Nouman Ali Khan – Understanding Allah’s Perfection – Surah Al-Jumuah & Its Key Themes
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The speaker discusses the "has been" of the internet and its potential to enhance understanding of the internet's message. They explain the three parts of the internet's surah, including the Prophet Allah and people who were given the book before them. The importance of the message and the importance of visiting sponsorship pages is emphasized, along with the need to rebuilding the spirit oflation and restore the spirit oflation by rebuilding the spirit oflation and visiting sponsorship pages. sponsor students are encouraged to visit their sponsorship pages.AI: Transcript ©
I'm gonna try to explain to you the
concept of and how Allah talks about the
concept of
in this surah. You're all familiar with subhan'Allah
alhamdulillah. Everybody here is familiar with that.
The simplest way I can explain it to
you
is the difference between subhanAllah
and alhamdulillah. There are lots of differences
but one easy way to remember the differences
is the purpose of is
to make sure you don't say anything wrong
or you don't believe anything wrong about Allah.
I'm nervous about a couple of things.
One of them is that I'm still jet
lagged.
So
I'm not sure if I'll even remember what
I said at the end of this speech,
but I ask Allah for clarity in speech
and I ask Allah to
make this a gathering where we can all
come a little bit closer to Allah's words.
I'm going to start with a couple of
introductory concepts
that I think are going to help us
help me build the narrative that I want
to build in the surah.
The first of them is my own personal
conviction and my approach to the study of
the Quran.
In my own study of the Quran, the
the surahs of the Quran
deserve
primary attention. And what that means is Allah
organized
his teachings
by surahs
and within the surahs by ayat.
Right? So what happens oftentimes is you might
find an ayah of the Quran and it's
very similar to another ayah of the Quran
somewhere else.
Right? So your immediate thought is, if I
want to understand this ayah better, I should
immediately go to
this other ayah. And even though that's tafsirulquran,
or you might find that Allah is talking
about an ayah and it reminds you or
it connects to a hadith of the prophet
or it connects to an incident in the
lives of the companions radiAllahu anhu alaihi wa'in.
All of those are
important factors, they're all elements that help us
understand the Quran better. These are the things
the Quran connects to, at least in terms
of text, right? In fact there is even
more. The Quran may be talking about something
that the Bible talked about.
And so we might look at the Bible
and say, How did the Bible talk about
this and how is Allah disagreeing?
Or if Allah is agreeing. So the
Quran guards over the previous scripture,
right? It may be that the Quran is
talking about something in psychology.
Like recently I was giving a lecture series
on Surat At Taqabun
when Allah says
that no calamity strikes except by the permission
of Allah.
Calamity is basically what in today's psychological terms
is called a traumatic event
And when people go through a calamity, they
develop PTSD.
Right? Post traumatic stress disorder. Right? And people
go through different traumatic experiences in the family
or in a war zone or in a
car accident or whatever else it may be,
a financial calamity, a health calamity, a family
calamity, whatever kind of calamity it may be.
Now, Allah is commenting on something that psychologists
talk about,
right? So I want to know what psychologists
say about this and I want to compare
that with what Allah is saying about this
and enhance my understanding.
Right? And by comparison and by contrast.
So
but before all of that Now all of
these things I mentioned, you can look at
the Quran and look at the outside world
and outside sciences.
You can look at the Quran and other
ayat of the Quran. You can look at
the Quran and hadith of the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam. But before you look at
any of that it is my view that
we must look at the surah itself.
The first objective is the surah itself
Because Allah designed
this curriculum himself.
You stand in salah and you listen to
the imam recite an ayah, but he doesn't
recite the next similar ayah from somewhere else
next. He recites the next ayah of the
surah. So there's a there's a connection being
made
if in our case Suratul Jum'ah, of these
11 ayat together.
And this connection that was built together,
these ayat are stitched together. The word I
like to use is they are stitched together.
The reason I like to use this word
is because this is the word Allah used
Himself.
A book whose ayaat were woven or stitched
together.
So Allah stitched ayah number 1 to ayah
number 2 to ayah number 3, and so
on and so on and so forth.
So it's really important to understand the internal
logic,
the internal message of a Surah.
And then, we further that understanding with
the other ayat of the Quran, the hadith
of the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam, historical
events,
outside sciences, all of those things can further
enhance our understanding but the first place still
belongs to the surah itself.
Suratun Anzalnahah
like he says in Suratun Noor. It is
a surah that we sent out.
A good speaker
is supposed to be someone who can organize
their thoughts effectively.
Because if they're able to organize their thoughts
effectively, then you can remember what they talked
about.
If I'm talking about one thing, then something
else, then completely unrelated something else then completely
unrelated something else,
then
you cannot keep track. I cannot build a
thought process in you
because it's all over the place, right? So
what Allah does is he actually builds a
thought process
and allows us to arrive at a conclusion.
So with that said, I I wanna give
you some brief pointers
about the surah.
One way to look at it is that
it's divided into 3 parts.
Okay. So this is just the simplest way
to look at it is that this surah
is broken up into 3 parts.
The first part of it is Allah is
going to talk about
the
Prophet Allah, the Prophet and the believers. So
it's talking about this ummah.
Okay? And the the the current state of
this ummah at the time of the Quran
and the future of this ummah. All of
that is in the first portion of this
surah.
The second, the middle section of this surah
talks about,
the people who were given the book before
us, the Torah.
That's the middle part of this surah.
So the first part is about us and
the middle part is about
it's about the yahud.
Okay. And and what they and their relationship
with their book. Okay. And then the final
part of this surah is about Jumuah,
the Jumu'ah prayer. Now this seems at first
when I say, this is about the Ummah,
this is about Bani Israel, this is about
salatuljumu'ah, it seems unrelated.
This looks like 3 very different topics. And
one of my jobs today is to try
to show you what's happening here. How are
these things progressing with each other and how
are these very brief 11 ayat actually making
a profound
statement.
So,
to start now that I've given you the
overview a little bit,
I'm gonna try to explain to you the
concept of and how Allah talks about the
concept of
in this surah. You're all familiar with subhan'Allah
alhamdulillah. Everybody here is familiar with that. The
simplest way I can explain it to you
is the difference between subhanAllah
and alhamdulillah. There are lots of differences
but one easy way to remember the differences
is the purpose of is
to make sure you don't say anything wrong
or you don't believe anything wrong about Allah.
All your thoughts about Allah and all your
statements about Allah are perfect.
Maintain the perfection of Allah.
If you fall in any way, so to
give you an example like if someone the
easiest examples are the mushrikeen
who when they say something about Allah having
a son or there may be more than
one God then immediately Allah Azzawajal responds and
He says,
Allah is too perfect for those statements.
So they are saying something that reduces the
perfection of Allah.
Is the classic definition of tasbih. What does
it mean? It means
to cleanse
the concept of God
from all the things that are inappropriate.
So we don't say anything or believe anything
inappropriate about Allah, less than perfect about Allah.
Okay?
Now, that was an easy example shirk but
muslims can fall into this problem
because sometimes
this
is very obvious and sometimes the violation of
this is a little less direct. So let
me give you a muslim example.
So you for example, something happened to you
and you didn't like it. Lots of things
happened to me and you in our life
and we don't like it.
There's a car accident that happened, it wasn't
your fault, somebody else hit you,
right? Or you didn't mistake, you didn't make
a mistake at work, your friend made the
mistake but you got fired,
Right? And now that's not your fault but
you're the one who got fired.
Right? Or at home, your brother
broke the plate but your mom is yelling
at you,
right? No, it was him. No no no,
he's too perfect. It's you. Your face looks
guilty so it's just You were born looking
that way so
When things happen to us that seem unfair,
because that happens at work, it happens in
the family, it happens outside, it happens, you
know.
When that happens, one of the thoughts even
a Muslim can happen is why is why
did Allah
Allah do that?
I don't understand.
I didn't deserve it.
I'm not a bad person.
So why did this bad person get a
promotion
and I'm the good person, I got fired?
This bad person who's my brother, my mom
is hugging him and I'm the good person,
and my mom is yelling at me.
It's not fair. Why is Allah letting that
happen? Now the moment I say why is
Allah doing this,
2 things.
1,
Allah Allah
does whatever he wants,
number 1.
So when I say why,
you know, if my child misbehaved, I can
go to my child and say, why did
you do that?
Explain it to me, why did you do
that?
When the police officer pulls you over and
says, why did you turn without indicating?
Why did you go through the red light?
You have to explain yourself.
The one who has to ask the question,
why did you do it?
That's the person who has some authority.
The parent has authority over the child. The
police officer has authority over you. The teacher
has authority over the student. Right? So when
I say why did Allah do that,
Allah owes me an explanation?
Allah owes you an explanation?
That takes away from the tasbih of Allah.
Allah is Al Hakim.
Everything He does and everything He allows
is with wisdom.
There's a plan behind everything.
Does he have to explain the plan to
you?
No.
He doesn't have to explain the plan to
you.
So
that would take away from the tisbih of
Allah.
So the the mushrik
can take away from the tisbih of Allah
by putting a false god next to God.
But the Muslim can take away from the
tasbih of Allah when we say something that
sounds like we don't really believe he's arrahman.
He's very loving and caring but not right
now.
Or if we say, Allah is al Hakim
but right now I don't understand His wisdom.
Some people even came and told me, Ustad,
there are so many bad people in the
world, why did Allah make them?
I said, Hold on. Let me ask him.
I'll come back.
These things can take away from what? Tasbih.
Tasbih. Okay. So this this is the basic
concept of Tasbih. Now that's tasbih. To be
I don't say anything inappropriate and I don't
think anything inappropriate about Allah. Everything I believe
about Allah is perfect. His love is perfect.
His wisdom is perfect. His risk is perfect.
His plan is perfect. His creation His The
plan for his creation is perfect etcetera etcetera,
right? Now that's one side. What's the other
side? Look.
Simple example, if I tell you If I
You ask me about some some person. You
say you ask me about kareem. If there's
a kareem in the audience, I'm sorry. Okay.
There is a Kareem. What do you think
about Kareem? There is nothing wrong with Kareem.
There is nothing wrong with him.
Okay. Then I said, there's nothing wrong with
him. But did I say something nice still?
No. I have no problem with him. There's
nothing wrong with him.
But I still didn't say so I didn't
say anything negative
but I also didn't say anything
positive.
It's possible. When I say I'm doing this
I'm saying I will say nothing negative about
Allah.
I'm saying nothing negative about Allah. But that's
not enough.
I also have to say something
positive about Allah. And the positive about Allah,
it actually comes from
It comes from
So
removes all the negative
and
adds all of the
positive. Now, just to start off, one of
the things you'll notice in this surah, it
began with
everything in the skies and the earth declares
of Allah. So what did it begin with?
So where's the
hamd? Right? Because that's only half the picture.
What about the other half? And you'll notice
by the end of the surah, in the
middle and the end, Allah will say for
example,
Tell them, what Allah has is better than
entertainment and business. Allah is the best of
all providers. When Allah provides you, what do
you say?
You don't say subhanallah, you say,
The rizq of Allah
calls for hamd. So actually
is spelled out and hamd is inserted into
the message of this surah.
In fact, even Allah sending us a messenger
who would teach us His guidance
and Allah allowing that ummah not to be
one race
like the Israelites were one race. But Allah
said,
other people will join. So the Indians will
join, and the Bengalis will join, and the
Somalis will join, and the Turks will join,
and the Indonesians, and the Malaysians, and the
people in the Maldives, and all these people
will join.
Isn't that a favor of Allah?
(QS. 3) That is the favor of Allah.
(QS. 3) Allah gives it to whoever He
wants. And when Allah reminds you of His
favor, and you think about Allah's favor, what
comes in your heart?
So the
is actually spelled out and
the gets created
from the message of the surah. So in
that sense it has both
and it also has
they're both perfectly included in there.
Another really important side note,
there are 2 kinds of risk.
There are 2 kinds of risk.
There is material risk
and there is spiritual risk.
There is the risk of guidance.
There is the risk of humility.
There is the risk of wisdom.
There is the risk of sabr.
Some people have a lot of money, they
don't have any sabr.
Some people look very good but they have
no they were not given the rizq of
good manners.
They have ugly manners but beautiful appearance,
That happens.
Some people have a lot of popularity but
no wisdom. They were not given the risk
of wisdom but they were given the risk
of popularity.
So they have the material risk but they
don't have
the spiritual risk, right? What did Allah do
in this surah? Allah talked about both kinds
of rizq
and both of them He described as
His So for example in the beginning, early
on in the surah when Allah described
the Messenger salallahu alayhi wasalam who came to
the unlettered and educated them, gave them this
revelation,
and then after that he described that other
people will be joining them.
Allah
said,
Which fadullah of Allah is that? Is that
the spiritual fadullah of Allah or the material
fadullah of Allah?
That's the spiritual one. At the end of
this surah, Allah says when the Jum'ah prayer
is done,
when salatul Jum'ah is done,
Well, go out in the land and pursue
the fadl of Allah. Again, twice, 2 times
the fadl of Allah is mentioned in this
surah. That's not an accident.
So Allah used
and at the end of the surah. Why?
Because one of them covers the spiritual fadl
of Allah and the other covers the
material fadl of Allah. They both get covered.
Why is that so important?
Because we are the people that ask Allah
So the the hasana of this duniya is
the fadl of Allah after Jum'ah prayer when
you go back to work,
and the fadl of Allah for your akhirah
is the fadl of guidance that came in
the beginning. And so it covers both. So
now you're starting to see at the beginning
I told you there are 3 subjects
and there seem to be all over. But
now you're starting to see things are connecting
little by little. Okay. Now let's take yet
another step.
In the beginning of the surah, we are
told to be grateful
for Allah's Messenger
because
Allah is the one who appointed among people
that had no educational background.
They were
and Mujahid says in his tafsir of that
this includes non Arabs.
Really interesting commentary by Mujani. One of the
earliest of seers of this ayah. This includes
non arabs. What does he mean? He means
there will be non arabs in some island
somewhere across the ocean that have no background
in religion. They don't know anything about Allah
or His messengers. In that sense they are
completely uneducated.
They will be called what?
And today
there may be somebody who has a degree
in engineering
and they're raised in a Muslim family but
they never really learned anything much about Islam.
They're good people, they're educated people, they know
business, they know engineering, they know app development,
they know, you know, they know how to
take care of their taxes, they know all
these other stuff but they don't know much
about Allah's book. They are also what actually?
They are actually today's Ummyin.
They are actually so there was the Ummyin
of the Arabs
that had no other education, no previous scripture,
no knowledge of it. But then there is
the of future generations that are to come
also, right? And that's also included inside of
this high. Now in all of that, the
Rasul of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam came
and he committed himself to the Ummiyin.
I'll explain that in a bit.
But
the thing I want you to note for
this particular point at this juncture
is that the Messenger of Allah
is so dedicated to these people. Look at
what he's doing. Allah didn't just say Allah
sent them sent the Messenger to these people
and that's it. No, He sent them to
them and he recites the ayah to them,
he purifies them, he teaches them the law
and the wisdom. What does that show you?
A commitment of Allah's messenger to the ummi'in,
to this ummah. He's committed to them constantly.
He's constantly nurturing them, developing them, helping them.
Okay.
At the end of the surah,
you see Allah mentions the case of some
people. This is related to an incident that
happened in the seerah of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
The people were coming and sitting in Jum'ah
and the Jum'ah salah
the some narrations tell us the salah, the
order used to be different before.
The salah used to be first and the
khutba used to be after.
So now, after this, the khutba was first
and the salah after. But this is before
that happened. So the salah was first and
the khutba was afterwards. Okay. So they made
the salah and now the khutba is going
on. While the khutba was going on, there
was a you can think of it like
a carnival
that came, you know, they have their animals,
and they have their musicians, and noise, and
they're selling different kinds of food,
and they're playing loud music to get customers,
right? And they're bringing, you know, imported items,
right? Sometimes if you just take your family
out in the park and in the distance
you see tent set up and balloons and
noise,
What do your kids say? Hey, what's what's
what's going on? And you're also like hey,
let's go see what's happening over there. When
you see something like that it pulls your
attention,
right?
And so some of the crowd that was
sitting there listening to the Khutbah
headed that way. And what did Allah say
about them? He
said,
When they saw entertainment
or trade, a business opportunity,
they ran, they broke away from the crowd,
they broke away from Jum'ah and they went
towards it. And they left you standing there.
Tell them what Allah has is better. Now,
listen to this. In the beginning of the
surah, who is committed to us?
The prophet is committed to us.
And at the end of the Surah, who
is showing they're not so committed right now?
The congregation. They're running off and they're getting
distracted.
So you see how it's balancing the picture?
The Messenger is so committed to you,
you should appreciate
that and you should show commitment to the
Messenger
Right? So the the picture is balanced yet
again between these 2.
Now,
Allah is you know,
in this surah there's so so many there's
dozens and dozens of things to learn but
some things that I just I find so
powerful and so so transformative I want to
share with you. You know the phrase you
subhihullillah
like the lam and
we declare
we often translate this as everything in the
skies and the earth declares the perfection of
Allah,
of of
Allah.
But actually the could be looked at as
also.
Now listen to this carefully, that would mean
everything in the skies
declares Tasbir
of Allah
because of Allah.
In other words, once they get once they
realize or the every other creation knows who
Allah is and the fact that they know
him
makes them want to do You
see okay. Let me give you by comparison.
So because this is an abstract concept. So
let me give you an easy silly example
so you can understand this concept, okay?
You know, you've you've seen a celebrity
on Youtube or on TV or whatever and
you're like, that's my favorite person in the
world. Oh my god. They're so amazing.
And then you meet them
and then you're like,
you know what they say is true. Don't
meet your heroes.
Right? They were so perfect
from a distance,
but once you got to know them, you're
like,
Yeah, not that
perfect. You understand?
Okay. I do that to people all the
time. Anyways,
so the thing is the creation of Allah,
the creation of Allah
knows Allah,
knows Allah and the more they know him,
the more they do
So instead of, you know, when you get
to know someone, you think lesser of them,
but the creation of Allah knows Allah and
it continues to do
So
Allah is telling us something. There is a
who do you declare perfect Allah? Why do
you declare imperfect because you know Allah? There's
the who and there's the why.
Now why is that important for you and
me? Allah is telling us, he doesn't just
want this subhanallah.
Allah is perfect, fine. Allah is perfect, Allah
is perfect. Allah wants me and you to
realize
why.
Why do you believe he's perfect?
Because when the the who Okay. It's only
Allah. Only Allah is perfect. Fine.
But why is Allah perfect?
Once you have the answer to that,
then your
is complete.
Like the rest of creation whose is complete.
We want to become like the rest of
creation. We want to follow along with the
rest of the skies and the earth. And
by the way, opening like that. This is
the Madani Surah. You might have seen on
the poster also. It says Yeah.
What does that mean? It means that the
when the Surah came, the majority of the
people that were listening to the Surah were
not non Muslims, they were muslims. This is
the muslim community.
And the muslim community already knows that you're
supposed to do
the
They already know that the skies in the
earth do tasbih of Allah. They already know
this lesson. Why is Allah telling them this?
Why is Allah telling the Muslims
who already they have the entire Makkan Quran,
which is Makisura
and many other places.
Allah has already said everything in creation does
tasbih have Allah. You don't understand it but
they're doing tasbih,
they are declaring Allah's perfection.
So why is Allah repeating this
after so many years to the Muslim community?
Allah is actually letting us know
that the Muslims
the Muslims
are not perfect in their
their
falls off.
They're doing a good job then they're not
doing such a good job. Some of them
are doing good job, some of them are
not doing a good job or some of
them are unstable.
So they have to be reminded
by the rest of creation who is not
unstable in their
you are supposed to be the best of
creation, the human being.
And within the human being, you are supposed
to be the best of all the human
beings because you are the ummah of Muhammad
So you're supposed to be the best of
the best
and within them you are living with the
Prophet
They're being told, even within them, you are
the best of the best of the best.
I expect more.
I have higher expectation from you.
By beginning with
tasbih Allah set us in a certain mindset
Allah has more expectation from you and me.
You with me?
Okay. So that's a little bit about the
tasbih of Allah. Now I quickly wanna tell
you about the 4 names of Allah
that Allah mentions here.
I want you to think of these names
not in terms of Allah first,
not in terms of Allah because the names
of Allah
before they were used for Allah,
they were also used for human beings also.
Like for example, Allah says Al Malik, the
king.
Are there places in the Quran where somebody
else is called a king?
Yeah.
There are plenty.
So you can have human kings also. So
the word, of course, when it refers to
Allah, it's the perfect king.
But it can have human application. So before
we apply this to Allah,
because that the application to Allah is perfect.
Let's think of it in the imperfect way
first.
Right? So let's think about kings. So that's
1. Then
the pure.
The alter I won't go into details, but
just means the pure or the holy. Okay?
The pure or the holy.
And there are people
in the world, in the Hindu tradition, in
the Buddhist tradition, in the Christian tradition, in
the Jewish tradition, there are practically in every
religious tradition there are some people that are
considered holy people.
They are the pure people of that religion.
They have a certain pure person uniform.
They have a pure person kind of look.
Some people believe they have that look in
Islam also.
So when they walk by everybody
the, you know, this is the the the
person of perfect iman just walked by. Everybody
else is, like, contaminated,
you know.
But anyway, so that so there's this look
to them.
There's there's always been a religious class, a
clergy, things like that. Right?
Then in the human sense there's also authorities,
basically means someone who has authority that cannot
be challenged, basically. Without going into too much
detail, an authority that cannot be challenged. So
if you're in the post office, and the
work the guy working in the post office,
the manager of the post office does not
want to send your package,
And you're like, I wanna speak to the
manager and he says,
I am the manager.
I have to send this back, it's 5
o'clock, we're closed.
If he does that in that moment, you
know what he is?
He is Aziz.
He can't do nothing. You can call the
president later.
You can call the military later.
But right now he's being what?
Aziz. You know, sometimes you know who gets
Aziz? The customer service at an airport.
They get Aziz.
Too late. No. No. And then their friend
comes, oh, come come. Yeah. Six bags. Yeah,
please.
And you're like, hey. So
Aziz is someone who has authority,
whose authority cannot
be challenged. That's al Aziz. So we see
examples
of Aziz all the time. And of course,
al Hakim is someone who is wise.
Right? Wise. And you seek wisdom for example,
you might seek wisdom,
medical wisdom from a medical professional.
You might seek legal wisdom from a legal
professional.
You might seek psychological wisdom from a psychological
you might seek Islamic wisdom from an Islamic
scholar. You can seek wisdom in different parts
of your life. So we are familiar with
these four concepts.
But Allah first the first of these names
Allah declared for himself as the king.
And I wanna just paint a picture for
you why these four names are important from
the human perspective.
Before we understand how perfect Allah is, let's
understand how imperfect human beings are, right? How
imperfect these concepts are for the rest of
us and then we see how perfect Allah
is, right? Like I I it's it's like
by opposite things are known,
right? By opposite things are known. Okay. So
you have a king.
When people come into power, they can become
the king.
Right?
Now, in history, when you had kings,
that people think of them as
corrupt or righteous.
Corrupt. You have to be some special kind
of corrupt
to become the king. You have to be
willing to kill a lot of your cousins
and a lot of people you have to
be able to, you know,
and you have to make a lot of
backdoor deals, you have to sell your soul
to come up and come up and come
up and you wanna be king, right? And
you guys don't watch movies so I can't
tell you but there's lots of movies about
how people come into power
and how much corruption they had to do
to keep
rising above and above and above. So the
thing that we associate with kings
or rulers, governments,
the thing that comes in mind
generally in the history of the world is
corruption.
Is corruption.
And the kings knew this.
The kings knew that people think we are
what?
Corrupt. But if
they think we are too corrupt,
then this is gonna be a problem for
my government.
So what did the kings do in history?
They put next to them the religious people.
So the Roman Empire for example made a
very close relationship with the Catholic church
because the Catholic church runs all the churches
and when they have their Sunday khutba,
they're going to tell the people,
make sure you make du'a for the
king and make sure you're loyal to the
king because God wants you to be loyal
to the king. The king is good. The
king is good. Okay? Let me just tell
you. I'm the pure one, I'm telling you
the king is good.
So they the the king class,
the the mulk class
needed the Quds class. They needed
the holy people
to control the population. This is the story
of history. This didn't just happen in one
civilization,
it happened in many civilizations. And by the
way,
the religiously pure,
they make a lot of money
because the government in order to keep them
supporting them that from behind the scenes the
government
gives them a lot of and then they
do
of the kings.
You understand? That's been the history of the
world. If any of you is a serious
student of politics, you know what I'm talking
about. So what
am I saying? In history, the malik is
someone else
and the Qudus is someone
else. They are not the same they need
each other but they are 2 different people.
Okay. Let's take the next step.
You have the king. Sometimes you know, in
for example in chinese history and in other,
you know, empire histories, sometimes a 7 year
old was made the king.
Sometimes a 6 year old became the heir
to the throne. It happened, right? It happened.
Now the thing is, he's become the king
or like even now, you know, the the
king of England, even now. Not no longer
the queen, right? So, the king of England.
They become the king,
but are they actually running the policies?
No.
No. So it's a ceremonial position,
right? And the Pope will come and bless
them,
and they'll pray for them, and they'll live
in the palace,
but the actual governing that's happening
on the street,
the actual governing in the courtroom, the actual
governing everywhere else,
that's being done by the minister, and the
governor, and the chief of police, and the
minister of finance, and the tax people, and
they are the actual
Aziz. So the is someone else,
the is someone else,
and the Aziz is someone else.
There's someone else.
And then finally,
the king or the government
wants to maybe should we go to war,
should we not go to war? Should we
change our economic policy? Should we raise the
the riba rate or should we drop the
riba rate?
Should we officially endorse cryptocurrency
or not endorse cryptocurrency?
Should we open the border? Should we close
the border? Should we should we tighten immigration?
Should we loosen immigration?
Should we change the labor laws? Should we
not change the labor laws? When the government
wants to make a policy,
they bring the experts.
Give us hikmah.
We need your hikmah on this. Should we
should we mandate the vaccine
or should we not mandate the vaccine? Bring
us the medical hikim
and let them give us their opinion and
then we will make a decision. You understand?
So you have in government you always have
policy advisers
from different sectors,
right? What am I telling you? The malik
is someone else,
the is someone else,
the Aziz is someone else and
the Hakim is someone else.
Allah is the only one
who is Al Malik,
Al Quddus,
Al Azziz,
Al Hakim
all in one.
That is the most perfect
kingdom.
He doesn't need advice from someone else.
He doesn't need a hakeem somewhere else. He
has all the hikmah himself.
Even though he is the king on top,
he doesn't need someone else to actually stop,
you know, you know, control the leaf from
falling because that's too small. The king is
big, this is a small problem. Like the
king is sitting in the palace, but the
king is not going to stop you when
you go past the red light, that's gonna
be the police officer. So the king appointed
somebody, who appointed somebody, who appointed somebody, who
appointed the chief of police, who appointed the
captain, who appointed the police officer, who appointed
him to go to that traffic light and
then he stopped you at the red light.
But he's stopping you using the power of
the government, so it's 7 or 8 chains
of command, it goes back to the government,
Right? So when a police officer stops you,
it's actually the government stopping
you. But it's not directly the government, it's
indirectly the government, isn't it?
But not a leaf falls except not Allah
didn't assign some angels, You're in charge of
the leaves, you're in charge of the wind,
you're in charge of this, you're in charge
of that. That's Greek mythology.
The god of wind, the god of this,
the god of that.
Allah
moving every leaf,
moving every breeze of the wind,
moving every bird, every flap of every bird.
It's not a word that there's not a
bird that spreads its wings
without Allah's permission. He
is
executing all of it and nobody can challenge
his authority on it. You
may have seen there's a
famous saying,
power corrupts.
An absolute power corrupts?
Absolutely.
And there is another problem. Sometimes you have
a king
who is not corrupt. He is a good
ruler.
He is a good president. He is a
good prime minister. He is a good governor.
The problem is he has bad advisers.
Okay. I'm not gonna name the country but
I was
no, it's not you. It's not you. But
but it's an it's actually truly another country.
I was
invited to speak with, prime minister once.
And we had a really great conversation,
right?
The official notice I was given is you
have 5 minutes to speak to the prime
minister. He wants to call you on Skype.
Okay? So I had Skype conversation.
I know it's the Prime Minister, so I'm
not gonna take more than 5 minutes, and
I'm gonna answer his questions. I'm not gonna
be the one to So he's asking me,
so,
where were you in New York? What do
you do? And then, what tell me about
this saya. Tell me about this hadith. Tell
me about and he keeps asking me questions.
And we talk for an hour.
It was not my fault. I swear. It
wasn't my fault. He just wanted to talk.
So we talk for an hour. And when
the conversation was over,
the next day he's like he's like, I
want you to come to my country. I
want you to come spend time with me.
We need to discuss some things. I was
like, okay.
Preem. Okay. I'll come. Yeah. So I'm not
gonna say, no. I don't have time. I
have a pizza appointment with my friends. Like
I'm not gonna.
So I said, okay. Sure.
And so I thought that's gonna happen. The
next day, I get a call from his
adviser, then his secretary.
What did you do?
I was like, what what did I do?
We told you, you have to speak to
him for
5 minutes. I was like,
I'm not gonna tell the prime minister, listen.
Your 5 minutes are up. I'm like, what
do you
what do you want me to do?
I had a cover you know what? She
said, but you don't know, you're facing him
on Skype on his laptop, but around him
were all these advisers
and they got all really nervous that you
became too friendly with him. So they don't
want you to be too much of an
influence. What's your real agenda?
Okay.
I didn't
go. But did you know what the issue
was? He may have good intentions.
What's around him?
Bad advisors or advisors that wanna protect him
from any outside influence
because they don't trust his judgment.
They don't He maybe the malik
but they don't think he is hakeem enough.
You understand?
So you could have a Malik who's not
qudus, a Malik who's not Aziz, and a
Malik who's not
hakeem.
And Allah has all of those all in
one.
All in one. That is the tisbih of
Allah that the creation of Allah recognizes
and that's in the first ayah.
Now what Allah is doing in the Quran,
in the second aya, many of you heard
me talk about this aya before. I'll briefly
mention this now because there are other things
that I haven't talked about before that I
wanna bring to to your attention in this
talk. How much time do I have by
the way? I don't know. Sometimes
I talk a lot. How much time do
I have?
So I could time myself.
Yeah. I have 5 minutes.
Are you the prime minister?
I'm having
a flashback.
Okay. Okay. 5 minutes. 5 minutes. 5.
10. Okay. Good. Good job. Okay.
So here's the thing.
These four remarkable names of Allah
become
the
entire method of the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Humanity needs to know the true
like the rest of creation knows him.
What's Allah's plan to introduce all of humanity
to Al Malik Al Quddoos Al Aziz Al
Hakim?
A king
is known by
a few things. A kingdom
is known by its symbols.
Nowadays we don't have many kingdoms, we have
countries that have now replaced many kingdoms. But
even though we have some kingdoms in the
world,
when you go to a kingdom, you will
see they have their own flag.
They have their own palace.
They have their own uniform for their soldiers.
They have certain symbols that tell you you
are in this kingdom
or you are in this government. You understand?
Now,
Allah is
Al Malik, the king.
And a king should be recognized by his
symbols.
By and those symbols represent his authority.
But that's not the only thing. A kingdom
is also known for its unique policies,
right? Unique policies like for example,
you know, when I first time I went
to Singapore
and I found out about chewing gum,
Right?
I was afraid to even eat chocolate. I
was like, I don't know if that's gonna
look like I'm chewing gum and
so does this. So
I was just swallowing chocolate.
I was taking M and M's like a
pill.
A kingdom or a government can also be
known by its policies
and by its enforcement of its policies.
And those policies cannot be overturned by you.
You're just a citizen.
You cannot override the policies of a government.
You have to surrender
to those policies. They are beyond your power
to overrun.
Okay.
Well, the symbols, the word the the primary
word for symbols
in Arabic is ayah
and aya is a symbol of something. It's
a representative it's a representative of something. And
the ayaat of the Quran are also considered
its overpowering
miracles.
And the policies of Allah have also been
delivered to us through His
ayat.
So how is the king being introduced
by his
ayaat? And the first thing you notice in
the next aya is
He reads on to the people his ayaat,
Allah's ayaat,
introducing them to Allah.
The second name of Allah mentioned here was
that he is the ultimately pure.
Well, if he is the pure,
one of the things he wants for you
is for you to become more pure.
So the prophet
the second thing Allah says
about the Prophet is He purifies them.
He purifies. And each one of these is
a book by itself.
Is a study by itself.
How does he do that? How does he
purify them? What exactly is he purifying? What's
his process of purifying? That's a study by
itself.
The third item was remember what does mean?
An authority that you cannot
overcome.
An authority can only be known by policies,
laws,
governance.
And you know what? The word for law
in Arabic is?
Kitab is actually the word classical word for
law.
One of the few. Deen is also another
word for law actually.
So Allah for example says in the Quran,
The law of Allah binding upon you.
Fasting was made the law over you.
It's not just written on you, it's made
the law that's why it's used in that
sense. Now
Allah says,
He teaches them the book which also includes
what? The law. The last name of Allah
is Al Hakim.
What else does the Prophet teach? Salallahu alayhi
wasalam.
One thing I didn't mention to you, sometimes
you have a law but it doesn't make
any sense.
Sometimes you have laws and they make no
sense.
So somebody used their power of Aziz
but the policy they made shows that they
are not very Hakim
Allah is Al Aziz
Allah
is Every one of his laws is full
of
wisdom. They go
the authority and the wisdom of Allah go
hand in hand, they're together. Which is why
the names in the
Quran, they usually come together many many places
in the Quran you'll find.
And what do you find in the Prophet's
ayah, the second ayah, about the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam? Allah says, walkitaba
wal Hikma He put kitab and hikma together.
Just like he puts Aziz Hakim together, he
put kitab and hikma together with one verb.
So in the in this
incredible
process, this is actually one way of thinking
about this is
these four steps of the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam
is his way of bringing Allah into the
hearts and minds and lives of people.
This is how he brought about our transformation
among the Sahaba. Allah is actually outlining his
entire methodology.
And then he mentions in the 3rd ayah
after that,
this ayah is about you and me, others
who have not yet joined them.
There are others who have not yet joined
them.
And Allah is the ultimate authority, He knows.
In other words, Allah has the authority to
decide when they will join.
What and what century will Islam come to
Malaysia?
Allah will decide.
How will Islam spread in Malaysia? Allah has
a wise plan for it.
How will Allah introduce
this religion
to like remote islands,
you know.
And the you know, there I just came
from Australia. There are aborigines Muslims,
right?
That
are not learning their deen, they are teaching
their deen, they are doing dawah of their
deen, and they are committed Muslims.
What hikmah does Allah have for these people
a century from now? What plan does he
have? This is the plan of Allah. He
wanted this to become a global enterprise.
He wanted it to keep on spreading and
keep on spreading. Now,
this was the first section. I know I
only have 6 more minutes,
but I'm going to some go super fast
now. Just to give you this is an
overview
session.
The second session, let me sec section let's
see if you remember. What was the second
section about?
And if that was music
Something about Islam. You're right, sir. Very good.
Very good.
Tawah.
About Tawah.
Man, there's so much to tell you. My
head is exploding. I don't know how to
do these 6 minutes, but I'm gonna
I'm gonna figure this out somehow. Let me
just tell you one thing.
I'll start off with this one thing.
The,
the Israelites
in this
ayah,
Allah says those who were given the burden
of Torah
were not and they didn't carry it
and they're being compared to what? You guys
know?
To donkeys. And that sounds very insulting.
That sounds very insulting. Why would they be
compared to donkeys?
I didn't memorize this so I put it
in my phone. I'm gonna read this to
you.
This is from
the first part I'm gonna read this to
you is the Seferi Debarim,
the Midrash compilation. This is Jewish literature called
the Midrash. Okay?
And it's an analogy of the Jews and
Gentiles. The Jewish people believe that they were
chosen by God.
Right? And this is one of their analogies.
Listen to this carefully.
A man sent his donkey and his dog
to the granary
with
15
of grain. Meaning, 15
15 loads of grain. Okay?
He sent 2,
a dog and a donkey. This is an
example they're giving. Okay? Now,
the donkey
of grain were loaded on atop the donkey
and 3 so 7 on top of the
donkey, 3 on top of the dog.
The donkey walked and the dog strained to
breathe. The dog started,
you know, started doing that. Okay.
His tongue lowling, he cast aside one and
placed it atop the donkey and then he
did the same with the second and then
the 3rd. Meaning the the dog couldn't carry
the load so he put one and then
the other and then the third one all
on top of the
Donkey. Okay.
This is how Israel accepted the Torah
together with its commentaries
and its minutiae
even those 7 commandments
that the Nohides could not abide and cast
aside,
Israel came and accepted.
In this analogy,
the Israelites in the Midrash took pride that
they were the donkey.
And they carried the burden of the Torah
all the way to the top of the
mountain
and the rest of humanity was like a
dog who was too tired
and gave it to them. So
actually,
the example of the donkey among the Jewish
tradition
was not an insult.
It was actually originally not an insult. Now
listen to this.
The same word
in this I read the English translation, obviously
it's in Hebrew.
Guess what the word is for
the donkey in the Hebrew? It's
What word did Allah use in the ayah?
Okay.
Then
the donkey then became a complicated
use in Israel. Sometimes negative, sometimes
positive. I'll give you a negative.
Zohar teaches that the donkey is
I don't know Hebrew. The ultimate source of
impurity. In addition, the Maharal of Prague noted
that the Hebrew word for donkey, chamor,
shares the same root as the word for
material. The donkey, he explained, is a symbol
of materialism.
Now the Quran will describe that they love
this life.
And their own literature is saying that the
word for donkey and the word for materialism
is the same.
It's interesting. Then, the Israelites in Egypt Remember
before they escaped Egypt, they were there in
Egypt? Okay. The Israelites in Egypt Egypt had
sunk to the lowest levels of idolatry and
impurity.
Outwardly,
they were indistinguishable
from their Egyptian neighbors.
Meaning,
the Muslims of that time were living under
a dominant superpower
and they started accepting the culture of that
superpower. So they looked more like
their rulers.
They started copying them in everything that they
do. To the point according to the Midrash,
even the angels were unable to distinguish between
the 2 nations.
Now that sounds funny
until you look at the Muslim behavior and
how much we copy
colonizing nations
in our behavior.
That sounds like,
I'm Israelites and then you look oh, wait.
They questioned God's decision to rescue the Israelites
at the Red Sea. According to them, the
angels when they were being commanded to open
up the sea and that the angels were
like, You Allah, why are we doing this?
Like they are not that different.
Protesting. The angels protested according to them. Both
the Egyptians and the Israelites are idol worship
they worship idols.
But as with the donkey listen to this
part now we get to the donkey.
As with the donkey, the impurity of the
Jewish people was only on the surface,
hiding a great inner,
inner holiness.
So they believe that the donkey is impure
on the outside but pure on the
inside.
There's donkey with a and there's many other
examples. What I wanted to tell you is
why why did I share this with you?
I share this with you because the Quran
is very aware
of Jewish tradition
and is using language
that they are familiar with when Allah talks
to them.
What does that teach us?
We cannot talk to people of other faiths
about their tradition
until we know
about their tradition.
Even Allah is demonstrating knowledge of those tradition.
If you wanna have any intelligent conversation
and engage in respectful dialogue with people of
other faith, you have to know something about
them. Even the word
is so amazing.
The word Quduz was used in Syria, Christian,
Phoenician and Hebrew.
It was used a variation of it. And
you know what they believed about it? They
believed that Adam
was so the angels were commanded to worship
Adam.
Some of them believed the angels were commanded
to worship Adam. And what did Allah say?
Allah Himself
is nobody else. And the angels never worship
Adam, the angels were commanded to do
sajal. So Allah is correcting
the corruption that happened in the previous scripture.
You see? Now this middle portion, quickly 2
minutes now, I promise.
This scripture that Allah gave to the Israelites
that they weren't able to carry, that they
weren't able to carry. Why is Allah mentioning
this right after He mentions our book, the
Prophet
All of these are referring to the Quran
fundamentally.
Why mention the Jews and how they failed
with their book immediately?
Allah is telling us learn
their history,
learn the mistakes that they made with their
book,
learn how their relationship with their book became
only about memorizing it,
only about reciting its sounds,
not really knowing what it says. It became
about extracting fatwas that you can use to
fight each other. That's it. But it no
longer
affected them on a day to day basis.
But it no longer
affected them on a day to day basis.
It became an artificial
intellectual
superficial kind of relationship
with their book.
And Allah says about those people that they
actually but by the word
which has two sides. One side of it
is the donkey, the other side is materialism.
And Allah is essentially saying, the more that
happened,
the more that nation became materialistic.
The more that nation became materialistic.
And as a result of that, they started
getting afraid of death.
There's too many things to talk to you
about but I'll just tell you one last
thing about this middle passage.
One last thing and then we'll get to
the last passage.
Sorry.
Sorry.
I'm really not sorry at all but
I have to say that. Okay.
I met a doctor
in Denmark
who deals with people that are in their
last stages of life.
Okay?
And he has to tell the family,
there's a few days left, there's a week
left,
there's 2 weeks left. It's better you take
him home. It's better you take her home.
He says when I tell
a a Danish family, a Swedish family, a
German family,
you know, you only have 5 days left
or 3 days left. We don't think it's
gonna be that long.
The person the atheist
who's dying,
he says, I just wanna go home and
sit next to my garden. I like my
garden.
And it's okay. Don't cry. And everybody else,
know what they do after he dies? After
he dies, they have a party, they all
drink beer and they talk about, man, he
was funny.
This one time
I punched him in the face.
And they're just
and nobody is crying. They accept
the death and somehow in their head they
tell themselves, he went back to mother earth.
That's what they tell themselves.
This doctor told me, the only people I
have ever met
who completely
lose their mind
when you tell them
they only have 3 days, they only have
this many days. No, no, no. You have
to do something. They cannot die. They cannot
die. I don't accept this. They will not
no, no, no. They'll never die. They'll never
That's my mom, that's my dad, that's my
brother. You can't say that. You know who
they
are?
The Muslims.
The
Muslims
can't accept it.
Losing their mind, completely devastated.
What does Allah say here?
He says,
the death that you are running so far
away
from, it's going to meet you. Allah was
telling this to the Israelites
because he is telling them the more the
farther they got from their book,
the more they weren't ready to meet Allah.
And the more they wanted to stay alive
here
because dying means you have to meet
Allah
He's gonna be meeting you.
The purpose of revelation
the purpose of revelation
is to prepare me to meet Allah.
That's its purpose.
And when I forget that purpose, when I
don't have a connection to that purpose and
it becomes rusty,
then
I become so lost in this life
that I don't want to let go.
I don't want to let go. Then when
I'm getting older, I'm really trying to look
and feel younger
because I can't let go
And when I get to a midlife crisis,
I'm gonna buy the car that I always
wanted to buy when I was a teenager
because I wanna feel young again
And I'm gonna do crazy things
in my later years. I you know, when
I was studying Surah Al Hakaf and a
person becomes 40 and they turn to Allah,
I studied the midlife crisis in psychology.
People that turn a certain age and they
realize death is this is the last chapter
of their youth,
right? This is it. And after that you're
an old man or an old woman. They
do the craziest things.
They do the wildest things because they're like
almost unaccepting
of the reality that
death is coming, death is looming. It's the
saddest reality.
Allah says, why are you running from it?
You are going to meet me.
No. This was a little bit about the
middle passage.
Last passage.
What is it about?
What is it about? Waiting.
Jawa prayer.
Did you know in Surat Al Taqabun which
is very similar to this surah in many
ways?
Allah called the day of judgment
The day He gathers you for the day
of jama'ah. And what's this day that Allah
wants us to gather every week?
Jum'ah. And which day will judgement day be?
On jum'ah.
It's gonna be on the jum'ah.
Every jumuah
is a reminder
of judgment day. On judgment day, human beings
will come in front of Allah whether they
want to or not. Isn't that true?
Everybody will come out of their grave and
they will
go.
But before that day,
Allah says, I want you to get in
the habit of gathering for me
when I call you
every single week
so that you are the people that don't
come because they're forced to come, you're the
people that came because you want to come.
You will be different on judgement day because
you were different in this life, you were
preparing for that gathering every single week,
every single week.
Is actually a practice for
That's what it is.
And so Allah mentioned it at the end.
And when He mentioned it at the end,
He reminded us don't become materialistic.
Don't treat Jumu'a lightly. Don't go running off
into business. Why? Because if you go running
off into business, you became materialistic
again. And that's like the section 2.
Don't go down that road.
This is sacred.
This last section,
these last few ayat about the Friday prayer
now understand what their relationship is with section
number 1. You understand this connection to section
number 2. Let's and by the way, those
were the people of the Sabbath and we're
the people of the Friday, right? Saturday and
Friday.
But understand its relationship with the beginning of
the surah.
Allah told us that he deserves the
and every creation does it and he told
us his four names.
Then he told us how his prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam is going to bring about
an awareness of those four names of Allah
with his own method.
Now Allah said, when the Prophet is gone
because
other people will come.
After the Prophet is gone, how are we
going to keep alive
for the entire public.
Look, this event there had to be an
announcement.
You had to get an email, a text
message, a social media notification,
somebody called you and harassed you to come,
whatever.
But there had to be an announcement before
you can make it here.
Is there any announcement for Jum'ah prayer?
Is there do you have to be told,
Hey, by the way, this Friday Jum'ah prayer.
Do the Muslims have to be told? They
show up anyway.
Allah created a mechanism
by which the Muslims will gather with no
advertising,
no marketing,
no nothing.
The biggest convention
of the ummah doesn't happen once a year,
it happens every single
Friday like clockwork
across the city, across the country, across the
world
and Allah gathered us for one purpose,
so we can relive
This was our first step.
So the Friday prayer and the Khutba of
Friday
is so strategically
important.
It's so strategically important.
It is actually the way
that the will find its way back
to the actual
of Allah.
That's why the of the Friday
has to be so inspired by the word
of Allah
bringing back
And when people hear the word of Allah,
something in their thoughts will become clean, something
in their hearts will become a little bit
more clean.
And then they'll say, what should I do?
I need to learn more. And the process
of learning the kitab and the hikmah will
begin.
This is the process of transformation Allah gave
us in this incredible ayah.
I begin with I end with something I
I started with. I said it earlier earlier
on.
Allah has given us an incredible religion where
Allah did not want us to lose
the beauty of this life or the next
life.
Allah gave us the rizq of this
life
at the end of this surah. And Allah
gave us the rizq that beautifies this life
and the next life and that would be
the the teachings of this deen, the spiritual.
The spiritual and the material
are combined together in our religion.
The people that came before us, some of
them became completely material,
and some of them became completely
spiritual. I'm gonna live in the monastery, I'm
not gonna get married, I'm gonna wear the
same robe everyday,
I'm gonna live up in
the church, and etcetera etcetera.
That's
completely spiritual.
And others became completely
material. What did Allah do? Allah made the
human being of 2 parts. He made me
with a body and He made me with
In the surah, He gave me the rizq
for my body
and He gave me the rizq for my
rizq and He combined them both on Friday.
When you get the word of Allah on
Friday, Allah will put barakah in your rizq
and your material life will become beautiful.
So when we think about the Muslims wanting
economic prosperity, social prosperity, political prosperity,
maybe if we do Jum'ah right, that's gonna
all come back.
Maybe that's the that's the key. Maybe that's
what's missing. If we do the if we
fulfill the rights of the Jum'ah prayer and
restore it to the spirit of Jum'ah described
in Surah Al Jum'ah, and we don't become
like the people in the middle.
What is that mean at the end? That
means you're sitting in the khutbah, so the
person is saying a bunch of things in
Arabic and you're like
and then he
says, and you're standing in salah and he's
reciting it. You're like
You're carrying it, but you're not carrying it.
You're hearing it, but you're not hearing it.
It's supposed to purify you. It doesn't do
anything except put you to sleep.
That's what it does.
You're thinking about what's gonna be for lunch.
There's gonna be a long line.
Where did I put my shoes?
Oh my God. Did I leave the keys
in the car?
We have to restore the spirit of Friday
back. May Allah
empower us to
restore the spirit of Jum'ah in light of
the Quran. I was going to apologize for
taking extra time,
but I'm not.
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
very expensive. So if you can help sponsor
students on Bayina 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
of the Quran and the beauty of it
the world over.
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