Tom Facchine – Who Is Allah – Understanding Allah’s Names and Attributes #11
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The Surah is a reward for reciting the Koran and is designed to achieve success and boon. It is a force designed to protect against consequences and is a habit. The guidance of Allah on how to approach reality, including guidance on trust and dedication, is important for holding people to faith and avoiding overestimation of potential consequences. Islam is a force designed to outmaneuver and hold people to faith.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah R Rahman Rahim
Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam. Ala Ashraful MBIA, were more serene. Nabina Muhammad was in a Muhammad. Allah He offered Salah was asleep Allahumma Arlindo Vinayan found that one fountain, Valentina, was it an Irishman? Yeah, Ramadan me.
It's Saturday night. That means it's time for the names and attributes of Allah, who is a lot
are booked by Sheikh Abdullah Zachary whether it's we're moving along quite nicely humbler.
Last class we talked about a last name I had.
And Allahabad.
Can anybody recall what the difference is between the two? We'll just do a very, very brief recap, what's the difference between a
while we're
very good, excellent. And the why is the one
I had is the unique the only one right? You say an Arabic
mafia baits mean I had.
So there is no chance that anybody is in the house at all, it completely negates the possibility.
Whereas a lower head or go ahead, it leaves you know, not a lot of room for doubt. But maybe some room for doubt.
Very good. And we talked about all the different sorts of ways in which Atewa head and I had
inflect many of the other names and attributes of Allah subhanho wa taala, if not, all of them.
Because Allah is unique in everything he is, and everything he does.
Today we're going to talk about one of laws, greatest names a summit,
a summit, which only appears once in the Koran, and a very small Surah all of you know, so it's a class.
And similar to I had an Aloha had a Samad
touches on an entire group
of names and attributes of Allah, not merely one narrow aspect of his being or his activity, but rather many different aspects. Some scholars were of the opinion that a solid is in fact Allah's Greatest Name, is mobile album.
And they reasoned that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that sort of a class
was equivalent to 1/3 of the Quran.
And the lovely Hadith, many of you know already,
where
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
he mentioned reciting a third of the Quran every night and some of the companions that were surprised by this said, how can we achieve such a feat?
And then he responded and told them, Weren't you aware that this Surah Surah to a class is equivalent to 1/3 of the Quran.
Now,
when we have Hadith like this, where an equivalency is drawn,
we have to realize that
the equivalency is not 100%. Right? So for example, we know that there are several different types of people who are considered martyrs depending on how they die.
When it comes to their reward,
the reward that Allah has in store for them,
then this is something that is what we're talking about is what is equal.
However, there's no doubt that
to die, for example, facing down an enemy
is a lot different. There's many different aspects of it compared to some of the other ways
in which one may die with the ruling of a martyr. Whether it's during childbirth, whether it's during a plague or a pandemic,
whether it's defending one's wealth or one's one's property, or one's family, all the other ahaadeeth that we have
So, let's say that so and so dies as a martyr. That's true, but there might still be things that are particular to
jihad or particular to
dying in that specific way
that have distinction to the other ways.
Just like we have many things in the city, where we have an equivalency drawn between some particular act and Umrah or Hajj
right like staying in the masjid from Sultan Fraser until the sunrises and then praying to rakaats after a bit of time.
This is something that's equivalent to at least and in some opinions, Hajj as well.
But it's not exactly the same as performing Hajj. Right. Can you say like, let's Can you say for example, if you have money, and you're able to go on Hajj, and you have never been on Hajj before,
can you say, Well, you know, every morning, or last week, maybe one time I stayed in the masjid between measure and the sunrise and then I prayed. So I'm good. I don't have to go on Hajj anymore.
No, that would not be acceptable. Right. So you see how what we're taught when these sorts of equivalencies are made.
They're equivalencies in certain aspects, sometimes legally.
Most oftentimes, we're talking about in reward. So all of this to say we're talking about sorts of a class, it's equivalent to 1/3 of the Koran.
Is that to say that it is just as good in all aspects as to somebody who's memorized a third of the Koran and knows it like the back of their hand.
No, because the person who has memorized the third of the Koran,
there's going to be if they've taken care to ponder over its meanings and learn the tafsir there will be things in there such as points of law, such as points of aqidah, information, stories, things like this,
that they are aware of,
that are not in sorted class, at least not explicitly.
However, so until a flask encapsulates a third of the meaning of the Quran, or maybe more than that, when it comes to
the reward that you get for reciting it. And when it comes to the centrality of the theme that's being expounded in that Surah which is about the telehealth of Allah subhanaw taala. And there are some scholars This isn't to limit the significance of telehealth to 1/3 Some scholars say that the whole Paradis Tauheed if you think about it, that Allah knows best.
So the wait that many scholars give to this name of allah Salman derives from not just the meaning, but the chapter of the Koran in which it's found.
If sort of a class is equivalent to a third of the Quran, then anything mentioned there in especially any name mentioned there in is similarly have a great meaning and amplified meaning.
And so Pozible Allahu Ahad Allahu Samad.
These two names, which occur in salted Fs,
are considered by many scholars to be some of the best names, if not the greatest names of a lot.
What does a summit mean?
A summit as we said, it touches on multiple meanings.
One of the most important concepts at the heart of it is leadership.
Say it
Seanna
but not any type of leadership. It's a leadership that is complete
in a very unique way.
Think about a leader.
What in your mind, let's hear from you either on the mic or in the chat box, what makes a good leader? What are the qualities that we look for in a leader or even what do we depend upon a leader for?
You
dedication, integrity
Trust,
influential confidence, empathy.
Very good. What instances or what situations? Do we really rely on leadership the most?
Yes, difficult times. Exactly.
Right. These are the times where legends are made. Right? When the, the, you know, throughout history, the enemy is trying to bang down the door. Right How many leaders in we're talking across civilizations nation states are made in times of war, because of the qualities that they demonstrate in times of difficulty and hardship,
like the qualities that you mentioned, like wisdom,
like knowledge,
forbearance.
Honor integrity.
So I'll Samad
refers to a leader
who has all of the qualities of leadership in the most complete and comprehensive manner.
A leader who has complete wisdom
and complete perfect forbearance
and perfect knowledge and perfect ability,
impeccable, unassailable integrity
and dedication.
Reliable to the utmost extent.
So, this is a law.
And this is an intuitive thing that people understand, because and Allah mentions this many times in the Quran, some people, they live a life of heedlessness, and it takes them a trial or a calamity or a difficult time
to bring them back to Allah.
When they find themselves in such a hard situation that their own powers and abilities which are very secondary and limited, fail them.
And so they finally realize, it dawns on them, their utter dependence, and their need for a leadership
that is unconquerable, a leadership that is going to steer them right in times of hardship.
This is why people come back to Allah when these things happen.
Thinking about a Samad
a summit Allah is a summit to all of creation.
He is the leader,
all created beings, from the prophets, to the angels, to the sinners, to the deniers of faith to the rocks and the trees and everything that there is,
relies upon Allah's leadership.
When it comes to how the universe is constituted, how it's orchestrated and conducted,
in order to meet just your basic needs.
It all comes from Allah's leadership
and his relief.
When we think about Allah as a leader,
and us as His followers or those who are being led
one of the issues that comes up is the relationship between our reliance our to what call upon Allah
and our reliance or our responsibility to act ourselves.
And we find that there are, as with many things, there are two extremes.
There is one extreme,
which is to wacko, it's not really to luckily, it's a
How can we translate that it's a
posture
of reliance,
which, in reality is a pretext or a justification or an excuse for not doing anything at all?
This is the in sha Allah culture. Right? Which President Elect Biden
unwittingly referred to when he used that word.
Right in the way that we use it culturally, which is basically to say, I don't really intend to do that. May Allah forgive us for
taking His name in vain.
But it's this idea that, Oh, you know, let's rely upon Allah.
But we're not really talking about relying upon Allah, we don't intend to put forth any action to bring something about.
Somebody asks you to come to a certain appointment, or an invitation
and you have no intention of going
but you'll say, okay, Inshallah, inshallah.
Or there's other things that you want in life
regretfully, most people exhibit this attitude when it comes to their religiosity or their spirituality.
When it comes to their ability to read the Quran, or study or ponder upon the poor and their ability to make the salah on time, their ability to make the salah and the MSG, their ability to push themselves, try to night, make night prayers, tried to make the extra Sunnah prayers, tried to give charity in a regular way, all these sorts of things, when it comes to these sorts of things.
The attitude is inshallah inshallah
without really any strong conviction or commitment to follow through.
Exactly, then you can be free of responsibility. Exactly.
However, do we see people when it comes to money, for example, when it comes to a spouse
that they want to marry?
Education? Do we see people having the same attitude? No, of course we don't. We see people struggling, putting in the work, start hitting the books, you know, taking the GRE and this test and that test and passing the boards and working from home and, you know, 5060 hour work weeks and all of this madness.
Imagine if you approached that person and said, Hey, why don't you just, you know, rely upon Allah, just, you know, Inshallah, it'll happen. They'll say, no, no, no, I have to do this, I have to make sure that I've done i dotted every I have crossed every T I've done absolutely everything possible.
So we can tell that there's a problem with our priorities when we have one attitude,
one attitude towards our spiritual well being and our spiritual progress, and then a different attitude towards our material progress.
But there is another extreme as well. And we see this, I think, in our society today, more often than the other extreme, we see
an extreme reliance on the self, and what it can do, what it can accomplish,
to the point where
we blame
people who are not successful.
We've kind of bought into the American myth that everybody receives what they deserve, that this is a pure 100% meritocracy.
And so when we see poor people, we see people who are in a hard situation. We don't conceive of it in terms of necessarily Allah's will. We don't conceive of it in terms of a test that Allah has put on a community, that there are poor people in that community.
We see it as a failure. Why didn't this person do this? Why didn't this person do that? And this is not to say that
there is no such thing as personal accountability. No, everybody does have to take accountability for themselves, and try to be self sufficient. But when we out of nowhere,
judge other people
and act as if a lower socio economic status can only be the result of somebody not trying hard enough or not being clever enough, then this is the other extreme. We've subtracted the trophy of Allah, the success of Allah out of the equation. We imagine that this is just some sort of hard math. One plus one equals two, you put in all of your inputs and you're going to get out exactly what you put in without the supervision or the blessing of Allah or the will of Allah in there at all.
So it's
There's two sides to that coin. There's the one that blames people who are worse off. And then there's the pride and what one has achieved.
Me, what did I do? I have, I'm this,
this occupation and our society doctor is top right. Like, I'm the Doctor of this, and I have this salary. And I do this, and I have this and live in this zip code. And this and this, and this. I
the logic
that undergirds a lot of that speech. I love that I love many. This is not to single out doctors, like there are many, especially in our community, home to the law, many doctors extremely humble, extremely pious, humble data. But we know that there are also this type of person out there, where they are under the delusion that it's all due to them.
That it's all due to their agency, their ability to act, their ability to kind of outmaneuver
that is responsible for their success without any consideration for the
their dependency upon Allah's leadership, their dependency on upon Allah's Taufiq. And Allah's will. And Allah's risk, that he would give them that success in the first place. So Islam as,
as usual in between,
in between a phony reliance, a wishful thinking, and
obsessive meritocracy or an exaggerated belief in our ability to act.
We believe in both taking the means
doing whatever we can,
acting responsibly,
and then relying upon Allah.
A lot of people's anguish
in this life comes to not understanding this point. Because we all have a certain kind of result that we have in mind and that we want. And so when we fail to get it, we blame ourselves, we turn over in our minds over and over again, oh, I should have done this, Oh, if only I had done this.
Without realizing that the results were never fully in our hands. All we had was the responsibility to take the means put forth our best effort. And then the results are up to Allah.
Our Sheikh Sheikh Abdullah Shan, Titi and Medina, he would always give us the example of the Battle of the Trench, Yama conduct
as kind of the model or the framework of Muslim reliance, an agency you should all likely know the story
that
the coalition forces that the Quran had gathered from all over Arabia, were going to march on Medina and lay siege to the city of Medina.
And they had absolutely no ability to withstand
this force. It was 10,000 strong.
So the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he did what he so often did, which was he asked the advice of his companions and will hold I don't know, the Allahu Anhu reported that he there was no one
who sought counsel more than the Prophet Muhammad saw a lot of years ago.
And so he sought counsel from his companions. And so man and Pharisee had the had an idea. He said, In my land where I come from, what we do, if there's an overwhelming military force that's going to come, we dig a trench that they can't cross, and we hide behind the trench until they run out of provisions and have to go away.
Everybody approved of this idea, no one was thinking this is an innovation. This is something that's far into Islam or foreign to our traditions, no. They realized it for what it was, which was a good idea.
And they took it.
Building or digging, that trench was an extremely, excruciatingly difficult process.
It was during the time of year where the weather was very cold. The Muslims still were very, very poor. They hardly had anything to eat.
They would tie rocks around their stomach and we're talking like large rocks, in order to kind of trick their bodies that they were full,
extremely
grueling circumstances the trench was about two kilometers long.
It spanned the
The most vulnerable because if you know the geography or the topography of Medina, it's mostly
protected by the lava fields or the fields of lava rock, and there's mount overhead. And then there's mounts iron on the bottom. But there's one particular place where it was somewhat vulnerable. And so this is where they dug the trench to kind of span this gap.
And it was extremely difficult. It took them a long time, it took them every ounce of energy that they could muster.
There were times where they felt like giving up there were times that where they felt like it was perhaps, not going to work. But they took the means.
And then what would eventually happen. The ASVAB the coalition forces they camped outside they couldn't cross over the
the trench.
And then after a certain amount of days, Allah sent upon them a wind store that scattered their tents and scattered their their forces and sent them packing.
So you have the act of man and you have the act of Allah.
You have acting responsibly in your capacity, what you're able to control on what you're able to do, and then you have relying upon Allah's results.
Because Allah can achieve anything
that he wills
even with Pharaoh,
who was out to kill Moses, before he knew who knows us was, Allah put love in the heart of Pharaoh for baby Moses, thus enabling Moses to be raised among him. So if Allah can control the hearts, and Allah consent, windstorms, whatever he wants, then you know that the results are up to him.
That doesn't mean that you just sit back and wait and you just simply raise your hands and do it. No, you take proper action,
that which is reasonably expected from somebody, and then you relinquish the results to Allah. This is part of what we do when we make a lot of LSD hot.
Right?
A lot of people they misunderstand this is too hot. They treat it like it's some sort of superstitious
type of right divination. Oh, how did you feel? What dream did you have after you made the harder
you know,
without realizing that salata is the Hara is supposed to be done with a specific intention. I want to do this, Allah, I'm asking you,
I'm going to try to do this. If it's good for me, bring the results. If it's bad for me, take it away.
And then whatever you do, you're covered.
You know that if it happened, that it's good for you and if it didn't happen, then it's good for you.
So this is a summit. This is Allah's Name summit, the leader, the perfect leader, whose leadership qualities are completes comprehensive and unsurpassed.
The next name of Allah is unhappy.
And Hattie accursed twice in the Quran, it means the guide, the one who guides
and like many of Allah's names, there are two types of this quality, or we can say, there's a general type of this activity of a law guiding people and then there's a more specific one.
So when it comes to general guidance, this is something like Allah's Mercy like Allah's risk that applies to all of creation, everybody. It's not withheld from anybody.
This is the guidance in order to earn a livelihood,
the guidance of our instincts, whether it's to get hungry to want to eat, or whether it's to
be attracted to the opposite * so that we can have a family and have children and procreate.
These are all part of Allah's guidance.
To get tired, such that we sleep all of these reflexes, instincts, senses,
they are all placed in us by Allah.
As part of his guidance.
They structure our lives. Thus they point us in a certain direction.
And there's a lot that we say on Sunday nights about these sorts of things,
and how to tame and discipline them and make them work for us as opposed to working against us.
And then there's a more specific type of guidance and this is really what we more often in
intend or mean, when we use the word
has to do with success in the afterlife, being guided to truth,
believing true things are things that are theologically true and acting
in legally true ways meaning, meaning acting in ways that are pleasing to the Creator, as opposed to acting in ways that are displeasing to the Creator.
Even this specific type of guidance, we can divide it into two categories. There's the kind of signal that's put out if you will,
showing the way
which is something that a law does by sending messengers by giving us our reason and our senses, which are able to observe the creative universe and conclude
about the Oneness of Allah, the singular will that undergirds all of creation.
This is all part of showing us the way
the Koran and all that is in it allows speech allows communication with us.
And then there's the receptor site. So there's the signal that's being sent out, which is something that a lot does. And it's also something that human beings have a small role in when it comes to the messengers, for example, and even, quote, unquote, giving Dawa explaining Islam to people trying to teach trying to be a good example. This is all part of the project of guidance in the sense of sending out signals to try to attract or encourage people to come to faith.
But then there's the even more specific
side of this, which is kind of the receptor site. What's going to stick? Who's going to take the hint, who's going to take heed?
How successful is this venture going to be?
Getting it who's going to get the message. This is the provision of Allah alone.
Only Allah
can guide people in this most specific way,
where he is willing the success of someone's guidance or willing someone to receive guidance or to receive an act upon it.
And we see this with the Companions, keeping in mind that all the companions were Congress.
Some of the companions,
it seemed like they were destined to be Muslims, we're talking about the Abu Bakar was and the earth man's right. They were such noble people before Islam. And so Islam was very automatic, besides going to be what causes and the Romans had been Mossad, these sorts of people.
And then there were people were, they were kind of rough around the edges. Right. But they, after some time accepted Islam like Rama, Khalid dividends will lead.
Others similar to that.
Then there are some that were so far from guidance that nobody would have ever expected that they became Muslims.
Yet they did, such as Abu Sofia,
and such as his wife hints.
And then there are those that were similarly far gone. But Allah willed
that they would never be guided. The Ebola helps,
that I will call it
if people had to had to guess right, who they thought was going to be guided between a well thought of and I will Sophia.
And the Meccan period.
Like early on before, obviously before he passed away before the year of sadness.
Nine out of 10 people would have assumed that I will tell them was going to become guided.
Yet I will tell them is the one who refused and eventually I will Soufiane who was such a staunch opponent of the Prophet Muhammad was all of a sudden repented
and accepted guidance and became a Muslim and died upon that.
So Allah guides whom He wills and it is only His provision and one of the fundamental things of our Arcada of our belief, our theology, is that
is that we don't know
who Allah is going to God
or who Allah is going to allow us
To be led astray. So Fianna theory, the famous scholar have a set of
his students once found him one day, crying and uncontrollably by himself.
He was towards the end of his life.
And his his students asked him, they said, What makes you cry so much? You've lived such a pious life. You're one of the major scholars of our era. You've taught so many people.
Why do you despair over your sins?
He replied to them. He said, I'm not despairing over my sins. That's not what I'm worried about.
Rather, I fear that Allah is going to take away my faith before I pass away.
Guidance is the provision of Allah didn't the Prophet salallahu alayhi salam say that somebody would perform the actions of the people of paradise all their lives until the very end, and then what was written for him will overcome him, until he will perform the actions of the people of the fire and therefore will enter the fire. And vice versa is true, there will be other people who perform the acts of hellfire their entire lives, until what is written for them overtakes them.
And they will then change at the last minute, they will become like the people of paradise and therefore they will enter paradise. So anybody who reflects upon this, they should just slow down, and they should realize that
not to feel too confident in yourself, not to feel that you're better than anybody else. You're You're today Hamdulillah you pray, Hamdulillah you attend these lessons, but you don't know where you're going to be tomorrow. Allah has already written it. We see other people you see, I passed I went with my neighbor, we were driving downtown.
There was a Muslim guy on the porch drinking drinking alcohol out of a bottle
on the porch,
in broad daylight, it was only like three o'clock in the afternoon.
Obviously, this action is wrong.
But I have to be careful not to
transgress the bounds and assume that this person
is somehow sealed or he's you know, his fate is sealed or his heart is sealed or he won't be guided or looking at this. That person might one day be a stronger believer than me.
I don't know.
We only see people for snippets of their lives. And the law can guide whomever he wills whenever he wills. We are out of time. Does anybody have any questions before we wrap up?
We are out of time.
That's me on the other one. I was seeing if anybody had left any questions on the live feed, it doesn't look like it. Okay. Thank you, everybody else.
Good suggestion. Okay, how to protect ourselves in sha Allah insha Allah are handling all sorts of Absolutely. Thank you very much, everybody. I'll see you next time. Assalamu alaikum