Who Is Allah – Understanding Allah’s Names and Attributes #14

Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala Ashraful NBR. Even more serene Avena we'll put those in and Muhammad Ali are full of Salah, it's good to swim. Along Melinda we may. In fact, we know that maybe Matt and mtna was either an Ironman, you're up or down. I mean,

it's Saturday night. So we are talking about a loss of harm to Allah. And his beautiful name is lofty attributes. And we have made it to

two names which are related.

I'll preface it by saying that last class, we talked about Eileen.

And this class, we have a lovely if a hobby.

And the author puts these two together in one chapter, because they often come together in the Quran, or the worldly for coffee. Like I'm sort of a monk.

And they have relationship to the previous names that we were talking about a semi lossy, allottee.

Whereas a severe losses

were kind of

precludes or

examples of the ways in which a lot is knowing that Arleen.

Right. How is he knowing he sees everything, he hears everything.

Now we have

two other aspects of Allah's knowledge.

And something also related to that. So we'll take them one at a time, first with El Kobe.

Because Kobe is the closest and I mean, the meaning, right and the hobby, we could translate it it as the one who is informed about everything, or the one who is all informed. Now we could ask, what's the difference between El Amin and a phobia?

And there are many of them said that the difference between Ireland and color from which these two names are derived, is that something that is not alone, something that is known knowledge

is an extremely, it's an extremely general term. So it encompasses things that are obvious, and things that are hidden.

Right? You can say Adi miljard animal for things that are both obvious and hidden.

However, Kobe is a little more specific, Kobe have generally refers to things which are hidden, and not things that are apparent.

Right. So when we say Escobar, your role is to inform, right? The whole process of informing somebody about something

assumes that that thing is kind of out of sights,

or beyond observation in the first place.

So whereas al Amin is general, and includes all of that, which Allah knows, and Kobe refers to a laws, unique position as being informed about everything that is secret and hidden from other beings.

So some of these things, by way of example, which Allah mentioned in the Quran,

include the hidden processes of the creation. Allah says, the, what's in the womb,

whether it's a boy or a girl, even today, we have empirical instruments to gather observations

to

ascertain or know ahead of time whether the infant is going to be a boy or a girl. And we've gotten pretty good at those observations, but it's not 100% accurate. There are cases and if you talk to midwives and gynecologist and other people who deliver children, they will say yes, sometimes even with all of the latest state of the art,

instrumentation and techniques and equipment, sometimes they will be wrong. They will say from the first or second ultrasound this is going to be a boy or a girl and then it ends up it ends up coming out the the opposite.

So no matter how far

Our knowledge has gotten it is contingent upon these kinds of direct observations, what our instruments, how precisely they can observe. And there's always room for error. However, Allah's power to Allah is perfectly informed. There's no room for error,

about everything that is hidden. So Allah knows what's in the womb, He knows the identity of its sex. He knows how long that child will take to be delivered, whether it's going to be premature, or past term or right on time, or other things that doctors gesagt or make educated guesses, right better than guessing but educated guesses about

a law knows what's in the future.

Which is something that obviously we know no one else has

access to.

And the only way the sorts of

fortune tellers and soothsayers and things like that, they rely upon kind of secret information from the unseen world of the jinn in order to know the little bit that they do know.

But they're not informed in the sense that like a lot is informed.

They let you connect the dots, they might

give you a bit of information, that's true,

that you are surprised that they know because you don't think that they should know it.

And then you connect the dots and start making the assumptions that they know this and know that and know that.

Or, for example, if you ever look into the words of soothsayer, soothsayers, and like Nostradamus and these sorts of fortune tellers of the past, you can always tell that their words are very vague

and ambiguous, they're purposefully deliberately open to interpretation to the point where anybody who has a a charitable reading, we'll find something that is accurate and true that has come to pass from what they've said.

Whereas the words of Revelation are clear and specific.

Even if there might be sometimes some degree of ambiguity in what we call interpretation.

They are a completely different category in class.

From the words of a fortune teller or a soothsayer, well, Matt will be Kahin. Allah says and sorts of Ha ha, right? The prophesy seldom is not a cat, and he's not a soothsayer, or a fortune teller. And these are not the words of a soothsayer or fortune teller, even the false prophets who tried to imitate and make up their own Koran. During the time of the Prophet Muhammad, sigh sound like most of you will say them al Qaeda, if you read their attempts, they're really really funny. Right? They don't mean anything. It's just empty words, some sort of vague, you know, something bad is going to happen in the future. Right. So this is just posturing.

It reveals the fact that they are not truly informed, they might have one piece of information, and they're trying to leverage that asymmetry of information, they have something that you don't have to convince you that they are on forums. But this isn't true. Being informed in this sense is reserved for Allah subhanaw taala, who was informed of who is informed of absolutely everything that is going to happen? Similarly, a law is informed of everything that is secret between people, their internal speech,

their secret gatherings, their thoughts,

a lot is privy to all of it, it's no different to a lot. Whether you speak it out loud, whether you say it under your breath, whether you keep it within your heart or your head. It's all the same to Allah, it's as if it's all coming in. To use a phrase not literally, but it's, it's all in stereo. Right? It's all clear, as if it were broadcasts for all to hear.

Whereas us we depend on these physical mechanistic kind of materialistic means of hearing and so because we require our ears to hear we require sound waves to be

transporting through a medium to reach our, our organs.

There's going to be some things that we catch and some things that we don't, some things are too quiet. We can't hear them. Some things are a different frequency, like elephants can produce frequencies and whales that are below what we're even capable of hearing.

Dogs are able to hear some frequencies that are above what we're able to hear. So because our being informed as content

Imagine upon physical media.

It's very limited whereas ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada. He is not dependent on the physical world. He's separate and apart from the creation, his seeing his hearing his knowing and his being informed is all limitless, and infinite and perfect.

And there are many funny times or funny stories in the life of the Prophet salallahu Salam,

where the kofod of the Quraysh, the rejecters of faith are reflecting their ignorance of this reality and this fact that Allah is in Kobe, right like this story that I love to mention, when Feds Hanukkah happened when Mecca was conquered, and Bilal climbed on top of Abu Bakar anormal to ascend on top of the cabin to make the bed.

And some of the old chieftains of Croatia hanging around the back and they're making comments and they imagine, they imagine that they can't be hurt.

They imagine that no one will hear that. And so one of them says, for example, I'm glad that my father has passed away but to not to not live to see this day. Basically what we would say in English, he's turning over and he would turn over in his grave if he saw this, a black man of free a slave climbing on top of two of the nobleman of Qureshi, Abu Bakr, Norma.

And then the other one, he says

that, couldn't Mohamed get someone other than as Black Crow, to call the event, right criticizing, criticizing, criticizing.

And I will Soufiane who is recently converted to standing next to them. And he has seen the miracles and he has seen the reality. He knows now that a lot is out of Colombia. And so he goes out of his way to distance himself from this type of commentary.

He says, I'm not like if I say a word, even the rocks will tell them behind this little boys. And sure enough, not quite the rocks. But Allah sent Gibreel to inform the problem. So I sent him about the things that they were saying. And so the prophets Allah Islam came and confronted them about.

And Abu Sufyan because he had played it right. And he knew it. He says, I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. And the promises, he said and laughed at this.

Right? So a lot, is that a hobby? It doesn't matter what you think, is private, we have a sense of privacy, especially in North America, culturally, we have a strong sense of privacy.

Cell phones, right? Like, how much would you be comfortable just turning over your phone to somebody else?

Your spouse, your friends, your children, so that they could just look and see whatever you do?

On your phone, or on your device on your iPad on your tablet?

Right?

The the logic of the technology makes us hesitant and makes us feel offended if anyone were to do that. Right? Why do you have to be going through my stuff snooping around stuff like that? Well, guess what, even if you don't have anything to hide

the fact that you have that

it is a We should say that there's no barrier. You feel like it's private, you have that reaction because you feel entitled to some privacy.

Well, with a law, there's no such thing as privacy. Right? Allah is perfectly informed. There's no such thing as privacy from Allah.

And we, as we said, when we were pondering the name Al Amin,

a great amounts, perhaps the majority of sin

happens when we forget

this reality. We forget that we're being watched, we forget that a lot is a hobby of Al Amin, we forget that he's a semi. And we'll see that he sees and hears everything.

It's the whole surveillance example. Right? If you realize you're being, you know, under surveillance, you're going to act a lot differently.

When in reality, we're under surveillance from Allah all the time. 24/7 no matter where we go, no matter what we do.

But that reality is so foreign to us because we live in the world where everything has physical limitations. The camera can be pushed up, right? Someone wants to try to attempt to rob the MSG. They know that there's security cameras, they kind of slide behind and they push the camera up. Yeah. See, Allah sees you

If you could move the camera Allah sees you.

Right? So forgetting the specs

is what enables it doesn't necessarily cause us.

But it creates the ecosystem

in which sin happens, because we have forgotten ourselves we have forgotten our Lord,

which is the purpose of liquor. Why is that so important?

It's because liquor is the constant tying ourselves to the reality of Allah's Presence.

So even if our eyes strays, or our ears strays or hand strains, we start to walk down the road of sin.

If vicar is on our tongues,

with we're having some part of our body tied to the mentioning and remembrance of a law.

The hope is that it will bring us back cause us to remember and prevent us from doing that sin which is predicated upon, forget it.

That is our hobby.

Lobby IEF has two meanings.

One of them which is very related to hobby and one that is significantly different.

So one of the meanings of Latif is pretty much okay, it's pretty much exactly the meaning of that Fabien being informed

why what's the connection because Allah if

is like the subtleties, right? As opposed to Avila.

Right you see the linguistic connection, something that is Latif is something that is

hard to discern.

Allah if like the finer points, we would say in English.

So, he is the one who's informed about those finer points he's able to, they're the same to him.

It's as if they were open and apparent for all to see

to us they are very, very subtle, the subtleties to him, they are known

right as day. And so this is the first meaning of a Latif

the second meaning of LPF

is someone who achieves his plan subhanho wa Taala and his will, in subtle ways.

And this is a very, very powerful meaning.

Allah is not crude.

Allah does not achieve his plan with ugliness,

or with brashness or with

something that is repulsive.

Allah achieves it with subtlety and gentleness look.

This is the way in which Allah is in the aid of the believers with subtlety.

Even things that we experience as McHattie things that are distasteful to us unpleasant to us, can oftentimes be a loss, subtle way of either averting death disaster from us turning disaster away from us.

Or else causing some sort of greater good to happen to us.

And there are examples and examples and examples

throughout the Koran, take Moses and found

right, an example of a law being a Latif

the fairground was so obsessed, because of his dream and trying to eliminate the threats

that a lot of turned his obsession

into the very means that would undo him.

Right.

His obsession with trying to

exterminate bendy straw, it

caused the mother of Moses to cast him into the young into the river,

which then he

alighted upon the shore with Pharaoh's household and Allah in his subtlety, he placed love

In the heart of Pharaoh for the baby Moses, and Moses grew up in the same house that he would then overthrow.

That is subtlety.

There's this like folktale that I think is in basically almost every Muslim culture. I know when I was in Turkey, it was there's like a tower, right? It's like a lighthouse. It's often an island in the Bosphorus Strait by itself, it's called kiski, Lesi.

And almost every I mean, even at Italian lore, like any any single culture, I feel like that has a lighthouse on an island by itself. There are a tower has this kind of story of a an overprotective father,

who wanted to protect his daughter at all costs, right? And so he builds this tower on this remote island and locks her up there and sends her fruit baskets and things like that. Because he had maybe he had some sort of prophecy or a soothsayer tell him that his daughter was going to die or young. And then sure enough, in one of the fruit baskets, that's delivered, there's a snake and the snake kills her, right. So the very means by which he thought he was averting a certain result, ended up being the subtle means by which he arrived at that result. Right. This is kind of the same thing that we're getting at the Prophet use of it, he said on his whole story is a Latif I love to eat on

display.

Right? The fact that he's thrown into the well, the fact that he's thrown into prison. He's innocent. The fact that one of the prisoners wants that he gets them free, or the one that is going to go free is allowed to go free. He forgets for two years.

About about use of rotting away in jail, all these things happen subtly. It's a lot of subtlety, subtlety, subtlety, bringing around fate, bringing arounds, everything that has to happen in order for us to achieve that status. He promised him in his dream.

How is it going to happen that all of these brothers, seemingly stronger than him, jealous of him, wanting harm for him?

are now going to bow down to Him in humility, how is that going to happen? A lot achieved it with subtlety.

Making the brothers feel like they got over making them feel like they had off or we got rid of him.

And the very means that they took to try to end him and get rid of him were the very means by which Allah raised use of status.

We have some we have stories all over with in the life of the prophet Muhammad. So I said I'm demonstrating Allah's quality of being a Latif.

Abu Sufian is one such story.

You know, the ways in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam dealt with him the things that happened in his life. It's remarkable. I mean, when we tell the stories of this of the Sierra, we kind of think, you know, like Abu Sufian and hidden are like, you know, like, bad guys, right? But they ended up being repentant, righteous Muslims that died upon that, we have to say at all the Allahu Anhu when we talk about them

because if we look at the story, how subtly you know, a lot brought them to Islam. We go from hand, ordering the assassination of Hamza during the Battle of biting on his liver.

Right.

And I will Soufiane commanding the forces that day praising idols

mocking the prophets of Allah how to summon his companions.

And then step by step by step. Allah has his plan and a lot of chief says playing with subtlety.

One of the most amazing aspects of this on the Sierra is how to prophesize that I'm dealt with I was young.

I was Sofia was a proud person.

He was somebody who was he was arrogant. He was an arrogant dude.

He loved wealth and honor and status. That's what he wanted.

And the promises he said, I knew this.

And so

when it came time to conquer Mecca, and the army was marching towards Mecca.

And everybody knew that Mecca had no ability to resist this army.

right they were at the mercy of the Muslims for the first time.

And I best the prophets, Uncle Salatu Salam brings Abu Sufian out to meet the army ahead of time. And they take echoes of Yemen, they put him up on an elevated place, and they make the army marched below him so he can see wow, like this is really, this is the end.

Right?

And I was gonna still hesitating, he's still hesitating. All of his past 1015 20 years has been opposing this movement.

Think about how invested he was in fighting Islam, tooth and nail.

And what does the Prophet salallahu Salam do?

Does he say, Listen, you're arrogant. You have to humble yourself. You can't be a Muslim unless you're humble.

No, obviously someone didn't shame him.

He didn't shame him.

He did the opposite. He worked with who he was.

He knew that I will Soufiane a loved honor and prestige. And so he said, Listen, if you become a Muslim, your house is going to be safe. It's going to be a safe house. Anybody in Mecca who wants safety, they come to you. And so look, he's putting him in a position. He's giving him a chance to redeem himself. He's giving him a vision and a possibility of life after Cooper

said look you can have this role you can be this guy.

So absolutely unacceptable.

The story's not over after then the Muslims come and there's very little opposition and the everybody who had been, you know, trying to kill the prophets of Allah Holliday said on for years and years. Now they're

at the mercy of the province, they suddenly said, What are you going to do to us? He says, You're all free today. You're all free. Then they go out and they have another battle and thought if some of the tribes that were powerful around there, they won.

They got more money than they had ever seen before in their lives.

Okay.

What does Abu Sufian do? After this battle?

I was hooked. Yeah, he's green. Okay. He's not like real strong believer yet. He became a Muslim hamdulillah but he's still struggling on the inside. He comes up to the Prophet Muhammad says,

and he says, Yo,

I want some of that money.

But probably some.

He says to be loud, because below was the person who was responsible for handing out the spoils. That'd be that give him 100 camels and such and such amount of silver

is a huge amount of money. A huge amount of money.

Not only was it a huge amount of money, it was the exact price that Abu Sufian had put on the head of the Prophet Mohammed Salah is set up years ago when they left for Hijra.

Abu Soufiane said whoever brings me Mohammed and Abu Bakar will get 100 camels.

Look at the subtlety of Allah's plan.

The prophesy Saddam says Buddha give him 100 candles and add to that some silver.

Is Abu Sufian done. No, he's not done. He says give me more.

What would we have done to us? You greedy guy get out of my face.

You are no good. I knew it. Your heart was sealed. I knew it. That's what we would react. The Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam he said below give him 100 more camels and even more silver.

He's not done. He says a third time he says Mohammed Give me more.

The promise was set on me says below give him another 100 He's up to 300 camels and even more silver. I will Soufiane in this hadith when he explains this what happened on that day he said at that point, he was overcome.

At that point, he felt the change in his heart.

He said and he said out loud he said Mohamed, you are a generous person.

For the first moment in his life, amen. actually entered the heart of Abu Sofia.

Not from logical proofs and this and that and that the Prophet sallallaahu Salam conquered him with his character and his generosity and his gentleness his look

and look at how lovely Allah was with Sofia. How gently this, I need this person who was obstinately opposing the prophecies that I'm in Islam. Allah brought him so gently, so gently brought him to us now

Subhanallah how

we have many more examples, we have Lachey,

who took the same spear with which he killed Hamza. And then after he became a Muslim, he used that same spirit to kill one of the false prophets after the prophesy centum died was Salem Al Qaeda.

We have Khalid bin al Walid,

who was the hero for the coup far on the day of

almost caused the death of the Prophet alayhi salam and what would have been the end of the Islamic movement.

And Allah brings him to Islam and causes him to be such an effective military commander undefeated, that almost has to remove him because people are starting to get superstitious and believe that they can't win without him.

A lot of chiefs his plan, suddenly

a lot of sheep's His forgiveness for us with subtlety

between the silhouettes and humps, the five daily prayers between Umrah between hij but to from Joomla, to Joomla. All of your minor sins, Allah is just erasing, erasing, erasing.

You're not even aware of it. You forgotten that thing that you did, that thing that you looked at on your phone you shouldn't have looked at.

or the thing that you listened to that you shouldn't have listened to a word you said against your brother or your sister in a smile.

That you shouldn't have said, Allah is erasing, erasing, erasing you're not even aware

and relief.

The angels are guiding you away from disaster left and right.

Your car breaks down.

If your car had not broken down, maybe you would have gotten into an accident.

You got sick.

And you had the call out of work. If you had gone into work, something worse would have happened to you or you would have been the cause you would have fallen into sin somehow.

Constantly the angels steering steering you away because of the order of Allah subhanaw taala. And the thief,

subtly guiding his believers to what's best for them.

And then we have the nerve to complain. Say, Oh, it's so hard.

I want my car to be fixed. I want my health back.

It was there was a story that one of the Christian pastors used to used to tell that's fitting here. He said he was in a plane, right about to take off

or ascending or whatever. And he wanted to, you know, put his armrest down. Okay. So he's struggling with this thing. He's pressing the buttons and nothing's not coming down.

And he's just like, push and pull. And he even and he's starting to, like get frustrated. No matter what he do. It won't budge.

And the climb and the climate and the climate, you know, and the plane.

And then finally he buzzes the stewardess to come over. He said, You know what's wrong with this thing? And then he looks up. And it's not his armrest is the emergency exit to the side of the plane.

How many of us were pulling on and he said, this is his reflection. And it's true. How many of us are pulling on that? Emergency exit

door handle, complaining I won't open and we don't realize that it's not good for us.

Allah has actually written the clear sign but we don't see it. That That thing is not good for us.

Allah has little teeth in the risk, the provision that he gives.

Same thing. Some people if only I had money off, I only have money I do this, I do this. I do that.

A lot keeps some people poor, because it's better for them.

And Allah keeps some people are rich because it's better for them. There are some poor people that if they had money, they would sin.

And there are some rich people if they had had, if they lost everything, they would fall into sin.

And so Allah is keeping them put where they are.

Because he's a thief. He knows and we don't know. Even the way that Allah deal doles out disaster and calamity

giving us signs to turn back before it's too late.

To the people in our lives that have passed away that um die

or the disasters that have happened to our wealth or to our families, to our countrymen, to our code people of our culture and our language

all of it is according to a lot of subtle plan with but of which we see just a tiny, tiny amount

every single good friend and mentor that you've had in your life is all part of a healthy youth. And we experienced that sometimes we only know a person for maybe

one encounter or somebody that's kind of tangential to our lives but they say one thing

at a critical moment and it sticks with us for a long time

Allah was a little thief

he suddenly achieving his plan he's subtly guiding you through these people he's placing in your life at this right time. This is what you need to hear this is what you need to think about

a lost pounds Allah is the most subtle he achieves as well in the most subtle and beautiful way

and that's all the time we have for tonight. Does anybody have any questions? Comments concerns?

Okay, everybody else enjoy your night

yeah, well said also.

Okay, take care everybody, a lot of time. A Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh