Safi Khan – Soul Food for College Students
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AI: Transcript ©
Okay.
Assalamu alaikum, everyone.
Welcome back to, our weekly conversation of Soul
Food. I hope everyone is doing well. Sorry.
I'm situating my Instagram camera real quick for
you guys. Okay.
Okay. So everybody should be able to see
me, hear me, audio, visual, everything should be
good.
I hope everyone is being able to
hear, comprehend everything well. So for those of
you who are on Instagram,
just kind of like an update.
Facebook is gonna be kind of like our
follow along type of format where,
we have the screen share available where you'll
be able to see the verses that we're
going through. But obviously, if if you're in
your car or in your moments where you
can't actually see something,
then obviously Instagram is more than a good,
alhamdulillah, to follow along.
So for those of us who are on
Facebook and also those who are on Instagram,
we are going through now
the next chapter
of Surat Al Qasas. Surat Al Qasas obviously
is the 28th chapter in the Quran,
majority
of which is highlighting the life of 1
prophet Musa.
And prophet Musa, alayhis salam,
obviously, we discussed
before
that, you know, he went through already a
tremendous amount of difficulty in his life. Right?
And he went through the you know, even
before he was cognitively
aware,
he went through the trials of being floated
down a river.
Then he went through the trial of being
picked up by the same person who was,
at the end of the day, gonna try
to kill him because of a prophecy he
was afraid of.
And then he was raised in that kind
of household,
and then he accidentally
should break up a fight. He come he
he he accidentally
killed somebody,
and therefore, he ran away
to a different area, to a different land
called Madyan.
And then he helped these 2 young women
out in terms of watering their flocks for
them. And then he makes his
dua And then they invite him to their
their father's house who also ends up being
a prophet of God. His name is Prophet
Shoaib
And at that point, Prophet Shoaib is so
impressed with the
overall
decency
and morality
and genuine nature of prophet Musa that he
not only offers him a job and reward,
but he also says that one of his
daughters is interested in marrying him. And, again,
you know, one of the things that we
have talked about extensively over the past couple
of weeks is the idea of the sincerity
aspect of when a person does something.
That when you do something very sincerely,
the reward ultimately lies with Allah. Right?
That your reward is everlasting. It doesn't end.
Okay? And so prophet Musa alayhis salaam was
a direct recipient
of that reward of that principle. That if
you do things sincerely
and you do things without seeking a reward
immediately with anybody in this life, then Allah
will reward you greatly.
And most of us have our hopes in
the hereafter, but sometimes Allah might actually fast
forward that reward and give you something in
this life as well. And so he gives
prophet Musa Alaihi Salam
stability.
Right? Going from a fugitive with no family,
no money. He goes to having a job
for 8 to 10 years and also getting
married to somebody that deeply appreciates him and
he ends up appreciating her as he gets
to know her. And so now at this
point of prophet Musa's life in verse 29,
for those of you who are on Facebook
and follow along, is that Prophet Musa Alaihi
Salam now, he goes through this emotion where
he's lived a majority of his life now
or a big part of his life now
in being a fugitive or leaving his hometown
or being away from Egypt where he was
raised.
And so he has this kind of, you
know, tendency, this human nature of wanting to
go back, of wanting to go back. And
this is the same thing with the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. This was the same thing,
you know, with with other prophets of God,
prophet Yusuf alaihi wasallam, where they actually wanted
to end up going back to where they
originated from. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam obviously
end up living in Medina for the rest
of his life, but he also wanted to
go back and and be in the same
place that he was born and raised. Right?
Makkah was still a home to him, You
know? And it was painful being away from
that for so long. And even those of
you who know, you know. If you've moved
away from, you know, your home at an
early age or even, you know, later on
in your life, there's still this kind of
really heart tugging feeling that you get when
you land back in your hometown.
Right? Even if, like, you know, you established
a life somewhere else. You got married. You
got a job. You're going to school somewhere
else. And a lot of the, you know,
experience that you had in your life came
from that new
place, there's
still this feeling of home that you miss.
There's still this feeling of home that you
yearn for. And prophet Musa, alayhis salam,
was yearning for that feeling of of of
home.
And prophet Musa Alaihi Salam was yearning for
that feeling
of home because that's where his mom is.
That's where his mother is. Home is where
the heart is, right? And so prophet Musa,
alayhis salam, he tells his family now, the
woman that he got married to, one of
the daughters of prophet Shoaib alayhis salam. He
gathers his his his family, and he says,
we're going to go travel.
We're gonna go travel. Alright?
And
they gather their things, and they start traveling.
And they cross this desert called the Sinai
Desert. Alright? They cross the Sinai Desert.
And at this point, Allah,
he says in the Quran, he says,
right?
That once Musa had fulfilled the term or
his term and was traveling with his family.
Okay?
He caught sight of a fire. Oh, he
caught sight of a fire on the side
of the mountain. Okay? Minh, it it says
here.
Okay? Okay. So he saw a fire from
the side of the mountain. And, obviously, if
you put yourself in his shoes, you know,
traveling is not as easy as it is
today. Right? You don't just catch a flight.
You knock out on the plane. Right? You
wake up and you're at your destination without
even feeling a pain of hunger or feeling
the pain of thirst or feeling any sort
of wear and tear whatsoever. Now in the
time of prophet Musa, you're traveling through the
desert, you're going through like a terrain that's
difficult.
Food is limited. Water is limited.
And so prophet Musa from a far away
place, he says, I mean, Allah says, I
mean,
he sees a fire. He sees a fire
on the side of a mountain. And this
is, by the way, the mountain of Sinai.
And
he sees this fire, and he tells his
family. He says,
He says,
he says, kusu. Okay? Kusu,
inni. He's
a
Okay? He says that, you know, sit here
and wait. I have seen a fire. I
saw a fire with my own eyes. I
will bring some new I'll bring you some
news from there. Like, I'm gonna go there
and see if there's anything for us to
kind of benefit from. Maybe it's another people
that are traveling, a group of folks that
are going on a on a journey just
like us. Maybe there's some food there. Whatever
it is, I'm gonna go and check it
out over
I'm gonna go check it out. Alright? And
by the way, the story of prophet Musa
alayhi salaam is covered in much greater capacity
in other Surah as well. For example, Surat
Al Araf
covers the meaning of Allah and prophet Musa.
Surat Al Taha, which we're gonna kind of
reference here in a second, also covers a
little bit of the story of prophet Musa
and Allah. Okay?
Another surah that covers it is Surah Al
Shura. Surah also covers kind of like the
later half of prophet Musa alaihis salam's life.
And so at this point here, prophet Musa,
he's going towards this mountain.
Right? This Mount of Sinai, Turi Sinim.
And he goes up there, and he's looking
for where the source of this fire is.
What is it? Right? What could it possibly
be?
And when he gets up there, it says
It
says here, but when he reached it,
a voice called out to him.
A voice called out to prophet Musa alaihi
salaam.
Okay? And now prophet Musa alayhis salam is
a little bit afraid.
He goes, okay. This voice is very intimidating.
You know, I'll give you guys a very
I'll give you guys a short reference here.
It said here, the prophet Musa alayhis salam,
he it proves that he was one of
the prophets that was in the presence of
God himself. Right? Prophet Musa, alayhis salam, was
one of the prophets who had the honor
of being in the presence of Allah himself.
So the natural question is,
what did Allah look like?
Right? What was it? What was it like
to be in the presence of God? A
lot of us sitting here in our day
and age, you know, a big thing that
would resolve a lot of the crises of
faith that people have,
A lot of the the the things that
would be solved by the issues that people
have in faith and the lack thereof would
be solved if you could just see God.
Right? If God really is there, then why
can't we see him? Okay. So he says
that he's in the presence of prophet Musa.
So what is the situation when he's with
prophet Musa alaihis salaam? Right? What what is
Allah what does he look like? What is
he doing there? Right?
One of the examples I wanna give here
is when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he
was going on this journey called Isra wal
Mi'raj. Everyone has heard of this journey before.
Right. The miraculous journey that the prophet took
to go to the heavens. Right. To go
and see the heavens.
And he went up and up and up
through layers and stages
and in pieces of heaven. And he sees
prophets of old. He sees prophet Musa. He
sees prophet Erisa. He sees prophet Yusuf. He
sees Harun. He sees Ibrahim. He sees Adam.
He sees all these prophets, and he finally
goes up to this area where Jibril alayhis
salam, the angel, the archangel Gabriel,
he tells the prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi sallam,
he says, You Rasoolullah,
I can go no further.
I can go no further than this.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam just
kinda taken aback because, you know, Jibril alaihi
salam is almost like that friend role to
the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam. Right? He's like
an older brother, like a protector. He goes,
Jabril, you gotta come with me. Right? Like,
what am I gonna do about myself?
Jabril goes, if we, the angels,
are going any further than this, then the
moment we go further to this level that
we are not allowed to go into, we
would disintegrate into nothing.
We would disintegrate into nothing,
Jibril alaihi sallam says, and he's the greatest
of the angels.
Okay?
And
when the prophet Muhammad
went to the heavens and he was in
the presence of Allah, and Allah gave him
the ordinance of prayer of good deeds,
of, you know, how the scales are weighed
in terms of good versus bad deeds.
A lot of the companions when the prophet
came back, they said,
what did Allah look like?
This is like a very fascinating question.
What did Allah look like?
What was it like to be in the
presence of Allah?
The prophet
he tells his companions. He says,
you know, my dear friends, my companions,
how could I glance upon Allah himself?
There's a narration that says that when the
prophet of Allahu alayhi wasalam neared the presence
of Allah, he immediately fell into sajdah. So
his eyes could not gaze upon Allah.
He fell into sujood in front of Allah
that his eyes would not be allowed to
look at Allah directly. He was in a
state of prostration the entire time he was
talking to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. And there's a narration here from Surat
Al A'raf, for the same thing of prophet
Musa. When prophet Musa Alaihi Salam was in
the presence of Allah in this case right
here, it says that the intensity was so
high.
You know?
When they were when he was on top
of this mountain, the intensity was so high
that he it says that he Allah called
him towards a tree. Okay? It says a
tree right here. In this in this verse
right here, you can see my mouse. I'm
pulling it right here.
It says,
Okay?
Means from a tree on a blessed ground.
Okay? I'll, it says here,
That if it was a blessed ground that
the and and there was a tree there.
So we know the descriptions of what it
looked like when prophet Musa saw Allah is
that there was a tree, there was a
fire, and, you know, Allah was just it
was like a light. Okay? And from this
light, prophet Musa, alayhi salam, Surah Al A'raf,
it says that prophet Musa passed out. He
fainted.
He felt unconscious
because of the greatness of Allah's presence that
Musa, alayhis salam, himself, he went completely
unconscious.
And then when he woke again,
he woke up.
He heard a voice that said, You Musa.
Okay? Says here in Suratul Qasas, ayah 30,
it says
You Musa,
I am God.
He says,
I am Allah.
The Lord of the worlds. The Lord of
all the worlds.
Okay?
And inshallah Allah
Allah also expands on this. He actually says
he says,
Right? Indeed, I am Allah and, you know,
there is no God except me.
Okay? So worship me.
And and and establish prayer.
Pray for Allah so you can remember him.
That's one of the first orders that Allah
gives prophet Musa alaihi salaam.
It's incredible. You know, a lot of us
sometimes we try to kind of downplay this
idea of salah. Right? Oh, salah. If I
miss salah, it's whatever. If I miss fajr,
it's whatever. If as long as I got
Ramadan. Right? I was like, you know, as
long as I get, like, at least 3
out of 5, I'm shooting, like, you know,
75%.
I'm shooting 60%. Right? I got 4 out
of 5, man, I'm shooting 80%. It's better
than, like, Steph Curry's free throw jumper. Like,
you know, like, we we start to rational
rationalize ourselves, like, what the
the the the make of tendency of salah
is.
But if we really understood the concept of
salah and catching your salah, making sure you
pray, why?
To remember Allah, we would never again question
the importance of this prayer. We would never
again dare to question the importance of salah.
And so at this point,
Allah insatul Taha, he tells prophet Musa Alaihi
Salam, he says the hour is coming. Okay?
Though I choose to keep it hidden, Allah
says that the day of judgment is coming,
Yeah, Musa.
Okay? The day of judgment is coming, and
this is Surah Al Taha.
The The day of judgment is coming, but
I'm keeping it a secret. I'm not going
to disclose exactly when it's going to hit.
For each soul is to be rewarded for
its labor.
Okay? Each soul
is to
be Every soul will be held accountable for
what it did in this life. Yeah, Musa.
He says, do not let anyone who does
not believe in it and follows his own
desires distract you from it. Okay? He goes,
don't let this life don't let this life
fool you. This life is temporary.
And then here, Allah ta'ala in Suratul Tasas,
he says,
he goes, what do you have? He he
goes, throw down your staff, Musa.
He goes, throw down your staff.
Okay?
He says, He goes throw down your staff.
And prophet Musa, alayhi salam, he threw down
his staff.
When he saw his staff moving like a
snake,
he fled in fear. He got scared.
He got so frightened that a staff could
move like a snake that he fled.
And Allah says in that he would not
return unless I asked him to return.
Right? That the miracles of Allah are so
eye opening that some people that witness them
will run and will not return unless I
tell them to return.
Okay? And he
says, You Musa.
He says, You Musa.
He says, draw near. Come back, You Musa,
and don't be afraid.
Come back, You Musa. Don't be afraid.
You are those who are safe.
Don't worry, Musa. I got you. Alright? He
goes, Musa, throw it on your staff. His
staff becomes a snake.
Okay? And he gets extremely scared, and Allah
asked him to come back. He says, don't
worry, Musa.
You are those of you are of those
who are safe. Alright?
And then Allah tells prophet Musa to do
something else. Allah goes to prophet Musa. He
says
he says, Okay. He says he goes, put
your hand inside of your shirt, and it
will come out completely glistening white. This is
another miracle of prophet Musa, a s s,
life, that he put his hand inside of
his shirt, inside of his garment, and he
lifted it up, and it became completely
white,
completely white.
And he says to prophet Musa, alayhis salaam,
he
says,
He says that these shall be the two
signs from your Lord. Okay?
That these are the two signs from your
Lord that you are going
to that you're going to show
Okay?
You're going to show
and his chiefs these two miracles that I
just showed you. Alright?
And
they are truly wicked people.
Those people that that you used to live
with were terrible people. Pharaoh, his his homies
were terrible people.
So what I ask you to do now,
you Musa,
is
I ask you to go and pay a
visit.
Says,
It goes go pay a visit. Now
all the things that just happened, y'all,
very, very,
very interesting
and
stress inducing situation.
Prophet Musa, all he wanted to do was
go check out a fire,
and the fire ends up being Allah.
That presence ends up being Allah.
He goes, yeah, Musa,
imnani am Allah.
Okay? I'm Allah. I'm talking to you, Musa.
Musa right now is scared. He's terrified. And
by the way, the same thing happened to
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. If you think
about it. Right? And this is the humanity
of the prophets. The prophets of Allah had
this human kind of tendency within their prophethood,
that when they first were exposed to Allah
directly, they got extremely scared because this is
the actual magnificence that Allah has.
Right? You think about when the prophet of
Allah Subhan
received revelation
in the in the mountain of life. Jibril
came down and says, Iqura, You Rasulullah.
Iqura
And the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was trembling
and shaking.
He was terrified.
Talking to Allah sometimes is very intimidating.
Sometimes it's very intimidating,
but that's just to show the prophets the
magnificence of Allah.
And you know another thing I want I
wanna say to everybody,
I wanna say to all of our listeners
right now,
is that
if this is the a
limited
limited
version of what Allah really is,
prophet Musa fainted, the prophet
he didn't even talk to Allah directly. He
fell into sujood,
and Allah had to send Jibril to talk
to him through him,
but Allah continues to tell us to talk
to him.
Just remember me, and I will remember you.
Talk to me.
Talk to me. That's
it. Don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid.
Right?
Allah is so accessible.
It's one of the most beautiful points I
think I've ever heard in my life from
our teachers
is that these verses show us how magnificent
Allah is.
You will faint
if you even have, like, a glimpse of
him. He is so great that you will
fall into sujud and you cannot face him
directly. But
us, normal people,
myself,
everybody else
here at roots, Allah tells you, just talk
to me.
Just talk to me.
It's gonna be okay. I'll take care of
you. Right?
And so now
prophet Musa, alayhi salam, he tells Allah in
Suratul Qasas, verse 33, he says,
He says,
Allah
my Lord. He takes Allah as his Lord.
He says, You Allah.
He says, I killed one of their men.
10 years ago, I accidentally killed one of
them because I can't go back there.
Right?
He goes, and I'm I'm afraid.
He goes, so I'm afraid for
that they will that they're gonna kill me.
That I killed one of them accidentally years
ago, and I'm afraid if I go back
through that, they're gonna all
pile up and try to kill me.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he tells and
and then he again, another thing, actually, by
the way, before he tell he tells Allah
Allah responds to him, he says another thing.
He says,
He says, my brother
my brother, Harun, is more eloquent than I
am.
He's a better speaker than me. He goes,
Harun is a better speaker than me. I
can't go back there. I can't go back
because I killed somebody and now they're gonna
try to kill me, And I'm also stuttering
because I'm so nervous.
This is another thing of prophet Musa, by
the way. And I mentioned this in our
our stories from our past series is that
a interesting factoid that people don't know about
prophet Musa is that the scholars, they actually
said that prophet Musa alaihi salam had a
stuttering problem when he was nervous.
He had a stuttering problem when he was
nervous.
Then when he was scared or he was
a little bit afraid, prophet Musa alaihis salam
used to stutter.
He used to jumble his words a little
bit. So he asks Allah, he says,
Okay?
He says
he's more eloquent than me.
He goes, he's he's better at speaking than
I am. He's smarter than me, you Allah.
Tell him to go do it. Tell him
to go do it. I fear that they
may call me a liar. Right?
Right? He goes, I'm afraid that if I
talk, that they're gonna call me Allah, you
Allah. You know, haroon is better speaking than
me. Allah says,
Musa,
you are my prophet, and I want you
to go and talk to
Musa as Sam is scared. He's terrified.
He's so afraid.
And in this Surah
in this Surah,
in Surah Taha, right, in Surah Taha,
prophet Musa at this point makes a very
special dua. And I'll and I'll and
I'll say this dua in Arabic, and then
I'll say it again in English for everyone
to kind of understand it and carry on
or follow with the translation.
Prophet Musa in this du'a, he knew that
he had to do something that Allah ordered
him to do.
And because of this, he knew that he
had to build up some courage.
He had to build up a little bit
of bravery.
He needed some sort
of strength, some inner strength. You know, in
sports terminology, a lot of people, they kind
of, like, say this, dig deep.
Right? Dig deep and find it. It's in
you. You just gotta go and find it.
Prophet Musa Alaihi Salam and Surat Al Taha.
In Surat Al Taha, prophet Musa Alaihi Salam,
he says,
He says,
you Allah,
lift up my heart.
He goes,
expand my chest.
And then he goes,
And he says, and make
my task what you asked of me.
Make it easy, You Allah.
Don't make it difficult for me. Make it
easy.
You know, a lot of times in Islam,
we have this misunderstanding
that, like, we should go through that difficulty.
Like, we want to go through that difficulty.
We want to go through the trials and
tribulations. No, man. You don't wanna go through
difficulty. You want Allah to give you
ease. Right? You want Allah to give you
ease.
You don't say the opposite, You Allah, make
my task hard for me. You say
Make whatever
obstacle that stands in front of me, Allah,
make that obstacle easy for me.
That exam that I'm about to take that
will decide whether I get into this program
or not, Allah
make it easy for me.
Make it something that I will meet with
bravery and and encourage,
and I will triumph
over it. Make it easy for
You. It says untie the knot that's in
my tongue.
And this proves that prophet Musa had a
had had an issue with speaking when he
was nervous.
So he asks Allah.
There's a knot on my tongue, you Allah.
Sometimes you like we feel like it, by
the way. When we're nervous, we're having a
conversation with our parents
that is going
to decide our future. Right? But, like, yeah,
you know, Amu, Abu,
mama, baba, I really like this person, and
I wanna get married to them. You said,
what? Right?
Like, why don't you tell me? Right? Like,
Allah untie the knot in my in my
tongue. Because whenever I go up to these
scary moments, I get really tongue twisted.
I get tongue tied.
I get scared.
So he says, you Allah
Okay?
And then he says,
So that they may understand my words, You
Allah.
Right?
And then
Allah Ta'ala, he says, God said, we will
strengthen you, You Musa. We will strengthen you
with your brother. Okay? Allah says, I will
strengthen you with your brother,
Because I don't I'm not gonna leave you
alone. Allah will never leave you alone. Your
brother, Harun, will accompany you, but you gotta
do this thing,
You gotta do this thing. You gotta go
up to all you gotta go up to,
and you gotta tell him like it is.
But I will allow you to bring your
brother, Harun, with you. Okay? And we will
give you both power.
Okay?
Sultanan
Fala Yassiruna.
Okay?
That we will give you guys
and and and and we will give both
of you
powers. Okay? And we'll give you strength so
that they cannot touch you.
We will give you strength and power so
they cannot touch you.
Alright?
And with our signs,
Tina. Okay?
Okay? And with our signs, you and those
who follow you will triumph.
You will be successful.
You will win. Why? Because you have Allah
on your side. This is the most beautiful
thing right here. I'm gonna highlight this for
everybody as an end to today's session.
Right here is going to be our takeaway.
Allah says, with our signs
with our signs,
antumahwamanittabaakumahwamanittabaakumahalibun.
That with our signs, with our help, you
will never lose.
Understand
if you have Allah on your side, you
will always win. Understand that the entire world
stands on one side and Allah stands on
the other side, you will win because of
Allah. Understand that if you are facing the
biggest obstacle, the biggest fear in your entire
life, and that fear seems like the size
of a mountain, and, Allah is on the
other side, you will triumph over it. Why?
Because with the help of Allah, you can
triumph over anything.
With the help of God, you can triumph
over anything.
And with that, we will pause here for
today's session. I want you to keep this
about 30 minutes.
We have been able to accomplish that. Alright,
guys? So
lessons to take away from today are many.
Allah ta'ala will, you know,
sometimes
teach us in ways that are sometimes difficult.
You know, the prophet Musa, alaihi salaam, meeting
Allah was not easy. He fainted when he
first saw Allah. He got scared. He got
a little bit worried when he first saw
Allah. And Allah says,
don't worry, You Musa. You are of those
who are Amini, and Allah says, you are
those who are protected,
those who are safe. Okay?
Pray so you can remember me. Never ever
lose track of your prayers because prayer is
a way that you remember Allah. It's a
way that you keep up with Allah. That's
the way you keep in a relationship with
Allah
through your salah. Okay? And then Allah says
you have to attack your obstacles,
the things
that that make you afraid, the things that
challenge you, face them head on. But don't
face them head on just
like on a wing and a prayer. What
you say
is
Ask Allah for his help. Ask Allah to
make your task easy.
If you get nervous when you're approaching a
task and your tongue gets twisted and tied,
Ask Allah to
relieve that tongue twisting for you. Right? Make
it easy for people to understand your speech.
Alright? And then Allah says at the end,
That when you have Allah on your side
and those who follow you,
you'll win everything.
You'll triumph over everything. You don't gotta worry
about it. Alright? So inshallah, those are our
lessons for today. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
allow us to be people who are faithful
in God. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala allow
us to learn from his blessed book. May
Allah
allow us to be people who not only
recite his book, but also,
implement it, learn from it, really apply it
in our lives. May Allah
allow us to draw close to him through
our courageous, you know, our our bravery and
our courage because of the gifts that he
has given us. May Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
allow us all to be people of bravery
and all to be people of courage because
we know as long as we're believers and
we're faithful to Allah, Allah will always stand
on our side in the face of any
sort of challenge or adversity. We ask Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to accept.
Everybody. May Allah keep you guys all safe
and your family safe and secure and healthy,
and may Allah reward every single one of
you guys.