Tom Facchine – Check Yourself

In our next hadith, the prophet sallallahu alaihi

wa sallam said,

That's for Wahoo Muslim. The hadith is found

in Sahih Muslim. The prophet

he said that everything

is determined by a loss of

it's in his Qadr. It's in his,

apportionment or his decree.

Even

laziness

or

well, we could say maybe failure is another

laziness failure is is one translation,

or your ability, your sharpness.

Right?

And this is a very, very foundational hadith

when it comes to understanding

Allah's

will and Allah's

sort of Qadr, his

determination of everything

in the universe.

Sometimes when it comes to our abilities, we

can become diluted into think that our abilities

are in our own hands. Right? The talents

that we have, the skills that we accumulate,

yeah, we see this a lot in academia

or when you're taking a test or whatever,

you know, you only rely on

yourself. How many of us really? We know

that we were taught as Muslims that when

you you sit in an exam, you know,

after having studied and taking the means, you

say Bismillah and then you rely upon Allah

Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.

For most of us, that's very difficult. For

most of us, we we rely too much

on ourselves. We assume that,

it's really all in our ability and all

in our courts to be able to, sort

of decide whether we're going to succeed or

fail, and that's why, unfortunately,

we see the results of this attitude and

how we treat people. We see people

who are rich and successful,

and we treat them in a certain way,

especially in the United States of America where

we have this sort of false meritocracy.

You see somebody driving a Tesla living in

the suburbs, and you assume that they've done

something right. You assume that that is all

because of, like,

like what said in Surat Al Khasas, right,

by Karun that this is from my reason.

This is from my ability. I'm the one

who did it. I deserve it. I worked.

I grinded. I hustled. I did this stuff.

Right? Without realizing that it's Allah

that gave you that ability in the first

place. It's Allah

that enabled

the talents and skills

that you have to actually

reach the conclusion that that that they reached.

And so when we see someone poor on

the street, we have the opposite. We blame

them morally. We say, oh, this person must

have done something wrong in their life. This

person must have screwed up. This person must

be, you know, and we treat them less

than human. Right?

You can take also a demonstration from how

do you

act in front of one person versus the

other. If you're in front of the person

from the suburbs with a big house and

drives a Tesla, then you're gonna straighten up

and you're gonna be happy when you receive

an invitation for iftar at that person's house

versus if you've got somebody who lives in

the hood and, you know, next to a

boarded up, you know, apartment or whatever,

and you get invited to an

iftar, you're gonna be sort of, well, boy,

that's not really what I was hoping for.

Right? Part of this, we're not just concerned

for our personal safety. Part of this is

our false assumption

that we get what we deserve in this

life, which is something Allah

tries to break us from this superstition,

multiple times in the Quran. And one of

those is the story of Qadun,

at the end told at the end of

Surah Al Khasas in the the 28th chapter

of the Quran.

Is that we see wealth, we see success,

and we assume that this person must have

done something right. And we see failure, we

see poverty, and we assume that this person

must have done something wrong. It ain't that

simple. The the the will of Allah

is gharib. It it overcomes all of that,

and so you might find that Allah

might keep somebody poor

in this life because it's better for their

afterlife, just as he might keep somebody rich

because it's better for their afterlife, and at

the end of the day we don't know.

So the prophet in this particular hadith,

he's basically

implying this. He said that everything is in

everything. He said every single thing

is a portion by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.

It's in his decision. It's in his decree.

It's in his Qadr.

Even

the ajus, which is like inability.

Right? We call in Arabic, you call someone

ajus once they've reached old age because they're

kinda like,

you know, they they don't have the abilities

that they used to have,

or a case like somebody who's sharp, somebody

who's able, somebody who's, you know,

you can imagine in the prime of their

lives. All they do is, you know, if

they wanna go do something they just they

just do it. Right? We're used to assuming

that that's in our control and the prophet

is informing us that this is actually part

of the will of Allah. Like, even your

inability to do something and your ability to

do something is part of Allah's will. Now

why is the prophet telling us this? What

does he want

to sort of what does he want from

us by telling us this? Is it supposed

to make us just completely give up and

say, well, you know, I didn't get out

of bed this morning and I'm gonna stop

going to the gym and I'm gonna stop

taking care of myself because, hey, it's all

from Allah

at the end of the day. Anyway, no,

that's not what Allah that's not what the

Prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam wants from us and

that's not what Allah salallahu alaihi wasallam wants

from us, but the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam,

he's trying to stop us from getting egotistical

and big headed

when it comes to our abilities or our

situation and realize

that we depend upon Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala

in every single scenario

is that, yes, there are means Allah Subhanahu

Wa Ta'ala created

the world, the dunya, with cause and effect.

If you want the biceps, you're gonna have

to hit the gym. If you want

to succeed in something, you're gonna have to

apply yourself and take the means, but at

the end of the day it's really up

to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala

whether your arrow hits the bull's eye or

not. Whether all of the means that you

take and all of the things that you

do to apply yourself are going to lead

to the outcome that you want, that's up

to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And even your

internal motivation,

your ability or inability,

or even your external sort of ability or

inability. That too is all determined by Allah

Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So what the prophet salallahu

alaihi wasalam wants from us is not to

depend upon the means as if they are

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

That you don't depend upon your intelligence.

You don't depend upon

your whatever it is, your talents, your skills,

your credentials. You depend upon Allah Subhanahu Wa

Ta'ala. You get the credentials.

You take the means. You do what you

have to do, but you have to understand

at the end of the day that it

all comes back to what Allah Subhanahu Wa

Ta'ala willed. And as the Salaf, I believe

it was

who said if that something was destined for

you, if Allah decided or decreed that something

was gonna happen to you, then there's no

way that it could not have happened to

you, and the opposite is true. Is that

if something missed you, if something didn't happen

to you, then it doesn't matter what you

did. If you went back and change tactics

or whatever,

that it was never going to happen to

you at all. This is Allah's will. This

is Allah's Qadr, and that's what the prophet

salallahu alaihi wasalam wants us to understand by

this hadith.