Last 10 Nights- Thematic Tafseer of Juz 29

Salam aleikum, Allah

hamdulillah suffered or some Rasul Allah.

Tonight is the 29th night of Ramadan Subhan Allah how quickly it's passed. And this will be the last edition of our somatic tafsir. You can call it our reflections about the Koran for the last 10 Nights.

We'll be doing Jews 29 Tonight, and this one, I'm going to be keeping it very strict to a half an hour inshallah. So we'll see how much we can get through.

Juice 29 begins with solids and milk, and more it refers to the dominion of Allah. And if we look at the structure of the Surah it begins by talking about Allah, Allah as glory subhanaw taala then it moves on to talking about the hellfire and the people who deny the truth. Then it proceeds to talk about the believers and Paradise. And then finally, it returns to talking about Allah's glory

with a little bit of a different twist, talking emphasizing our dependence upon Allah subhanaw taala. So if we look going back to the beginning, when Allah opens a surah talking, talking about his glory to Baraka, dbrt him Wilk well, who Allah Khalifa and Allah says something very, very interesting in a second is something that is a fundamental part of our faith. He says Allah the Chanukah mode, while Hyatts Leah Balu Acoma Yocum axon or amla, there are several things that are packed into this idea. First off is that Allah created death and life. So they are creations

of Allah. And so they Allah has complete control over them. That's the first thing. The second thing is that Allah tells us directly here why he created death and life. It wasn't just to, you know, make us have a hard time or make us sad, or for whatever other reason, it's not any sort of crass or cynical reason a law says, labor local, in order to test you,

in order to test you. So the whole reason Allah is giving us our entire purpose for existence right here, the whole purpose for our existence. Why did Allah make all of us in the first place? Why did he give us free will? Why did he make heaven and hell? Leah Balu to test you to test us on what was the criteria? What's the syllabus? What's the rubric? What are we going to be graded on? A law then tells us at UConn x and what I'm gonna, whichever you whichever of you is best in deeds. And it's been said many, many times by many, many scholars throughout the centuries, that it's important to notice that a law here says X No, I'm gonna, not EC Thoreau, I'm gonna he says, Which of you is best

in deeds. And he doesn't say which of you is most in deeds. If you look at how the Companions conducted themselves, and how their students and how the self in general conducted themselves, they were not concerned,

as much as we might be with the amount with the quantity, or they can sit down with Allah, they were not concerned with the quantity of their deeds, they were concerned with the quality of their deeds. And so as opposed to just doing more and more and more, they were more careful to just keep whatever they were doing and make sure that it was better. How can it be better? How can your worship be better, it can be more or less sincere, and it can be more or less upon the guidance of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa salam. So we have amazing stories. If you look back into the biographies of the early Muslims, there used to be some scholars who would read the Koran at night.

But then when it got close to fetcher, they turn all the lights like they extinguish the candles. And they would act like they were sleeping, as their family was waking up, and they'd actually even let like their spouse or their kids come in, and quote unquote, wake them up. All of that was to hide the fact that they had been reciting Quran. And so

that was one way that they protected the sincerity of their worship.

And so that was something that made their deeds way more and made their deeds more valuable as opposed to just doing more and more and more

than a lot. He says in the next idea and the third eye.

Another important point, he says that he has created the heavens and that you do not see in Allah's creation, any sort of fissure, any sort of gap, any sort of day.

efficiency, that if you look from top to bottom, from left to right, all around, up and down. And if you go deep into this creation, what you find is that this is a creation of rules. The universe that Allah has created, is based upon rules. It's based upon cause and effect, discernible, knowable, discoverable principles, relationships, equations, all these sorts of things, that physicists and chemists and other scientists study, this thing has rules behind it. And so it's not random.

And this lack of randomness at the smallest level of the atom, or the biggest level of all the planets in the solar system is this points to this points to a creator. This points to the fact that if there is the structure, if there is this organization, that there was a force behind it, to organize it, and to put it into place, and to conduct it. And that's exactly what we believe, and what Allah is telling us here. And he challenges people in this idea to go find he says, Look at the look, go, Look, see if you can find any sort of he says to fail with any sort of

thing out of place, you won't be able to find it.

So then a lot after beginning of sort of like this, he moves on to talking about the hellfire, and the deniers, and specifically in the 10th verse.

The people who are thrown into hell, Allah often is kind of giving these conversations and kind of like, quoting these conversations that are going to take place on the Day of Judgment. But it's almost like because he's talking about them now. It's almost like a foregone conclusion. And so one of the things that the people of the fire say,

they say, low Kunta nesma Oh, nafti low. So they're regretful they're thrown into the fire. They know there's no way out, there's no hope they squandered their chance. The test that Allah gave them, they failed it and they failed hard. They deny that the day of judgment. They thought that this life was just about kicks, was just about you only live once getting in your fun. And then they're thrown into the hellfire and they regret what do they say? They say, lo Kunta Ness Mao nap you know, if only we had either literally heard meaning like obeyed or use our reason not fatal. And so, here we have an interesting point where a law is demonstrating that reason and using your reason

is something that is mature is something that is that is required of the human being.

Because the people of the Hellfire are regretting and in regret because they did not use their reason. The understanding here that Allah is saying or implying that we can infer from it as that reason. True reason leads to faith. And we see all over the Koran how ALLAH addresses his servants and his slaves, by way of their reason. Local Antonio cathinones.

The Allah calm Totti rune, he says, If only you use your reason, if only you come to your senses. So in Islam, it's very important and anybody who's a Muslim who wants to talk to people of other faiths, especially in the United States, where it's mostly informed by a Christian culture, you have to realize that a lot of people assume that there's this contradiction between reason and faith, and reason and science and, and faith. And in the Islamic tradition, stemming all the way back from the Koran, we don't have this contradiction at all. In fact, we believe that Allah has placed reason within us. And then he has addressed that reason. Right? When it comes to the Koran, he has called

and he's using proofs that are based off of reason. He says in the Quran, don't you look at the heavens? Don't you look at the Earth? Don't you look at the creatures he says signs signs in an in yourselves and your own souls and in your bodies and signs out there in the created universe, so that you would use your reason. But why? Use your reason to figure out how many times you should pray? Use your reason to figure out how much money you should get for Zika? No, not at all Allah has gained has given us our reason to lead us up to the door of faith. And he's addressed our reason to enable us to submit. So he calls upon our reason, our reason can't figure out the particulars of

religious guidance, the particulars of what's going to purify our soul. But our reason is strong enough and good enough, that if we are thinking clearly that it can lead us up into the door of faith, so that we're convinced of this religion and we submit to it and then after we

admitted to it. Then comes all of the details and the finer points.

So then a lot of talks about the paradise and unbelievers as a contrast to the people, the hellfire, and then he returns in the remainder of the surah. He talks about his glory. And he highlights especially our dependence upon a law because whenever a law demonstrates, or whenever we should say, we realize our dependence upon a law that draws us closer to Him, we can't escape that dependence. We know that we're absolutely

incapable of doing anything without his help, without his approval, without his aid. And so it strengthens that bond between us and our Creator. Just like Allah loves our duat. And obviously, these last 10 Nights, we've been making a lot of that, because when we make dua, we are demonstrating our dependency and our need. We out and our desperation, we're absolutely desperate for a lot to help. So Allah says in the 16 Verse, Do you feel secure from the punishment of Allah, you feel like nothing can happen to you? Are you that safe, you feel that safe on Earth, this is something that we've been given a rude awakening with, with the the COVID-19, and all of the

pandemic that's going on. Before think back to January or December, everybody felt very safe in their homes and their work. It was something that we took for granted, moving around, going from friends, houses and things like this. We felt safe. And then Allah showed us that he has the power to take that away in an instant.

And verse 19, Allah references the miracle of a birds flight, he says, Look at the bird as it flies through the sky of flapping its wings. This is one of the miracles that Rockman Allah is the one that keeps this creature suspended in flight.

In verse 20, he asks, Do you have or do you have someone to support you accept the law, you have someone that you're going to go run back to that's going to have that you're going to avail for help against me, it's not possible. And 21 He says, Do you have someone to provide for you if we were to withhold your provision from you? I just I read a statistic today that 40% of Americans who made less than $40,000 a year lost their jobs because of the pandemic. If Allah has taken this away from you, guess what, there's nobody else who's going to give it back to you, except for Allah.

In verse 23, a lot establishes the connection between our senses, and gratitude. So he's drawing our attention to the gifts that He has given us. And that these these gifts that He's given us, they're not no strings, attached gifts, they have expectations, just like if somebody were to give you a Rolex watch.

Or let's say, you give somebody else a Rolex watch, you've saved up for it a lot. And you love this person, and you give them a Rolex. And then they don't even leave your site. They don't even walk away and they take that Rolex and they throw it on the ground, they step on it, or they don't use it, they use it for something absolutely idiotic. They use it to, you know, as a doorstop, or they use it to do something that's not it's designed use, you wouldn't feel good about that. And you would definitely not want to give that person another gift. Well, what about all the gifts that Allah has given us a lot has given us our eyesight, and he's given us our hearing, and he's given us

our speech, and given us our ability to reason.

Allah isn't happy with us when we use these gifts for things that disobey Allah in the first place. He's the one who gave it to us.

And so Allah says

yes, well Giada Hola, como son our episod our F EDA call Isla Mehta schoolroom, right so he puts right at the end of it as shellcode he puts right at the end of it gratitude. Instead of we gave you your hearing we gave you your site, but Lo, alas, people in general, they're not. They're not very grateful. So we should all strive to be grateful with those gifts that I'll give, gave us gratitude through using them how Allah wants us to use it. And then finally, Allah continues he ends the surah by saying, What if your water What if you turned on your tap to give a modern example, the Companions Subhanallah they used to rely on a law so much and be so aware of their dependence upon

Allah, that every time they lowered their bucket down a well for water, they would say Bismillah because they didn't know if it was going to go come up with water. Imagine if every single one of us every time we turn the faucet on, we said Bismillah because INRIA

ality if Allah wanted to make it go away, if Allah wanted to make it dry up, or to put us in the situation like we were, like living in Flint, Michigan, and the water wasn't even drinkable, then he could do it. And we would have no one to save us or return the water to its former quality except for ALLAH. So he gives a similar example, in the 30th verse, and concludes the surah with that. The next Surah Surah Telkom the pen, the first creation of a law, once a lock created, then commanded to write down everything that would happen 50,000 years before anything else was created. Looking at the main structure of the Surah, Allah begins by reassuring the Prophet salallahu Salam. And then he

moves on to talking about the characteristics of the deniers of the truth. And then he briefly touches on the reward for the believers. He gives a challenge several rhetorical questions to the people who deny the truth. And then he references their punishment, and then ends the surah in the same way he began it, which is a common thing that a lot does in the Koran, has many chapters have a circular structure where he ends it with reassuring the prophets of Allah, Allah Saddam and giving him advice.

So to get into specifics, Allah swears by the pen and whenever Allah swears by His creation, he's drawing your importance to something. Both first of all the magnitude and majesty of that thing that he's swearing by. And then second of all, he's swearing by something because he's about to tell you something that you have to understand is true. Just like when we swear, when we swear by Allah, we're trying to give emphasis so you have to believe me in this. So Allah is saying, while column

woman is to rune man, Mansur, bayonet material of Vika BeamGage neum. He's promising. He's like saying, listen, yeah, Mohamed Salah Salem, you're not crazy. This thing that we've given you, it's revelation. It's true. It's earnest. It's honest. And there's no doubt don't doubt yourself.

And then he says, Furthermore, he said, and guess what more than that, you are on or you are upon? Are you you possess amazing character, amazing etiquette, exemplary manners.

And Allah is giving this importance because having excellent manners is one of the most important factors that a day someone who wants to invite other people to the truth, someone who wants to help rectify and edify other people can have, because when you have good manners, you get authority, not power, real authority, people believe in you. People trust you, people will confide in you, they will ask your opinion about things. If you have excellent matters. If you don't, it doesn't matter. If every word out of your mouth is poetry, or every word out of your mouth is truth. If you don't have good manners, no one is going to believe you or listen to you.

Then Allah moves on to talk about the characteristics of those people who do deny even despite the prophets of Allah, who it was salams manners.

And he runs through some of their excuses. First of all, he says in this in the ninth verse that they want you to compromise the religion, they want you to water it down. This is one group of people who deny they're not happy with what Islam is saying. And so they want you to, to go halfsies they want you they want you to meet them halfway.

For example, we have many stories about this, the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was offered wealth and riches and power, if only he would come down from the monotheistic aspects of Islam.

And they tried to compromise and say, Let's worship Allah alone for one year, and then you worship our idols for the next year, we'll switch on and off. And the Prophet Muhammad says that I'm never made these sorts of compromises.

Now, the kind of compromise that the Prophet Mohammed slide set on would make, has to do with, for example, the Treaty of Hubei BIA, which didn't require the Muslims to change anything that they believe and didn't require them to change anything about their religion. All it did was make compromises on worldly conditions, contractual elements, and for a limited time, for a greater purpose that the Muslims could benefit from. So there's a difference between the two. Not every compromise is an act of watering down the religion or giving something up from the religion, but some of them are and so as Allah said, in the 10th, surah, he tells them fanatical there, he said,

Don't don't obey them.

Don't follow them in this, don't give up parts of your religion to curry favor with the powerful or the wealthy.

A law says that the other characteristics of the deniers is that they slander, they defame That's in verse 11, in verse 12, they prevent the good

men. Now I like to hire

people that don't want other people to do good. And if you think for a second, everybody here, I'm sure has non Muslim coworkers, and perhaps even family members, and just people that you've interacted with in your life, there have been some people, I'm sure that are only happy, they're doing something wrong. And they're only going to be happy if you do it with them. And they're bothered by just the fact that you're not going to do that thing with them. Even before you open your mouth, even before you open your mouth to tell them, hey, maybe you shouldn't do this. Even before it gets to that point, they're on your case for not for not doing the thing that they're

doing. That's because deep down, they know that they're wrong. Deep down, they feel guilty. When I used to work in restaurants, some of my co workers, for example, they would play the lottery. And I was Muslim, I wasn't going to play the lottery. I even had one co worker that was just you know, they had a scratch card. And they're asking for the other co workers to give them a number. They asked me to give them a number I said, No, I'm not even going to give you a number. I don't want anything to do with this. And I didn't even say anything to that person about you shouldn't gamble, or you shouldn't buy these things, or you're wasting your money. I didn't say anything like that.

All I said was, I'm not going to give you a number, because I don't believe in that sort of thing. Oh, boy, you should have seen how upset this person got. Just because my not doing it implied that they were doing something wrong. And deep down. Deep down, they knew that what they were doing was wrong. So they had to get on my case and make it a big deal.

Just because I wasn't even willing to give a number, even just make one up.

There's many people like this out there that they want to prevent the good from happening. And they're only going to be happy. If people are sharing and doing the bad that they're doing. Because it's confirmation for them.

They get to use the excuse while everybody's doing it.

Then Allah gives a parable He gives an example of people have a garden. This is in verse 18, and 19. These are people at a time when there used to be a tradition where if people showed up on the day of harvest to a farm, then they would be able to take some of the produce home with them. This is how the poor got by. And this sort of thing existed in many, many cultures across the world. So Allah gives a parable of this particular situation of some people who own a farm or a garden, and they have a plot. They conspire to sneak away early, early in the morning to the garden and make the harvest before anybody has even woken up. And they say and they're kind of they're like, keep your

voice down, be quiet. They're trying to avoid being seen, because they're stingy, and they don't want to give the poor they're right.

And so allah makes an example out of them, because they didn't depend upon Allah. First of all, they didn't say insha Allah when they wanted to do this thing tomorrow. And second of all, they wanted to cheat the poor out of their share. They wanted to get more they didn't realize that Allah is the One who provides provision. And so once they got to their garden, guess what they found Allah had laid it all to waste, it all came to nothing.

And so they were humiliated, they were embarrassed, and they were rejected. They fell on to each other with blame, and eventually realized that really they had no one to blame but themselves for their stinginess

in 34, and 35, a lot of touches on the reward for the believers. And he says something very, very interesting in verse 35, that bears mentioning, he says that

a nudge generally will mostly mean I can measure a mean, man a concave attack como

how are we going to treat the people who accept faith, similarly or equally to the people who reject and deny faith? This would not be just, this would not be right. This would be a slap in the face to everybody who believed many people these days they kind of are embarrassed or they're ashamed or they're shy to affirm that heaven in Paradise is not for everybody. That all

All created it for people who pass the test, and there's going to be some people who don't make it. And we would in some sense, we would love everybody, as Muslims, we're sincere people, and we want everybody to be there. But at the same time, we know that not everyone can be there, it's not possible. So we don't sugarcoat it by saying that everybody is going to be there, it's going to be fine. No, Allah is telling us here, that it's not going to be like that some people are going to be in paradise, and some people are going to be in the hellfire. And it has to be this way. It has to be this way. Because it wouldn't be fair to the people who strove and the people who tried and the

people who they spent their life in the way of Allah. After all of that, you're going to treat those people the same as the people who did evil on earth, the same as the people who refuse to believe the same as the people who spread corruption and didn't care about even trying. It wouldn't be fair, it wouldn't be just and it wouldn't be merciful. And so Allah has created the reward and the punishment, and he will see to it on the Day of Judgment. Then Allah moves to challenge the deniers and from verse 35 to 41. He asked him in 37, do you have a book? Where are you getting this stuff from that you believe? You think that everybody's in paradise? You think that Allah has partners,

you think that there are other deities, you think that Allah has children? Anything that you believe? Do you have a book? Where are you getting this stuff from? Or do you have some sort of inverse study nine, you have a promise, you have a guarantee from Allah, that you guys are going to be protected from Allah's punishment to the exclusion of other people?

Or do you have other gods he says in 41, you have partners alongside Allah that are going to somehow save you or prevent you from my wrath, or save you or prevent you from my will?

And 42 Allah says, no, these people, they don't have anything. These are just excuses. It's their denial, and they will shall be punished for their denial on the Day of Judgment. Then, a lot finishes and concludes the surah between verses 43 to 52. Returning to the theme of

reassurance for the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he tells the Prophet monocytes Adam, especially to be patient hospital, they hooked me robic water to Conecuh saw, Hey, Bill Hodes, he says, and don't be like the person of the whale, which he's referring to Prophet Jonah, of course, says don't run away. Be patient with these people. And this is something that is fundamental in our religion and a benefit that everybody can apply in their lives. We're not responsible for the results.

All Allah wants us to do is to take the right course of action with a sincere intention

to intend to do good to take time and care enough to figure out what that good should be and what it should look like. And to try hard. And then guess what? The rest is out of our hands. The results aren't up to us. We can't control it. How many times is Allah Tala Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, you can guide whom you will

if Noah couldn't guide his son, if lat couldn't guide his wife, if the prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa salam couldn't guide his uncle. How are we supposed to have that kind of control over the people in our lives? How are we supposed to be able to control how people react to us, we can't do it. All we can do is do the right thing. Have a good intention, try our best. And the results are with Allah, Allah Optiva, Lil monoterpene. And what is left in the afterlife, it is inherited by the believers. So Subhan Allah, just two solos and we've completed a half an hour.

I ask Allah to accept this little bit of worship from us, and to accept all of our worship this month, our fasting, and our night prayers, and our Catholic fitzer and our South Africa and everything that we've done, every smile that we've given every door, we've held open, every bit of aid that we have offered to both the Muslims around us and the non Muslims. We ask Allah to accept it from us and to and to make us sincere and to make us a Kudo. Hassanal to make us a good role, good role models and a good example for the other people around us and to forgive us for our shortcomings. Because as Allah knows, better than us, we in everything that we do, are always coming

up short. Our fasts can always be a little bit better. Our prayers can always be a little more attentive. And we ask a lot of forgive us for all of our shortcomings. All those times that we got impatient with

He got angry maybe we said something that we didn't want to say right that a couple hours before we break our fast all these sorts of things we ask a lot of forgive us and inshallah we will soon be enjoying our Aden we ask a lot to bring us there and to make us reach the aid Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam salam ala

Thank you very much everybody for tuning in