Suhaib Webb – The Glistening Pearl (AlKharida alBahiyyah) Lesson One
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AI: Transcript ©
Welcome now to our 3rd in the series,
the Swiss series on theology. So this should
be
the first text that you're taking in the
level 3 series here at Swiss.
We're reading the book Al Haridah Al Beihi,
which actually is a poem written by a
sheikh Ahmed ad Dardir al Madki al Azhari.
We talked about him previously and actually he's
the same writer
as our first text in the Swiss series
on theology, the essentials,
of Islamic faith. So he begins this poem
which is around
209 lines. He says, Bismillahir
Rahmanir Rahim. And, of course, he begins
with bismillahi hurrahmanur Rahim because of the narration
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa'arihi wasallam
Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi
Wasallam he said that every,
every important issue,
which is not commenced with the Basmala
saying Bismillahi hu rahmanirrahim
is devoid
of blessings
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. I want to spend a
few moments with you unpacking the Basmala
because it's so important. That's kind of the
acronym for Bismillahir
Rahman. Rahim is the Basmala
And I wanna spend a few moments talking
about it because it's something that we say
so much. Like all the time we say
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem.
The first
is that Bismillahir Rahim is an incomplete sentence.
If I were to say to you with
the name of Allah, the most gracious to
most merciful, you would ask me what? What's
with?
So that tells you right there there that
there's something missing. And this is something that
you'll study with us in tafsir, that
classical Arabic language
is a language which tries to distill an
incredible amount of meaning in a few words
called Ijaz and rhetoric.
So the actual meaning is
I begin
with
the names of Allah, then there should be
a colon,
the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
That's how you should understand it. And that's
very important.
Maybe somebody asked, like, why
isn't that verb mentioned like I begin or
I recite?
Why is it Bismillahir
Rahmanur Rahim? And we take from that the
comprehensiveness of dhikr
and the blessings that Islam can be
injected into any situation.
So whatever I'm doing,
I write I
eat
I'm she. I
walk
And then I sleep
So by leaving out the verb,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala allows us to remember
him in any situation
and to invoke him. And as we're going
to unpack the basmalah,
you're going to see why this is very
beautiful and very important.
The Ba' in Bismillahi hurrahman and Raheem is
a very unique Ba'ah. There's like 5 different
types of Ba'ah in the Arabic language. There's
a ba of cause.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
because of their evil,
we made good things forbidden for them. So
the bat there means because.
Bat also has a meaning of al istiana.
So I use something if I say
I'm writing with the aid b Al Qalam.
Here you can see the depth of the
Arabic language. And from now on,
as you have reached this far with me
in your studies, I'm going to start to
continue to build certain skill sets that I
want you
to learn and get used to as you're
gonna see in a second.
Here, the ba
is the ba of Tabarruk.
Yani I seek the blessings of Allah's names
and notice I didn't say the name of
Allah. I said with the
names of Allah. If you look at it,
Bismi, isim is singular. Isim Mufrad,
isim Allah.
If you speak Arabic or if you take
an Arabic or that's a Swiss, you know,
this is
There's a very beautiful rule in Arabic that
says
that a singular possessive
can actually mean a plural. The idea of
distilling meaning in a few words. So the
actual meaning is whatever verb I'm I'm whatever
verb I'm doing,
I seek the blessing of
Asma'ilah.
All the names of Allah.
SubhanAllah. That's why the abbas'ilah is so important
man.
So
I walk, I make wudu, I eat, I
sleep, everything I just said now
seeking the blessing of all Allah's names.
That's why one of the fruits of the
basmalah is you should feel brave.
Whatever situation you walk into, you can invoke
every single name of Allah azza wa Jal,
the names he taught and the names he
didn't teach us. When you say
The name Allah
there's a difference of opinion amongst the scholars
about his name. Does
it have a root in the Arabic language
or not? Those who say that it has
a root in the Arabic language says it
comes from yalu, which means like something transcendent
or yutlah, something which is worshiped. You have
different opinions, but the stronger opinion is that
it it's not it's not extracted. It's a
proper noun. It's the name of Allah.
So b asma'illah,
bismillahi.
And here's the colon because out of all
of the names that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
wanted to introduce us to in the Quran
and now the sheikh in the text,
The 2 that he chose to mention are
Al Rahman
Bismillahi,
you know,
Al Qahari
Al Wahidi. He said Bismillahi
ur Rahman ur Rahim. The first names that
we're introduced to are the names that invoke
a sense of mercy for us as believers
as we struggle
to maintain a life of faith and devotion
against the current
of deep,
violent, aggressive disbelief.
So Sayna Mawlana Shaykh Ahmad Dardir, what we
understand here is
That I
commenced this text
by writing it, seeking the blessings of Allah,
the names of Allah,
meaning the most gracious who is Allah, the
most merciful.
Let's talk quickly about
Ar Rahman,
The form ar Rahman
fa'alan
and raheem
fa'il.
They both are used in the Arabic language
as you'll study with us in morphology
to show emphasis.
Hyperbole.
So someone who's, like, constantly angry.
We don't we don't say he's.
We say.
Like, he has intense anger. Someone who we
ask a lot to protect us who has
chemical dependency is issues. We don't say sac
and we say sac
We have a very important axiom in morphology
that says
which means when you add
things to a word, you add to its
meanings intensity. So rahima,
rahman,
and then that nun and that adif,
it brings a sense of emphasis, a more
high, intense meaning.
Rahim
fa'il,
like someone who's really tall, you say taweeel.
It's called Sifa Moshaba,
which means it is there. It is that
person's essence.
Now, there's a very important principle here that
we want to talk about because Arrahma,
its meaning in the Arabic language is rakatulqal
right? Is a kindness or a sense of
empathy in the heart
of a person.
And then that that that empathy
then causes a person to be benevolent and
kind to another's.
So the the the remember this, the outcome
of Rahma is yesah.
The outcome of Rahma is goodness.
We have a very important principle in Aqidah,
and you need to remember this, that whenever
one of the names of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala or the attributes of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala couldn't be confused for something which is
human,
We immediately
understand it to be
understood in its most transcendent
way.
So when we say that Allah is Ar
Rahman, Ar Raheem,
we don't understand it to mean that Allah
has a physical heart,
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has a physic-
is a physical being like you and I
that has empathy.
We interpret it to mean the transcendent
goal of the word. So what's the goal
of Rahma? It's ihsan and iata.
What's the goal of Rahim?
It's al-'afu is forgiveness.
Watafardul
in blessings.
And that's why this axiom, I want to
mention it to you. You need to remember
this because as we continue in our studies,
this is how you're going to start to
learn.
And the axiom says.
This is a very, very important principle in
Arhusunna
that says
anything
impossible
which is impossible for us to believe about
God. Like
God's mercy and empathy is like the physical
mercy and empathy that you and I experience
or that we engage in with our emotions
and with our heart and that we're moved
by the physical world. For example,
It is allowed then
to interpret it, to apply it in our
relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Based on its
goal and here what we mean by goal
is a goal that transcends the material world.
So we see how Allah loves, doesn't love
like you and I know. Allah knows. Allah
doesn't know like you and I know. Allah
has mercy, not like you and I have
mercy. So we interpret those kind of attributes,
and this is going to come in future
text.
Which which means we interpret them using the
following things. Number 1, that they are beyond
time. So Allah's mercy is beyond time.
It's not like you and I may one
day I'm merciful, one day I'm a jerk,
one day I'm kind, one day I'm not.
Rahmatullah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Azalee
meaning primordial
and that it has no ending.
2nd,
that it has no likeness to creation and
creation has no likeness to Him
in his transcending
benevolence and his,
And then the third, again, we said it
just a second ago, we also
recognize that nothing can compare to that in
any way, shape, or form, and that means
really three things. Number 1 is tajim.
So if any of those attributes we could
understand through our own physical existence, that's called
tajsim from just somebody.
So we interpret it beyond that. Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala doesn't have rahma like you're gonna
have rahma. He's transcendent rahma that has no
beginning
and no ending and that is a constant.
That's why you studied Sifat al Ma'ani
when we went to the earlier text.
The second is talfil and the third is
tashbih that nothing
is equal to him in his rahma or
is even partially like him
in his Rahma. And you'll remember we talked
about
in
our classes on Al Qaeda that Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala is in opposition to all created
things. Created things are in opposition to him.
So remember this axiom, try to write it
down, write it in gold.
It's a very simple axiom, which means
any of those axioms which may cause us
to
initially think if we go with the
definition
found in the dictionary of the word,
something physical in relationship to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala,
we eschew that physical reality interpreted by its
transcendent,
undefinable
goal.
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So we'll stop here inshallah, but you can
see there's a lot of things going on.
That's why Abdul Iva Mas'ud said there are
19 letters in
and there are 19 doors of hellfire.
So whoever wants to save themselves,
We begin now the text.