Suleiman Hani – Why Me And Other Questions of Life
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AI: Transcript ©
For our own success and our own salvation,
our own well-being. Allah
commands us, O believers be mindful of Allah
as He deserves and die not except in
a state of submission to Him.
O believers be mindful of Allah
and let every soul reflect,
think, prepare
on what you have sent ahead for tomorrow
for your afterlife.
And be mindful of Allah, be conscious of
Allah, verily Allah is aware of all that
you do.
One of the most common questions people ask
in times of hardship, whether
a personal hardship or a hardship that affects
a large group of people,
is a question of why.
And in a personalized sense, why me?
Why me going through this particular hardship?
Why did I receive this particular blessing that
I did not expect?
Question of why.
Question of desire.
And as human beings naturally
because of our limited knowledge, our insignificant
knowledge
and wisdom of the realities of the world
and the intertwined factors behind the scenes,
we wonder at times why things happen the
way that they do.
And oftentimes when people ask why, there are
many related questions to it. Why do you
exist to begin with? Why do people exist?
Why does this world exist?
Why do good things happen? Why do bad
things happen? To you or to others around
the world?
And do we have choice and how much
of that choice
do we think about and act upon on
a daily basis? Or is everything predetermined and
we have no choice?
The question of why of course is a
question in Islam of Qadr.
Thinking about one of the most important
and also least studied
pillars of iman.
Belief in Al Qadr. Al Qadr we've spoken
about many times, but Al Qadr,
the concept of divine decree, there's no perfect
word in English to summarize it. There's no
philosophical term that encompasses all aspects of Qadr
because in English in Western philosophy
there is no equivalent to the concept of
Qadr in Islam
because of its conditions, because of its guidelines,
because of its pillars.
So when we talk about Qadr, we're talking
about some very basic principles. If you believe
in these principles, you believe in Al Qadr.
Amongst them is the principle that God is
all knowing, that
knows everything
Allah knows everything that happened in the past,
everything that's happening right now to everyone and
to all of His creation and every parts
of His creation. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
knows everything that will happen in the future.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows everything that
could have happened in a different way if
it were to happen.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's knowledge is beyond our
comprehension.
In terms of the details, in terms of
the specifics, we can't understand and fathom
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's knowledge being complete but
we say as Allah tells
us Allah is not missing anything in His
knowledge, He knows everything.
He knows everything,
Nothing is hidden from Him. This is the
first principle. The second
is that everything of Allah's knowledge,
and if we were just to think about
our universe,
our being created by Allah,
if we just think about our universe
and what Allah tells us and the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam conveys to us, that
knowledge of Allah of the future of everything
that will happen,
that knowledge Allah commanded as He created the
pen to write, write everything that will happen
until the end of times.
The choices that his free will beings,
the ins and the jinn that we know
of at least these two beings.
All the choices that they will make is
this is all included in the writing,
all of that is written.
Now Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's knowledge is one
thing, the knowledge being written is a separate
thing.
Our choices and the concept of free will
is a third thing.
But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala also tells us
that He has a will.
And when we think of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala's will, and this is found at least
a dozen times in the Quran,
That Allah has a will means He permits
the universe to operate in a specific way,
in a general sense, with the laws of
the universe and the natural
to take place in this universe that he
allows people to do certain things, he does
not love. So we distinguish what Allah allows
from what he loves. Does Allah love for
people to kill, to oppress,
to abuse, to cheat, to steal, to lie?
Absolutely not. And we know this because Allah
informs us of it. And at the same
time does Allah permit people sometimes
with their choice they will choose evil? Yes,
He permits in this life and only in
this life, not in the afterlife.
But why the question of why is a
separate matter? That's the question that he told
us about in the Quran and throughout the
sun of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
what is called a theodicy.
Why are some things of suffering or evil
or hardship
permitted to occur in this world, in this
universe?
But they are not permitted in the next
life because the next life is the life
of accountability
and this is the life of testing, this
is the life
of
patients, this is the life
to see who's best in their conduct. This
is the life in which Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala tells us you will leave this world.
Everyone will depart, everyone will taste death.
We will test you, O mankind.
With difficulty and some for more
more difficulty for some people than others.
And khayr, the test of ease, the test
of blessings is a difficult test as well
for some people and they lose themselves in
the process.
And then at the end of the day,
everyone will return to Allah. So Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala tells us about His will, but
it doesn't mean you don't have a will.
It doesn't mean you don't have choice. In
fact,
as He tells us about His will,
Allah informs us that the entirety of the
point of you existing the question of why
is about your will, it's about your choice.
And if the word choice is easier for
us to grasp
and understand and implement
and redirect our thoughts towards then let us
think of the concept of choice.
Why are you here today?
Why are you here in this very moment?
Now sometimes when people hear this question, the
question is responded to with a thought of
the decisions that you made to be in
this gathering, in this masjid, listening to the
khutbah.
But it could also be why do you
live here to begin with? Or are you
a traveler and why are you traveling?
Why are you in this country?
Why were you born?
Why were your parents born? You go all
the way back to Adam alayhis salaam, why
was he created?
You go back to the beginning of the
creation of the heavens and the earth. Why
does it exist?
These are the questions we started with, these
are the questions that give us a foundation.
So as some Muslim psychologist stated, when people
ask why me or why,
they might ask back why not? What do
you mean by why me? Is there something
you're expecting about your life, about your story,
about the things outside of your control?
Or can you focus only on the things
within your control?
Are you supposed to direct your thoughts and
emotions to what you can influence,
to what it is that you can change,
to the wisdoms you can understand and grasp
from every situation. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
grant us wisdom. Allahumma Ameen. Another of the
principles of Allah's
informing us of His
attributes and His names is the command, the
command of Allah. When He says be and
it is. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells
us about
in the Quran several times so we understand
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is able to
do everything.
But everything that he does
is based off of his wisdom, and his
wisdom is complete and perfect.
When people start with who God is, who
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is and they know
that he is perfect, it protects them
from strain, it protects them from thinking negatively
about Allah or about fate, it protects them
from disconnecting from acts of worship.
When you know who your Lord is and
the conceptualization
of Allah in your mind is based off
of the reality of what he stated,
then you will find yourself also more resilient.
You will find yourself turning to the tools
that Allah told you to turn to when
you go through pain.
Rather than living in the past, you find
yourself focusing on what does Allah want from
me in the present?
Because the choices of the present affect the
story that's written out of the future,
affect what's going to happen to me the
next life. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
Al Hakim.
Al Hakim is the one who has ultimate
wisdom and also the one who judges.
And if you were to combine the 2
as many scholars have stated with the connotations
of this name, it is the one who
rules based on his perfect wisdom,
The one who rules based on his perfect
wisdom.
When we think of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's
wisdom,
there's nothing like it we can compare it
to. But Allah gives us some questions to
think about in the Quran,
particularly for those who stray from the truth.
Do you think you were created in other
words without purpose that Allah made you for
play, for sport, for amusement?
And that to Allah you would not return?
Do you think you were created just for
fun, just to live on earth?
For no purpose, no greater objective, no transcendence,
no meaning in your life, in your decisions,
in your actions, and that to Allah you
would not return.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us about
this group of people.
When they go astray they start to stray
in other things as well in terms of
their understanding of morality.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, we did not
create the heavens,
the heaven and the earth. And what is
in between
with
falsehood, with no purpose, with no intent, with
no wisdom, with no objective.
Rather this is the assumption
This is an assumption there's never certainty. This
is the assumption of people who reject the
truth
And so there's a warning for those who
reject the truth from the fire. Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala
gives us an example in the Quran that
is based on the fit that sometimes we
find coming up in conversations
where injustice
is discussed.
And he says
This is found in 2 variations in the
Quran.
Do you expect Allah to make those who
submit to the truth and those who follow
morality?
Do you expect them to have the same
results, the same judgment, the same
end destination
as those who commit evil,
as those who oppress their souls and other
souls in this world.
SubhanAllah,
one time we had a woman embracing Islam,
and right before she embraced Islam, she was
answering some final questions of why.
And I asked, is there anything else, any
other thought, any question that comes to mind,
and it was a group of maybe 5
or 6 individuals
at a Masjid, here in Michigan actually.
She said, I just wanna make sure one
more time,
you believe in a literal hellfire,
right? I said yes. So it's not metaphorical,
that it's just an idea of a punishment.
There's an actual hellfire
according to Islam. I said yes, can't deny
something like this. She said I'm ready to
become Muslim.
And so she became Muslim but the question
later was out of curiosity, why did you
ask that question?
Because most times you will find people not
wanting to address the reality of *. For
her it was the final,
basically the final point of conviction
that this is something she wanted to believe
in. And so Islam has this concept of
a literal punishment in the next life, yes.
We asked why and she said, I have
been abused so many times in my life
and I have seen so much abuse and
injustice
that people got away with at a legal
level.
I can't imagine
that we all die and that there is
no punishment for these people in the next
life.
Can you really imagine people who are committing
genocide and they've killed over 10,000 children that
there's no accountability?
You expect that God who is the source
of justice, al-'Adi,
you think God is going to allow people
to kill and kill and kill and abuse
and steal and do all that they're doing
whether individually
or they're doing this at an economic level
or a political level or they are killing
people,
do you really expect those who are righteous
to be like those who are evil? Is
that what your fitra is telling you?
On what basis do you judge? There's no
wisdom in such a judgment.
You can't imagine
that those who are facilitating
and those who support
evil and genocide and killing the world are
going to have the same end result
as those who are moral and upright and
following the truth from their Lord. And so
when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us about
His wisdom,
we understand
the colonized Muslim is not going to be
like the colonizer, like the occupier.
The colonized lands of believers are not going
to have the same end result as those
who oppress and occupy.
Those who facilitated
some of the worst examples
of injustice in this world through
slavery, through genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, against
the Rohingya, in East Turkestan,
the holocaust, whatever it may be. Those who
kill
and they kill and they kill and then
they justify and then they deny and then
they twist the narrative,
you expect that there's an afterlife in which
all people are equal?
Do you think your wealth and your political
connections are going to protect you in the
next life? As some of the pagan politicians,
the elite of Quraysh thought, They thought if
I have so much money and I get
whatever I want and I never have to
be held accountable in Mecca because they are
the political elite, They assume that their wealth
would save them
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta tells us it
does not.
We think of Qadr,
You have to think of the lived reality
of belief in qadr, and that includes the
concept of tawakkul. It's an internal act of
worship where you know you can rely upon
Allah, and you know that you are turning
to Him internally first and externally second.
And there are many examples we can give,
obviously worldly examples, We are not comparing this,
but the example of
trusting someone who is righteous and very, proficient,
let's say an attorney, to take care of
a specific task, You're not as worried about
that task trusting the most proficient doctor, a
trustworthy person who's also amazing at what they
do. You're not as worried because you have
some sense of relief that I'm in good
hands. And of course there's
no comparison.
When you think of you putting your trust
in Allah,
you're putting your trust in the one who
says, The
one who has access to all the knowledge
of the universe, the one who is all
knowledgeable.
You're putting your trust in Allah who cares
more about you than you care about yourself.
You're putting your trust in the one whose
name we start with everything when you
say The Ever Merciful, the All Forgiving,
the One of intense love for His creation.
So you're putting your trust in Allah
And Allah tells us He's sufficient for us.
We say
What can you say at times when there's
nothing left to do?
We put our trust in Allah Subhanahu wa
Ta'ala. And this concept of tawakkul in Islam,
it answers
many of the questions of why.
It protects you. Instead of looking for a
literal answer why me, why this and why
that, we shift our attention to an action
item, a very practical way of life in
which we turn to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to manage our pain.
You can have pain in this world. It's
not against Islam. You're allowed to be sad
in this world. It's not a weird foreign
thing. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam experienced
sadness. We have many examples like this in
the Quran and sunnah. But the point is,
what are you doing
to manage that pain or overcome your challenge
or your hardship?
You may be a young college student, you
may have lived on this earth for 80,
90 years,
you may be coming from a background which
you struggle a lot of poverty or you
may have been born into a family of
much wealth,
but
the question when things occur, when things arise,
the question knowledge of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
we turn to what he told us to
turn to. The knowledge of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, we turn to what He told us
to turn to. Because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
did not give us a revelation that is
pointless, rather it is
a healing for what is in the hearts.
It is a guidance
for those who are submissive and conscious of
God. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us
the tools to deal with the test of
this world.
It's not that you're just taking the test.
Part of that test,
you have tawakkul internally, is also the actions
externally.
This is part of believing in Al Qadr.
In Islam we emphasize you have to take
all the physical means. Sometimes we say I
did everything that I could but we didn't,
there's a little
more. Sometimes people say I can't do anything
else for this relationship but maybe there's a
little more, maybe in some cases. Somebody says,
I studied, I did enough for my exam,
are you sure you did everything you could?
Do your best and put your trust in
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But you cannot say
I have tawakkul if really what you have
is called tawakkul where you say I trust
in Allah but I won't take any means
because nobody does that. You don't do that
with school, you don't do that with your
work, you don't do that in life. You
can't say, I want a child, and not
have the means for the child, the cause
and the effect. You can't say I want
a degree, I want an education and not
go and register for university semester and take
classes and pass exams.
We know we have to take the physical
means. But sometimes from a faith based perspective
we slack off or we have shortcomings, may
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala grant us strength, And
this is a reminder especially for many of
the young Muslims developing their habits, for many
of the college students and high school students
that we teach them as well. You have
a lot of potential,
but that potential cannot rely on just wishing,
and talking,
and dreaming of, and even praying for, making
dua for, you have to follow it up
with as much action as is necessary
for you to achieve the result that you
want. Part of belief in Al Qadr
is not just that things are written in
terms of the future, but that they are
based off of the choices of today and
tomorrow and every choice you make in every
habit that you have. We know the famous
example of the Bedouin man, he comes to
the masjid, he left his camel untied.
Generally if you know anything about camels if
you leave it untied it's going to run
away. And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
asked him why don't you tie it? And
he says I put my trust in Allah.
So this is an example of misunderstanding trust.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam told
him,
Tie your camel and also put your trust
in Allah. Meaning you have to have both
components.
He didn't just tell him tie your camel.
Tie your camel and also do the internal
act of worship of trusting in Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. You make dua, it's one of
the causes
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala allows in this
world to be a means of goodness.
It was written before that you made dua
for something and because you made the dua
you were granted. It was a means of
achieving something. Just like when you say I
studied for my exam, you made dua for
something, it was one of many reasons you
were given something or protected from something in
this world. And Allah commands us to make
dua. So this goes against
the notion that some people might have. I
don't need to ask Allah, Allah knows what
I need. No, Allah told you to ask
Him. Allah told you to take that means.
Allah told you what the cause and the
effect. And finally the last principle that I'll
share today
is the concept of free will. And I
wanna share this only because
there's a lot of confusion about it. What
is free will? What are we supposed to
focus on? And I want to avoid and
skip over what free will is not from
a western philosophical lens because there are many
variations and misunderstandings.
Free will in Islam is, yes, English term.
We're talking here about your own choices.
Free will in Islam encompasses at least 2
things.
You're talking about things that you directly attribute
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala or you could
be talking about things that you attribute to
human choices
and Allah permits to occur in this world.
But both are based on Allah's will. But
when we talk about free will in Islam,
we are talking about the choices that we
have agency over.
Your ability to do something, your ability to
influence something, your ability to change a situation.
And so when you think about free will,
yes, we said
You cannot will for something except if Allah
permits it, wills it. In this universe,
it doesn't mean that you don't attribute actions
to yourself as well. An example of this
is what?
If you're fasting Ramadan, Ramadan is around the
corner. May Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la allow us
to make it to that month and to
be accepted and to be forgiven before that
month and to prepare properly for it.
The Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam informs us
that if someone accidentally, unintentionally, if they forget
that they're fasting, and they ate or they
drank, he said this is a gift from
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Does this mean you're
allowed to just eat and drink anytime? No.
So you attribute that as in the hadith
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Whereas when you talk about someone intentionally committing
a sin, the major sin of skipping a
day in Ramadan, one of the worst sins
that can be committed in fact to skip
an obligatory act of worship, you attribute this
to yourself because you made that choice. It
was intentional, there was no forgetfulness
in it. So when we talk about choice,
we are talking about the things that we
want to do, the things we intend
and the actions therefore that follow-up from that.
And I'll give you an example, a young
man, college student,
he was asked about a particular sin that
he was doing as a lifestyle.
He said that's my qadr,
that's decreed to be.
You're choosing to do this qadr, what do
you mean it's decreed to be? You cannot
justify
your sin by saying that's how things are
decreed to be. You're not allowed to do
that in Islam. Why? Because you're making the
choice right now to do that. Number 2,
you don't know the future.
And because you don't know the future you
have to make choices today based on Allah's
command. And Allah commands you to do this
and to stay away from that. Allah commands
you and He informs you and He gives
you good news and He gives you warnings.
If you do these things it leads to
paradise and more mercy from Allah. And if
you do other things in this world and
you fail that test you disobey Allah, there's
a punishment or consequence for it. May Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us. You cannot justify
sinfulness
as a lifestyle, as a choice today by
saying that's just my qadr.
You're choosing to do that. So a young
man who said, I'm not praying. Somebody asked
him, Why are you not praying? He's like,
It wasn't written for me. He's like, That's
not what it means when you say it
wasn't written for you. Can you get up
right now and pray? Are you able to
physically stand and pray? He said, Yes. He's
like, Then it's not written for you. You're
choosing. You're choosing, not written for you in
the sense of blaming quadr. You're choosing to
disobey Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Imagine
people who kill and steal and all of
that and say, well that was just my
decree, that was my predestination.
Well you made that choice and that's what
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala constantly shifts our attention
to in the Quran,
choices.
Your choices matter, your choices have consequences,
and of course one of the most important
questions of choice
is about injustice when you hurt other people.
Or when you see injustice in the world,
when you see injustice in Gaza and Palestine
and Sudan and East Turkestan,
why does the law permit
people who commit evil and injustice?
Why does he allow them
to live in this world for an extra
second or 2, for an extra year or
10, for an extra century or 2, a
dynasty,
a civilization, a country that is established on
evil, that is established on genocide or ethnic
cleansing.
In this country and around the world we
know the history
of killing natives of the land, of enslaving
people, of violence of all types.
And so when we think of this concept
we remember a few things. Number 1, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala told us this world has
a purpose and it's not accountability.
It's the test.
While you're taking the test, you are not
being held accountable.
While evil people are taking the test, they
are not held accountable. Their sins are being
recorded.
And some of them are given more time
in this world
because of how evil they are. They're given
more time in this world so that their
punishment increases in the next life, so that
their consequences
increase in the next life. The next life
is a life of justice
where everything will be restored and the life
of ultimate reward, and that's what the believers
look forward to. But on a personal level
you remember when you hear of dulm, injustice,
that there are different types. One of these
types is injustice against your own soul.
Do not be unjust to your soul. Do
not do the things that Allah commanded you
to stay away from and follow the things
Allah told you to do. Injustice to other
people, start with your family, your friends, your
classmates, your co workers, your colleagues, start with
the people close to you. Do not be
a person who commits or facilitates any kind
of injustice in this world. And finally when
you think about your relationship between you and
Allah, do not commit an injustice
by misplacing the right of Allah. Allah commanded
you of something so turn to Him, spill
out your heart to Him, and remember that
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala what he decreed there
are many wisdoms for
it. All of these wisdoms are intertwined,
the reward he tells you about is eternal,
and the reward of Jannah will be worth
it, and the only thing we can do
is to persevere.
Hold on, persevere, endure the promise of Allah
is true and do not be affected by
people who don't have certainty.
Ask Allah for forgiveness, He is the All
Forgiving, the ever merciful.