Who Is Allah – Understanding Allah’s Names and Attributes #12

This week

on Salatu was Salam ala Ashraful MBA will want to sit in the Vienna awkward was in Hamburg Allah He

was good to see a lot of Ireland that'd be me and found on found I'll be met Alan Turner was even there element you're on the line I mean

it's Saturday night. That means it's time for

our laws names and attributes are making our way nice and steadily through shake up the Rosetta brothers book, federal Esma

formulas

and we have reached Allah's name Al Wahhab

al Wahhab,

which occurs in the Quran just three times

and is derived from the verb

for the Masada hubba

whatever

it is on the form of the syllable Vallabha

will have

Halak Razzaq, as we mentioned before. So it's different from saying like if you guys who are in my Arabic class, we haven't talked at all at all about morphology yet, but we soon will, we soon will insha Allah. So there's ways of taking the root of a Arabic word and manipulating it upon predictable patterns in order to achieve different derived words. So if we take a word who has the root? Well, back

then, if we want to achieve the doer, the one who does that action, we would put it on the wasm file. So we would say wow.

However, if we have something like wow, this is called Salem Ebola, this is something that's even more intense,

either through repetition, or in the action itself, of that verb. So it's a difference between let's say, alpha t,

the one who opens or the opener like Surah, Al Fatiha and Al Fatah, which we'll get to, I think there's the name right after elbow hub, which is the one who is constantly opening everything completely, complete, imperfect ability to open.

Right? So this is the same or a similar thing that's going on throughout all the names that fall upon this pattern

and will have been one of them. So he's not just a lot is not just somebody who gives gifts, or bestows upon the creation things occasionally, or he doesn't just bestow upon the creation. No normal everyday things no and Wahab is intense in both the amount that's being given and what is being given and the duration, the duration of the given.

So Allah is constantly gifting and gifting.

What is he gifting? What are the I add to the Koran that we find this

this name and this quality present in

one of them is Surah Al Imran the third sort of a friend Rob Benalla to zip alumina bad is had eaten up. We'll have another minute on carapa

In Tel Wahab, right so we have the use of the verb, we're making a dua to Allah.

Or saying, we'll have Elena Milla. Dunker Rockman grant us gift us from your possession from your Providence, Mercy. So first of all, we notice what we're asking for

is mercy in the seller hub. Certainly you are

the most amazing, consistent, generous giver gift or

whatever you would like.

So there's if this name is only in the three times that if you pay attention to the things that we're using it for, those will show the importance of those things. It will show the importance of those things that we're asking for the first of them is Rama, mercy. And Allah is called Allah will have in relation to his mercy

which is something that is

almost goes without saying, but always bears repetition.

Just how

merciful, Allah is not just to all of the creation, but specifically to the believers is faithful.

One of just

just one of the gifts that Allah has given us,

is the automatic erasure of minor sins.

Which is something that most of us don't even don't even think about.

Most of us don't even realize the difference between what the major sins and the minor sins are.

And our minor sins are just getting swept away, swept away swept away time and time again by these kinds of automatic mechanisms that Allah has placed in our worship, that he's commanded upon us with the Shinya.

And it's almost like we're building up

all of these sins, all of these sins, then they're wiped away, and then building up all these all these sins, and then they're wiped away time and time again. And we're not even noticing it.

The Prophet saw a sudden he said that from Joomla to Joomla. And from prayer to prayer.

And from aamra Tamra,

these things automatically erase,

they automatically wipe away

all of those minor sins.

without us even having to initiate any sort of forgiveness without us even having to repent.

Which is the very definition of the difference between a minor sin and a major sin. A minor sin is something that Allah will wipe away from you without you even noticing it. Whereas a major sin is something that requires a specific act of repentance. And so how poor and how lame Are we that

most of us don't even know the difference between the minor and the major said, we're not even aware of the sins that we commit which require that specific act of repentance to be forgiven. And oh, what a surprise we'll be in four on the Day of Judgment when we see things we thought were was water under the bridge, we thought it was way it was done.

And over

we might have thought it was a minor sin we might have thought it was something that wasn't a big deal.

But if it's a minor sin, excuse me, if it's a major sin, it will remain until we have a specific act of repentance for it.

Whereas the minor sins Allah is just out of His mercy constantly erasing constantly resetting reset button, reset button reset button, without us even aware.

It another IO.

Or another IO that

we have the verb will have an Allah's name and what have present

is when some of the people in the poor answers the prophets are asking for children.

They're asking for

progeny

or they're asking for

some sort of possession or Dominion in this earth.

Allah says unsalted mbf what will happen Allah who is Huck?

Allah says in Surah Furqan one Lavinia colonna, Robina habit, Allah mean as well Gina will react, Tina, Pol rota Aryan.

These are examples where people are using this verb

of bestowing of gifting petitioning Allah to grant us these things. So Allah when he's using this name of his of himself, or he's using the verb form of it, he's teaching us what are good things to ask for.

It's good to ask for mercy, check. That's obvious. It's also good to ask for family and it's good to ask for children. And it's good to ask as this last is shows that

our spouses and our children be made pleasing to us.

You're not supposed to suffer in a slam in this way. Life's not just one big

you know, trial and Treasury that you just have to scrape through and tough it out. Put on your stiff upper lip and

and bear it. No. We're taught by Allah and the Koran to ask Allah to make it right

pleasing to us these things. And so

it is inherently a good thing to ask for.

Too many of us these days

we've got it in our heads that our family and our children are

a burden upon us.

Like we come home from work or we come home from our, our daily occupation.

And then

we're even more stressed, we we view our children and our spouses as an obstacle to our leisure and relaxation. And not the means that Allah gave us to that leisure and relaxation.

Whereas

the proper understanding, the proper perspective, the proper balance, is to find our leisure in those things.

Doesn't mean that it's all just

automatically fun all the time. No, sometimes you get home. And the chaos at home is worse than the chaos at work. Everybody's crying and running around, and maybe there was a fight and everybody's arguing with each other, this happens. But it also happens very often. That when you drop what you're doing and take the time to connect with your children, to have a conversation with them to ask them how their day was. When you leave that interaction you feel rejuvenated.

It's not like you necessarily need another vacation from

from your children. I mean, listen, if you can get one, it's nice.

But what I'm saying is the quality of our relationship is at stake here. If we only are in the habit of viewing our children as

this obstacle to our leisure, it will become a burden. If we try to view them or attempt to view them as actually the halau original leisure and

respite that Allah has created for us it can change, it can change your perspective and change your attitude and also change the results of your relationship with your children or at least the feeling that you achieve within the home.

The next name that we have is on the same pattern Alpha tag. So as we just said, the normal DOER of this verb would be infatti.

But Allah has described himself with alpha

because of the

his perfect ability

because of the duration

and because of the intensity of what he's able to achieve with this verb okay, what what is it?

Alfa Taff

has two principal meanings first of them is

the obvious meaning which is opener and Fatiha. Right the opening of the Quran.

So, if we say, What is Allah opening?

Okay, we're meaning not just physical things like opening the jar on the pickles, reciting that opening in every sense of the word, enabling it to happen.

The unrivaled ability

of Allah to act and realize his will, without needing any permission from any other being without having any obstacles that he needs to overcome, or any inhibitions that hold him back.

Allah is free to release upon us. The blessings that we have in our lives, the trials that we face in our lives, both benefit and harm, Allah is the one that opens all of these to us.

That's the first meaning and the obvious meaning

of alpha. And what it should make us think of

is when we feel like we're caught in a situation and we don't know the way out. We feel like we're stuck and we can't see three steps ahead like we usually like to

we don't know what's going to happen.

We should know that Allah is the one that can open

anything, he can open doors and opportunities that we would have never thought possible.

As Muslims, we always have to come back to this that we are people of process. We

Have a certain process, we believe in the process and we believe that Allah is going to take care of the results. If we worship Alpha tough,

and believe that He is on Fatah, and do everything that we can to prepare ourselves to be ready for an opportunity when it comes to us, that alone will give us the opportunity that we need, he'll give us the way out, that we're looking for. It also reminds me I should have mentioned this with the last,

the last name Allah have

allow wants us to call upon him by these names, and some of the most effective do that you can make. Or when you're not matching

the appropriate name and quality of Allah with the appropriate thing that you're asking for. If you're asking ALLAH to open an opportunity for you, you're stuck and you don't know what's the next step. You have a tough to address him by this name and quality.

Recognizing your indebtedness and your gratitude and your trust, that he is indeed able to accomplish this thing.

Just like if you're asking a lot to bestow upon you something that you don't know how to obtain it, you've tried everything that you can imagine and it's just not coming whether it's children, whether it's a spouse, whether it's a job.

Yeah, well herb,

the one who is able to bestow anything.

So that's the first meaning of elephant tack the opener,

the one who constantly opens or opens in beautiful and amazing ways. The one who's opening can never be shut, not even an inch, not even a little bit, no resistance at all to his opening.

And the second meaning of FET here or alpha Taff

is the one who's able to rule just like the law says and sort of set up

whole Yejin that Robaina Abouna sama you have to have been and I will help Oahu al Fatah, Al Amin.

The verb to open

is all is also used in the Koran to talk about judging or ruling

between two groups of people or in general.

So Allah is the one just as his openings cannot be resisted. They are absolute. He doesn't need permission. There are no obstacles, there are no inhibitions, the same thing with Allah's rule. Allah is perfectly capable of achieving his rule.

However he wants whenever he wants with absolutely no opposition at all, neither from the devil, right? We don't believe that the devil is the sort of second God that's evil, that can kind of you know, is in this kind of actual struggle, in the sense that

the power of the devil is somehow or occasionally overcomes the power of Allah. No, not at all.

Allah is supreme over everything in creation. And whatever happens is not a

anomaly of his will, or something that he hasn't Well, no, it's what he has willed.

So a lot is able to completely achieve his rule. It is imminent, it is inescapable. Okay, what rule

Allah has many different types of rules, some of which are directly,

directly experienced by us every day, in an observable way. And some which are less observable, or at least we're less accustomed to trying to observe them.

Let's look at our worldly life.

Allah has created our worldly existence with rules.

Whatever I lift up and drop, it's going to come down and fall.

That's obvious that laws of nature these kinds of rules,

but also cause and effect.

You can't just sit at home

asking Allah for wealth. And then when you get a call, offering you a very lucrative, permissible job, you say, ah, nah, I don't really feel like it.

Right

the world is created with cause and effect we have to take the means we have to avail

All ourselves of the things that Allah placed, to take advantage of to achieve certain results. Whether those results come through or not, that's up to Allah. Ultimately he can decide, yes or no.

But we know that we're not going to get the thing without taking those meetings unless Allah wants to create a miracle.

So when it comes to our provision, our livelihood, we know that we have to take certain means, in order to get certain results. When it comes to having a family, we know that we have to invest a certain amount, not just of money, but of time of care into our relationships we need to marry we need to

do all of these sorts of steps in order to obtain a family. Those are very obvious. But the same kinds of rules exist in the spiritual world, as well.

First of all, we have cause and effect within our own souls, because just as our bodies are our creation of a law that are governed by principles of gravity and things like this, are souls are also a creation of a lot, they have their own sets of rules that apply to them.

If you do a good deed,

sincerely for the sake of a lot, it will purify your soul, on the fly homeowners a CA.

However, if you do something

that is a bad deed with a with a bad intention,

it will do the opposite work, it will cover your soul and it will stain it

will kind of hop on the sofa.

And if you do something that might be good, that benefits other people, but you didn't do it sincerely for Allah,

then it will have neither this effects nor that effect, it will not purify your heart.

It will not turn you into a better person slowly, slowly, slowly. Nor will it's by itself

cause you to fall into ruin, or stain your soul. It's something that has benefit for other people.

But it hasn't necessarily benefited you.

So we have these sorts of spiritual conquests and even social science researchers are starting to come around to this idea that giving in charity, for example, actually has concrete physiological benefits sharing.

Me makes you feel good, it literally has a good effect on you. And it creates a habitus, it creates a propensity,

a tendency that's more likely to be repeated in the future.

But there are other types of spiritual causes and effects other types of spiritual rules such as the shutdown,

such as the do's and don'ts, what's allow for you and what's not allowed for you. And as Muslims, we hang our hats on the fact that the study is based on what is beneficial and what is not beneficial to human beings.

We do not believe that the Sharia is just

just a random test, just to see if we'll obey.

No, if a law prohibits something, that thing is harmful. If a law permits something that thing is beneficial, it might not be 100% Either way,

but Allah would not permit something unless there was some benefit in it. Just as he would not prohibit something except that there be harmed minutes.

What does the law say about karma in the Quran?

In surah, Al Baqarah Allah says about intoxicants

woman Effetre. He said and there's benefits, it has benefits, well magnetic.

And despite those benefits, it was eventually made impermissible

because the harms to human beings outweigh the benefits.

There are other things that are made permissible in our city, not because they're purely beneficial, but because the

the benefit outweighs the harm, either on an individual level or on a societal level.

So Allah achieves his rule he achieves his his rule in the world. He achieves his rule without any obstacle when it comes to the spiritual laws he's placed

both the ones that are descriptive, meaning the ones that just happen automatically without our

Our choice or decision and the ones that are

prescriptive or aspirational, the ones that we have to decide to follow or not, which are in the city.

Next, we have Allah's Name a semi,

a semi assuming the All Hearing. And this is one of the more

importance Names of Allah subhana wa Donna, it occurs in the Core M over 50 times.

And by a Semia.

Allah is referring to himself as the one who hears all sound.

And it doesn't matter whether that sound is loud or soft.

It doesn't matter how many sounds there are, doesn't matter whether the entire the entire world is talking about once all of the animals, all the people, all of the leaves rustling, all of the animals making noises, all of those sounds at once.

Allah not only hears them all.

But he keeps track of them all with perfect knowledge, just as if he were just hearing one of them at a time.

Add to that, that some of those some of those sounds have meanings. Some of those are petitions, some of those are asking a lot for things.

I'm asking for a law for something in English over here. And

somebody else is asking for a law for something in Chinese, on the other side of the world, and everywhere in between all of our different languages. And ways of speaking.

Allah hears all of it,

and registers and knows all of it without losing track

of a single one.

And it's not even taxing upon him this effort, or this activity, it's not even an effort.

You know, when I was beginning as a waiter,

I used to have a boss. And part of how He kind of broke you in was he would shout at you different things while you were doing other things.

Because to be a waiter, you have to you have to multitask. Right. So if you've taken one tables order, and you're like putting it in the computer, he's in your ear telling you the order of another table that just walked in the door, he set them up for you, you have to get this and that and the other. And so you have to learn how to balance these different sorts of requests, you have to hear in one ear and remember what your hands doing on the other and you have to that's part of the profession.

And it's difficult in the beginning.

But eventually, eventually you get used to it.

No matter how much you get used to it, there's always a breaking point, there's always a point at which you can't keep track of of everything, you will forget that table 49 had, it was a Diet Coke and it wasn't a coke

or that table 63 They substituted this for that or whatever, you're going to lose track of it. And it's very, very easy to lose track of it.

Whereas Allah subhanaw taala

he keeps track of everything in perfect order without even expending any sort of effort or energy. Also, another example is like Koran class.

For myself, for example, it was a big adjustment to ever have to memorize or recite Koran with a lot of distractions. Right. I was kind of always studied Korean, like by myself, like in a relatively quiet

place. And that works for me. But until I got to some of the Halaqaat and the hub, you've got people that are just

rocking back and forth and shouting out the lesson that they're supposed to have memorized and all this that all this stuff is extremely distracting environment.

And sometimes we would even have teachers that would listen to two students at once, sometimes even three. And they would close their eyes and they would actually be able to correct multiple people at once. They were even reciting, sometimes well all the time in different parts of the Koran.

But other times even they were reciting different kettle ads. This one is reciting even cathedra This one's reciting Walsh, and this one's reciting hazzan awesome. Those people are out there they exist. But it's extremely rare and even those people have a limits.

Allah has no limit.

He keeps track of everything as if it were as if it were listening to just one single solitary sound

Prophet Muhammad SAW this was part of his instruction to his companions. Once they were ascending a hill and some of the companions were, were making dua, but they were kind of shouting. They were raising their voices. And the Prophet Muhammad Asad and he told them no, don't you don't have to shop. He said you're calling upon semi on, they'll see it on how do you even you are calling upon one who is all hearing, all seeing I'm close

some of the Quran which,

at the time of the prophets of Allah, when he was seven, they had trouble imagining that Allah subhanaw taala was a summit.

And this is one of the illustrations of the danger of

idolatry and the the danger of kind of icons, right? Even the idolaters, who

are maybe a little bit more sophisticated, who say that we don't worship the actual statue, we worship some infinite divine thing that it represents.

But the fact that you've represented it within a limited physical representation,

it very easily lets you have incorrect assumptions about that beings, abilities, or capabilities.

So for example,

the Koresh did not believe that their idols could hear everything.

They would only imagine that their idols could hear just like they would hear. So if they lowered their voice, and if they kind of whispered and stuck around, they would imagine that their idols couldn't hear them.

Why this was a self serving belief was because this enabled them to have no true accountability.

Right, when they wanted to be good and pious, they would do everything out loud. And then when they were going to do something that they believed even that their idols would disagree with, and they would just sneak around and whisper and try to hide it.

This is seen in one of the

the stories of the conquest of Mecca,

one of the most beautiful stories of the entire theater, when

the Prophet salallahu Salam, he commands be allowed to climb up on top of the Kaaba and make the event for the first time.

And he actually is climbing up on the shoulders of Abu Bakar and Rama, who are two of the

elites, no nobleman of the Quraysh

you have this freed slave black African, climbing up on top of like the Prophet. So I said I'm he understood the symbolism, which is why he commanded it.

And then some of the of elsif eons old friends are kind of standing in the back, and they're looking at each other, and they're criticizing things, and they're saying things under their breath.

Because they don't believe a lot can hear them.

One of them says

it's a good thing that my father died before he lived to see this day.

And then the other one says, couldn't they have found anyone except this black crow to make the to do to make the other.

Now Abu Sofia, who used to be these guys, friends, before Islam, is standing right next to them.

And Abu Sofia has seen enough things at this point that he understands that he believes.

So he actually says to them, he says, I'm not saying anything. He said, If I say anything, the rocks will tell the Prophet Muhammad.

And sir, sure enough, the prophesy centum eventually comes and he informs each and every one of them about what they said. And that was it. Yeah, that's kind of saying to the province, it sounds like I didn't say

it wasn't me, I didn't do it.

They have this kind of difficulty in imagining that Allah could truly hear everything. They were so used to touch or be they were so used to drawing similitudes between the divine and the profane, the divine or that the uncreated and the creative,

that they had confused the two and their limits, they had imagined that the limits that apply to

created things also apply to the divine.

So a lot of makes hearing, he makes hearing a criteria of divinity. He does have some sort of Philippon as we talked about in the hutzpah and other places in the Quran, where he takes to account the people who worship idols by challenging them. Can Can they even hear

if they

can't even hear

them they are not divine. And therefore, they do not deserve to be worshipped.

Hearing or the meanings of a semi, they fall into two categories, one of them very well known one of them a little bit more

figurative. And we'll end on this in sha Allah.

The first is what we've all talked about up until now registering sound, right? And Allah uses refers to this ability to register all sound as sometimes a threat and saying, Look, I hear what your I hear what you're doing, you're not going to get away from me, sometimes as a promise of aid and assistance. Don't worry, I hear it. I'm here, I've heard your complaints, or I've heard your petition.

And then in other situations as demonstrating his comprehensive knowledge and observation

of His creation.

And then the other meaning, which is a little more figurative, has to do with responding. Right, and we have the same exact meaning that we use in English we say, I hear you.

It means like, I've got it i It's taken care of. I will fulfill that request. I will do what you expected me to do or what you asked me to do.

Right. And so a lot actually uses a Sameer in the same sort of way. But we say this in the prayer semi Allah halimun Hamidah. Literally Allah, here's the one who praises him. But figuratively, what's the implication is that Allah responds to response to the one that praises him.

Okay, Inshallah, we'll stop there. We'll have time to honor anybody any final comments, questions concerns?

Okay, thank you very much everybody.

For Your participation is normal.

And I will see you next time Insha Allah As salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi