All of that.
How is that not slavery?
How is that not slaving away?
You know. And the people that are that
are in charge of these institutions,
they don't see you
as anything but an account number.
Almost like the slave owner used to see
the sheep and the cow.
That's it. How much can you milk this
thing?
How much can you that's all, that's all,
that's all. There's no humanization of it.
We saw the reality of that in the
subprime mortgage crisis. We saw it. How many
people get thrown out of their houses? Does
the bank care?
They don't even care. You know?
So now, now, these slaves are incapable of
getting out of their situation,
That's one scenario.
There's another scenario. And the other scenario is
means the slave is useless.
He's not capable of doing anything.
The guy bought the slave so he can
take care of the horses.
And the slave he brings the slave home,
and he says, oh, go take care of
the horse. I'm scared of horses.
Go take care of the horse. The horse
kicks him in the face. He's like, oh,
I can't do it.
Or every time he starts, you know, scraping
the horse, he starts bleeding the horse, he
goes, it's better you don't take care of
the horse. You know what? And the the
the owners, like, why did I buy this
this slave? This is the most useless slave
ever.
Okay. Can you at least clean the window?
He cleans the window, breaks the window.
I said, okay, can you at least fix
the fence? He's fixing the fence, the whole
rest of the fence falls over.
Alright. So I was like, yeah, this guy,
I can't do anything with this. Now the
thing with if he if he had a
sheep
that didn't give him enough wool,
if the if the slave owner had a
cow that give didn't give him enough milk,
what what would what would he do?
It's time for some burgers.
Right? Like,
if the slave is not doing his job,
he's disposable,
get rid of him.
Why keep on paying the expense for a
slave that's useless?
Allah gives the example of someone who's
enslaved by anyone other than Allah,
anyone other than Allah, not only can they
not get out,
but at the moment they're not capable of
providing the service for which they were bought,
you don't even have to spell out what
happens next.
You don't even have to spell out. Remember
all the examples Allah gave of the things
that serve you?
If any of those things stop serving you,
you'd get rid of them.
And the arrogant are such when the when
the elderly stops serving them, when the children,
the daughters don't serve them, they try to
get rid of those too.
And yet Allah is flipping that image, because
they think they're the owner. Right? The elite
thought, they're the owner. Allah is making them
sound like you're the actual owner. Now imagine,
what if you were owned
and you didn't provide any service,
what should be done with you?
And now the
the flip side, which which gets so incredible.
On the one hand, you had this helpless
slave. On the flip side, Allah would have
said, and look look at this slave and
compare them to the slave of Allah. Allah
didn't even say that. He didn't say
He said,
and some let's compare this person to somebody
that we provided,
that we provide. Allah interjects himself into the
aya.
The first part was a slave who is
owned, the master was not mentioned.
As if those masters aren't even worthy of
mention, and as if they are enslaved to
nothing.
But Allah is worthy of mention.
So Allah says, and we provided. And now
Allah didn't say, I own someone. Allah says,
we provided, meaning the first thing Allah does
for his slave
is that he provides for them.
Now think about the slave owner. When the
slave owner bought the slave, was that for
the slaves benefit
or the owners benefit?
The owners benefit.
And Allah begins the relationship
by benefiting who?
The slave.
The relationship begins with the benefit to the
slave,
not the you can't benefit Allah.
You cannot benefit Allah.
Study the history of slavery and understand the
depth of this analogy that Allah has given.
This prayer. Study the history of slavery. Study,
for example, the history of slavery in the
United States. I live in Texas. Texas is
one of the wealthiest, if not soon to
be the wealthiest state in the United States.
It's like the 7th biggest economy in the
world now. Right? And Texas has big money,
like old money. When New York Banks and
Wall Street and Hollywood and California side or
New York side, when they need money for
investment, they fly over to Texas and ask
ask some of the old big guns
to pour in their money because they got
serious oil money and serious old land money.
1000,
thousands 100 of thousands of acres of farmland
in Texas, owned by certain families. And guess
where that wealth came from? From slave labor.
For centuries, they had slaves For centuries before,
they had slaves that they were laboring on
that farm, paying next to nothing, beating to
death,
breeding them like cows and sheep so they
can continue to build their empire, and now
they have those empires. Now some states in
the United States have recognized
that the wealth that has now come in
the hands of certain families,
historically, only They were only able to acquire
that wealth through slave labor. And so the
descendants of those slaves, they're trying to do
some legislation to try to give them some
kind of reparations for it, But the reality
is there's no reparation for it.
That's just the reality of it. And they
they built their entire massive empire on this
one institution,
where they they benefited from it tremendously.
The French were treating the colonized Africans
no different than slaves.
The hypocrisy of the French that have labor
Lady Liberty given as a gift to the
United States, and they talk about, you know,
liberty and freedom, and you know, the French
Revolution for white people.
Right?
Because everybody else is just cattle.
Everybody else is just cattle. And even when
they left the Congos, even when they left
the African countries, they left them in severe
debt and to pay them penalties like slaves.
They wanted to keep them enslaved. That's their
formula.
Right?
Now Allah is saying, when you enslave yourself
to Allah,
understand
the fundamental difference.
Every other slave owner enslaves you to benefit
themselves.
Allah enslaves you and the beginning of that
relationship is
We provide
him. We provide him.
You can't benefit Allah.
Allah says, I don't want any of this.
I'm not like these false gods where you
have to go put sacrifices in front of
them. You have to put something in front
of them to get something you want. Allah
is not asking you for anything.
He He doesn't need anything from you,
you know.
And then on top of all of that,
then Allah says,
From our cell, like Allah went out of
His way to give, and He gave a
beautiful risk. Now, the idea of Allah provided
someone means Allah made someone wealthy, right?
What's the poorest job description? You know? Slave.
Slave. And we saw just another slave just
now who's helpless, can't get out of their
situation, they're in the most desperate situation. By
contrast, Allah says, the slave of Allah is
wealthy.
Allah provided him, and provided him beautifully.
And look at the description of Allah's slave.
He says,
He spends from it.
Wait, wait, the slave spends from it?
The Arab notion was who spends?
The master spends.
Allah's slave is empowered by Allah instead of
being restricted, you can't do anything. No. Allah
empowers the slave, Allah gives the slave beautiful
rizq, and he has so much rizq that
now he starts giving that rizq to others.
He starts spending on others. He becomes charitable.
The idea of being charitable was associated with
the elite, and now it's being associated with
the slave of Allah.
It's so beautiful.
It's as if Allah is saying, you might
think you're wealthy, the truly wealthy is the
slave of Allah who gives.
But he added this interesting qualifier,
secretly and openly.
Do you remember about the elite, how openly
they show giving, and secretly they're filthy?
Secretly they're miserly, secretly they
cheat their workers, they don't give their they
want to bury their daughter,
right? They think of their family members as
a liability
and an expense,
And Allah says when someone becomes the slave
of Allah, Allah gives them so much on
their own, they start giving. And they don't
just give when people are watching,
they give
even secretly, which means that they are giving
genuinely.
They're not giving because they're forced to give.
They're not giving because Allah compelled them, or
they're not giving to show to somebody else.
They're just giving all the time because they
reckon Their relationship with Allah is, My master
is generous with me, I will be generous
with humanity. That's the relationship.
It's not, My master
put me in slavery because he needs something
from me. He's he's using me for a
service, and if I don't provide that service,
he'll get he'll do away with me. That
relationship of fear isn't there. That relationship of
control isn't there. It's actually a relationship of
gratitude.
Allah has provided this, and I'm gonna give
I'm gonna show gratitude by being generous to
others.
So the slave has been empowered. It's almost
as if Allah is describing
a slave and a free person.
The slave can't do anything, and the free
person can spend as they please, even spend
on others. This is Allah's way of describing
that slavery to other than Allah is slavery,
and slavery to Allah is freedom.
That this is the the almost like this
is an eye of liberty
itself. It's liberty itself.
And so look at look at the conclusion
of this ayah.
Praise and gratitude belongs to Allah.
A timeless Allah could have said, wa yahmadulillah.
The slave praises Allah. Allah said, Alhamdulillah
as if to say whether there's a slave
of Allah
giving or not giving, alhamdulillah
will always exist Those the ones who don't
want to come to Allah and the ones
who come to Allah,
if even none of them existed, alhamdulillah would
still be there.
But it's it's almost also describing the rationale.
One came to the slavery of Allah because
they recognized
how much Allah gives them.
They didn't come to Allah
because
Allah forced them. They didn't come to Allah
running from something else. They came to Allah
running towards him out of the sentiment
of recognizing everything he's done for them.
This is another interesting
and beautiful contrast between the slavery of other
than Allah and Allah. The one who wants
to use you doesn't care about you.
You're only useful to them so long as
they you do what you what they need
you to do for their own benefit. 1st
of all, you can't benefit Allah. 2nd of
all, Allah is out of His way loving
and caring for you.
Even if you show no love and care
for him, even then he's loving and caring
towards you.
And that's the that's the the foundation that
Allah has given in this ayah, even in
the words,
and then he says,
The but the majority of them the reality
is the majority of them, they just have
no knowledge.
When I opened today's lecture, I read the
the 2 ayaats before this one, and I
want you to hear them and contemplate them
on your own.
And they worship besides Allah something that has
no control of any provision, not from the
skies, not from the land.
And they're not capable either.
Then don't stop coming up with theories and
examples and scenarios to
describe
Allah. It is a lie in fact who
knows. You're the ones who don't know. Now
that Allah says, Don't stop, don't make theories
and case scenarios about God to help you
to to make make your conceptions of God
made based on your examples. You're not qualified
to give examples of Allah. Allah knows and
you don't know, then he says, then Allah
gives an example.
Subhanallah.
There are 2 examples in a row. One
of them we did today. The other one
is the aya right after this one. Allah
will give another example of another slave,
another scenario, and we'll inshallah talk about that
scenario tomorrow.
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