Tom Facchine – Who is Allah – Understanding Allah’s Names and Attributes #25
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss various cultural and political terminology used in Islam, including "verif bi" and "verif bi," as well as the importance of speaking truthful and being true. They stress the need for more information and a focus on the creation process. The speakers also emphasize the importance of respecting one's spirituality and avoiding unnecessary behavior. The speakers stress the need for morality and avoiding giving too much information, while also acknowledging the importance of showing one's love for Islam and not giving compensation.
AI: Summary ©
This mineral
and hamdulillah Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala Shafter MBA will mursaleen maybe now with watching a Muhammad Ali he of the Salah was good to Salim ala Houma alum that'd be my one flatten out the mount Island was eat an element here of the Army, sir Mr. Aiken rock.
Welcome everybody to the fully Esma in Krishna. Understanding allows names allows beautiful, excellent names, who is a lot? That's the central question that we seek to answer in this class.
Previously,
we had discussed a min and a saw that
and our chef, the author, Chicago xocolatl, brother happy to Allah. He put both of these names together in one chapter, because they overlap.
A saw that is rather straightforward, but a lot mean is a little bit more complex. There's various correct meanings to Allah's Name allotment.
One of those meanings is to verify and to confirm.
So, Allah subhanaw taala.
He verifies and confirms the truth of the prophets and the righteous and he bears witness to the truth.
And he verifies and confirms the covenants and the promises that He has made to us such as that if we believe and lead righteous lives, that we will obtain paradise and eternal life.
And the other meaning of a moment is one of safeguarding,
and safekeeping.
Just like a law says and sort of bourgeois manner home mean health,
a whole movement he is the one who can safeguard and keep safe.
And this is something that we had mentioned there are two levels of this
type of attribute one that's general to all people. A law keeps people safe in a very general sense, even if there is human and inflicted suffering, oppression, killing, genocide, all of these things, these things are by free will.
They are not inherent
to our life on Earth, they are merely the accumulation of people's spiritual faults, their greed,
their lust for power, their
Caprice
their callousness.
And thus the decisions that they make wreak havoc on Allah's Perfect creation.
But as for what's inherent or absolutely essential to the creation itself, a law or we should say that the rule of the day the default is safety and safekeeping.
You don't wake out of wake up and get out of bed in the morning and your limbs don't fall off.
Right? Planetary collisions,
catastrophic events, they're not the order of the day. They're not the default experience of human beings.
The extent to which these sorts of catastrophes happen, especially natural disasters is quite rare. In the grand scheme of things, and
the material world, is coherent, it is solid.
Most human injury and harm
is a result of what humans have rots either in the form of the technologies of war, or technologies of speed,
such as automobiles and things that move fast enough
to harm or kill us
during the process of using them.
But the actual base level of creation that a loss pounds Allah has made for us is one that's very soothing, and tranquil and calm.
The fundamental principle behind it is safety,
safety and coherence and protection.
So we have these two, these two sorts of meanings in a moment, the one who keeps safe the safe keeper, and the one who confirms the truth or verifies the truth. And it's that first, or I should say, it's that latter meaning the one that verifies and confirms the truth that overlaps with a saw duck from solid, the path which means to tell the truth.
Allah is a saw that because everything that he says is true.
He is the truthful,
much more than anything in creation. This is a consequence of Allah's name Al Hapa. And he is the truth, the only necessary truth The only thing that exists by necessity
whereas all of us could or could not have existed that was a lost decision.
So a lot is L hop, he's the truth, he's the reality and he speaks.
His activity is speech, he is able
to speak, when and how
he wants.
And so you add these two qualities together and you get a Sadhak if Allah is truth, and he speaks than what he speaks must be truthful.
Not only is Allah's speech truthful, but part of its miraculousness Okay, so so we have an aspect of a lot of speech that is miraculous,
in respect, or in regards to the fact that it is true,
and often, verifiably, true, and if not, then maybe one day, verifiably true.
But there's also another miracle to Allah speech is that it's relevant. Not everything that is true is relevant.
We live in the information age, where we are inundated, we are flooded with true information, true facts, and
they haven't done us very good. What's the pattern? What's the relationship? What's the relevance
of this information to me and how I should live my life.
Science and technology especially has been is a runaway train of irrelevant truths.
I saw Subhanallah I saw a an advertisement on Facebook today that said, literally, it said, in tech we trust. So it was a play on the on the on the phrase In God We Trust, which is of course on US currency.
And that captures a sentiment that's very, very popular these days.
This vague sort of belief that we keep innovating and inventing that we're going to save ourselves.
And there's this kind of short term amnesia going on. Because we're still writhing
and suffering from the consequences of the last things that we've invented.
Yet, we're very confident in our ability to save ourselves if only we keep inventing and innovating and things like this.
Not of course, to say that technology is inherently bad, but if you're going to point to one extreme or the other,
most people in our current age, clearly our era towards the extreme of over trusting and naivety.
We go to the moon we go to Mars. And people are starving and don't have food don't have housing.
We say we that we could Why don't we do it? If you ask nobody really knows. There's this vague hope that we're going to maybe find a livable planet somewhere once we trash this one
kind of Allah, or find some new and also in perhaps irrelevant discovery, such as other life forms somewhere else
when we haven't developed the requisite care and compassion for the life forms that are on earth already.
So we have lots of things that are true
in our day and age, but many of them are irrelevant and part of them
aeroclub Allah speeches that it is both true and relevant. It's a principle that if Allah has spoken about something, there's a reason why he spoke about it, meaning it is relevant to you. And if Allah was silent on an issue that silence is not an oversight.
Silence is intentional.
And sometimes, sometimes silence speaks louder than words.
We have many things in the Sharia and Islamic law that are left up to a narrow what is known, literally
an acceptable culture.
What should be the expectations upon a husband or a wife? And the household? What should be the dowry? What should be the style of dress?
All these sorts of things.
Maybe the shutdown has given principles, but it has purposely stayed silent on some things.
At least it has refrained from being explicit and some things
for reasons of purpose.
This is why the Koran also isn't a book of science, nor is it a book of history. It's not a laws, wish to tell you who exactly those are domain is for example, I was telling the kids in Sunday school this last week.
It's not relevant to us
to know historically which individual he was.
What's relevant to us is the moral of the story what Allah is trying to communicate.
The story is a vehicle for a lesson. The lesson is intended to save us
to ease and facilitate our salvation. And were hung up on the details. This is what Allah has power to Allah warned us about the whole point of sorrows and belcarra. The central lesson of the surah for which it is named.
Also one of the main lessons and sorrows of calf, when they're debating about how many people in the cave was it? Was it four and the dog was the fifth? Or was it six and thought was was? Who cares?
Who cares what color the cow has to be?
Or whether it has to be young or old?
If Allah says something to you, it's irrelevant. And what he said what he refrained from telling you is also purposeful.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he reinforced this notion
when they met hij, somebody asked, do we have to make Hajj every year?
How did the Prophet salallahu Salam respond? He didn't respond to him.
But the man didn't get it. He kept asking, kept asking, kept asking. And finally he said, Listen,
if you keep asking, it's going to make it basically harder on you and a different Hadith. The Prophet alayhi salam said that there is nothing. There is no believer that's harder.
On another believer, except the one who asks about something that was before there was silence about the issue. And due to his asking, there came a prohibition in the Sharia.
We have this ethic of
we're on a need to know basis.
If the law has told us, we need to know it. If he hasn't said it, we don't need to know it.
It's hard for us, the modern, the modern person who believes that more we have a paradigm of increase and accumulation. We believe that more information is going to save us
as opposed to more relevant information or using the relevant information that we have and focusing on it and then tuning out the rest.
So a lot to honor is a song that he is the truthful.
He is the one who always speaks what is true. And this is one of the qualities and characteristics that Allah azza wa jal wants us to embody
and bring about and encourage and facilitate upon this earth.
If we are stewards Coolatta
we have been left.
I don't want to say left in charge is not correct, theologically, but
you given a role of responsibility
and opportunity to manage this creation
under a lot of supervision
With Allah's evaluation and accounting of us and our deeds, this is one of those things that is imperative upon us to bring about in his creation truthfulness
that when we speak, we speak the truth. This is also why swearing by Allah is not recommended, and the books of fifth
and people should be wary of other people who swear by Allah. Too much.
Abdullah bin Ahmad used to refuse to swear by Allah, because it's this sort of dilution.
If we are swearing by Allah too much, it might indicate that our typical speech is not truthful.
Isn't this true? Haven't we met people like this?
They know that they're not necess deep down in their hearts, they know that they're not the most truthful person. And so out of this out of reaction to this reality,
everything out of their mouth is well Llahi Well, Allahu alayhi.
There, they're desperate for people to believe in them, but they haven't done the requisite maintenance or caution, to make sure that the things that they speak, are truthful.
being truthful is an important aspect of Dawa, as well.
And we're not talking about
the sort of modern forms of data. Not talking about standing up on a soapbox somewhere in the public square and shouting at somebody or debating. We're just talking about being the best human being the best believer and person of faith, the best Muslim that you can be in whatever is your normal capacity, whether you are making the home,
whether you are employed, whether you are every relationship that you have, you are a sibling, you are a parents, you are a child of someone, you are a neighbor of people.
You are a consumer.
You go to businesses, you purchase things.
being truthful
is the basis of all Dawa.
And anybody who is not truthful
can never do doubt.
This is why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said
many of us Shana Felicia Mina, whoever cheats us is not from us. Cheating has to do with not being truthful. And the story behind this hadith is particularly instructive. The Prophet alayhi salatu salam was walking through the market of Medina one day.
And it had just rained.
And in those days, as is still done in some parts of the earth, they sold grain in these large vats that you know, didn't really have any covers.
And so the prophets have a lot of news to them. He sees someone selling the grain and it appears dry.
Very strange. It had just rained, the province I sat on, puts his hand into the container and digs down deep and finds that at the bottom or further down, it's a wet
so he confronts the men.
He says what's what's going on here? You've covered up the damp grain with dry grain. People are going to purchase this and assume that they're getting dry grain and they're not.
The man was very honest. He didn't try to make excuses. He said you got to swallow Allah.
If I were to put the wet grain on the top, nobody would buy it from me.
So the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu is that I'm setting metadata now Felisa Mini, or Felisa. Mina bananas to rewires.
Whoever cheats, has nothing to do with us.
Can't be one of us.
And it's beautiful and it's jazz. It's a It's miraculous how the prophesy centum worded this response
because if you're known as a Muslim
and you're
also known for not being truthful,
then you're bringing all of the OMA down.
It affects all of us, it affects the credibility of every single one of us.
How many of us have had an embarrassing situation where we've had two sheep asleep kind of explained to anonymous thumb, the poor behavior of another Muslim.
That was their first impression.
So because
being untruthful reflects so poorly on all of us, the prophesy set up said, Listen, if you're going to be dishonest and cheat, you're not even, we're going to disassociate
not in a sense of tech fear, but in the sense of we don't want to be we don't want to have anything to do with you. It's more important that the Muslims be believed,
then you to kind of include yourself, or us to include you with us.
And people appreciate honesty.
Even when it comes to your faith, yes, there are going to be things that people don't agree with you with, yes, people are
suspicious, or they have certain concerns about Islamic law and this and that all these sort of hot button issues. But nine times out of 10,
you will find that people respect you more.
If you're upfront with them,
and you're not trying to
pull the wool over their eyes, so to speak. You're not trying to tell them what they want to hear. You're saying yeah, this is what our religion says, This is what we believe. And I don't expect you to necessarily agree with it. People can respect that.
But if you kind of smile, and you say, Well, you know is that you know, like?
And then they go to somebody else. And then they get these different opinions. And now they have to say, well, someone's not telling the truth.
And it hurts all of us.
Knowing that Allah to Allah is a saw that gives us a sense of tranquility.
Because we're not afraid of death.
If we truly believe if believe, has become nestled, settled, and living in our hearts,
we have to believe the covenant of the of the Prophet salallahu alayhi salam and the covenant of Allah the promises that they made to us about what's going to happen when we die.
We have to believe the promises that were made to us about paradise about Allah's mercy.
It's natural to be afraid of death and not want to die. So one of the scariest things, it's the biggest trial, every single one of us will ever face.
But reflecting on the fact that a lost power to Allah is a saw that means that everything he says about it is true.
And so we try to bring ourselves to heal and comport ourselves
to that truth.
We also believe,
or I should say, we feel confident.
When we know that Allah azza wa jal is Assad.
We know that the things that he told us to do, or the things that he told us to not do in the city are indeed for our own benefit, either in this life, or in both this life and the next. And so we don't mind as much what other people are doing. We're not apologizing for ourselves. We're not trying to not trying to fit in, in the sense that we're trying to imitate everybody else. Because there's a good type of fitting in, where you're not being belligerent. Right? You're not being kind of like a like a jerk. Right? But there's a blameworthy cowardly type of fitting in which is really just imitation doesn't have any dignity in it. That's what we want to avoid.
If we really believe that Allah azza wa jal is a saw that, that we're going to believe that yes, alcohol is a destroyer of honor of lives of change of chastity.
We're going to believe that prayer is good for us five times a day, not whenever
We feel like it, we're going to believe that the hijab the certain dress codes are good for our spirits
and will protect us from harm
and so on and so forth everything that is a staple of the Sharia not mentioning the types of rulings that are subject to change from time and place.
But the things that are essential parts of Islam we have to have complete confidence that this is the right way
and we can tolerate other people
but we can tolerate them with an understanding that they're mistaken
and perhaps even diluted.
The next thing
the next chapter, is adelante. Allah azza wa jal is love AMI he is free from me that literally rich but also free from need
you'll be
asked as a sort of some
sort of financial
was the I
he had to be 11 Nova or in a vanilla you'll name it I'll have to say
lon suspicion doubt
isn't free from need or we could say it's kind of like a an expression that makes more sense in Arabic than English we would say that
certainty
does not require anything else does not require any sort of extra suspicion.
Or suspicion is what is in need.
Allah matches the same 18 times in the Quran
says what Abu Kalevala me you do Rama is also an imam. Yeah, you have NAS and Tamil for Quran. Allah Allah Allahu Allah you will have eaten sort of outlive the Lahemaa visa Marathi will have in the law of war lon he will Hamid and in look man
I love Ami. Allah is being al Ghani
has many applications.
There are many things that fit under this name one of them that Allah doesn't need provision.
While Utah Remo
will host and source of an Idaho Utah amo wala Utah, and he feeds other people and he is not fed.
And Allah says
Can I clarify
about Arisa Alehissalaam and his mother money I'm proving that they could not be divine. They used to eat food.
That's the proof. That's Allah's argument.
When one doesn't require anything,
one is able to have pure generosity, right? We think about our worst selves, we have guests over, we just got a nice box of chocolates from somebody, a coworker or our spouse, and we're really, really looking forward to enjoy it.
And we kind of tuck it away.
We don't put it out for the guests, because we were so looking forward to having it to ourselves.
We're not able to be completely generous, because we have needs and wants.
We are not self sufficient. We are dependent.
And that is the greatest hindrance upon our generosity. And developing generosity is about taming and disciplining those wants and needs
to recognize them and kind of shrug them off.
Allah azza wa jal doesn't have any needs or wants in the first place.
He doesn't require anything. And so
generosity from him is completely pure and benevolence.
We can be assured at once that he's not holding anything back from us.
And then,
in addition to that, we know that he's not giving to giving it to us be grudgingly he's not struggling against himself, to give us what he gives us. No, it's pure, pure generosity.
And because he has no need, there's no compensation that's possible either. We are great or we are grateful for our own sake,
for the sake of our souls and our salvation,
Sian, but Allah doesn't need us to be grateful.
He doesn't require compensation. Whereas for you and me
if we're not given any sort of recognition that we're generous, most of us would stop being generous.
No thank yous
no
reciprocal reciprocity, right? You invite and then you get invited this sort of thing.
Many of us will not be able to keep it up.
That's all also means that Allah loves for us to ask. Whereas you and I, we hate for people to ask us for things, a lot actually references this. And so it's it's over the last page.
Even for good things.
It's just the human nature. It's this. It's the neffs that must be tamed.
We have needs were dependent we have once we have plans, you get your paycheck, and you've already kind of figured out what you're going to use it for. And then somebody comes to you and they're in need.
Your first reaction is to tighten up.
You don't want to give
and you hate for people to ask you. Sometimes you get something nice and you're like, you're hoping you're hoping no one asks you for it. Or you're hoping no one asks you.
You would love to be like the Prophet sallallahu sallam.
Not in the sense that he gave as long as he had but when he said no, that he really didn't have it. Right? We this happens to us a lot. No, Allah loves for us to ask.
He cherishes it.
It increases his love for us. When we demonstrate our dependence on him to Allah. Allah doesn't need provision and nor does he need children. He has a height. He is a young he has a garden.
You and I require children.
Because once we die, that's it.
We have no one to carry on our work, no one to
continue our name or our remembrance or anything. We're cut off at the tough.
Whereas Allah azza wa jal, he is the everlasting, he doesn't require children.
The need for children is completely obviated. It's not applicable.
Allah doesn't need middlemen, even angels. Allah doesn't need them. He is agony, he's free from need.
The extent to which he has created angels to do his bidding, it's from his own wisdom, but it's not due to his need.
If Allah wanted to, he could say couldn't vehicle and he could just say it and it would be without any sort of mechanism.
material or spiritual.
Allah doesn't need your worship.
He doesn't need my worship. He doesn't need your worship.
The Prophet sallahu wa salam, he said, if everybody were to gather on a mountain and make dua,
and ask for things, and Allah would grant everybody whatever they asked, it would not decrease from His bounty one iota. Not even a spec.
That includes your worship. Allah doesn't need your worship. Your worship is for your benefit for your salvation for your maintenance. It's like you maintain your car, you maintain your house, you maintain your body exercise, your soul needs maintenance. I've told you what is the maintenance required?
The fact that Allah azza wa jal is led by me
that he is self sufficient.
There's a degree to which
this is also a praiseworthy thing
for human beings to emulate, in the sense that
Allah dislikes us to
ask other people for help.
A lot of dislikes us to
rely or depend too much on other people.
Even something as pure as Rokia, the prophet Sall Allahu alayhi wa sallam, he said that
there are 70,000 people who will be given paradise Billa Hey Sam, without any sort of account without any sort of reckoning.
What's one of their qualities they do not ask others to make rookie on them. They depend upon Allah.
The Prophet salallahu alayhi salam, he said in a hadith in Sahih, Muslim,
it's not allowed to ask anybody for money, period, except for three
situations. One,
what's called,
is left that's on Bane, which is basically like, if two people are arguing,
one says, You owe me money. The other one says, No, I don't.
out of the goodness of your heart, you're a third party out of the goodness of your heart. You want to see your your brothers, your sisters stop disputing. You say how much how much does he owe you here, take it.
In the city, that person is allowed to be compensated by the Beethoven math, the Islamic treasury.
That's the first exception. The second exception
is if somebody has been wiped out by a natural disaster.
They have nothing, absolutely nothing.
And the third exception is if someone has sat at home for two or three days with no food and no ability to work.
Then they may ask for money. The problem is say someone finishes the Hadith he says, As for other than these three, it is haram.
Whoever consumes what they've gotten from other than these three things is haram.
That's extremely strict.
Why?
Because human beings we get
diluted, we get fooled. By the SBAC by the causes that Allah has created.
We start to rely more upon the causes that Allah has created than the cause or of causes Allah azza wa jal
is somebody who becomes a famous frothy, he's able to cure people. People start to get superstitious about him, they give him more power than he has.
This even happened with the early Muslims with qualitative in our lead.
Rama Rhodiola Han who he re he took him from the army from he removed him from the position of general because people were starting to get superstitious.
They started to feel like as long as harlots on our side that we won't lose ever and if God is not with us, then we'll never win.
Allah wants us to be careful to not over depend
upon the sorts of means
that Allah has placed for us
and so asking in general is something to be avoided if possible.
And self sufficiency and love the map is something that is praiseworthy
in our religion
we're out of time.
Does anybody have any other thoughts reflections questions?
Okay
I don't think so. I think we're going to keep the classes the same time. So it's eight o'clock now. It'll be eight o'clock next week, inshallah.
It'll just be now it's after a shot. It will be now between America and Asia inshallah. At least the time that we pray at the masjid here, it still works. So I think we'll keep the lit up. We'll keep the times the way that they are and shall
and of course, let me know if that presents any sort of hardship.
Okay thank you very much everybody have a good night