Wisdoms of the Quran #14 How Belief Will Get You Guided

Today's Quranic wisdom, Surah At Taqabun verse 11.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,

Whoever has iman in Allah

shall have his heart rightly guided.

Whoever has iman in Allah, his heart will

achieve hidayah.

And of course, by the way, whenever the

Quran and the sunnah mentions heart qalb, obviously,

the meaning here is not the biological organ,

it is the spiritual

because our ruh, our soul also has the

equivalent of a heart. Like our body has

a physical pump, so to our soul, it

has a center within that ruh. And whenever

the Quran and sunnah talks about the qalb,

it is a reference to that

spiritual qalb of the soul. So in this

verse, Allah says, waman yukmin billahiahdiqalba.

Once again, like all of the wisdoms and

rules we're doing, there's multiple layers of meaning.

There's multiple levels. At the basic level, we

all understand what this reference is, and that

is

hidayah

will not be achieved except when you believe

in Allah.

You will not be guided without Islam.

You will not be guided without belief in

Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is, of course,

the most obvious meaning. You shall never attain

hidayah

without belief in Allah, without belief in Islam.

And this is a fundamental

principle we firmly believe

in. There is no hidayah without Islam.

There is no guidance without belief in Allah

and belief in the Messenger. And by the

way, this is a very simple point, yet

still, unfortunately, there are people that are challenging

this. Sometimes even people that have training in

Islam and they're saying, You can find hidayah

outside of Islam. No. There is no hidayah,

and there is no guidance, ultimate guidance, without

belief in the kalimah. And there is no

salvation

without belief in Allah and belief in the

Messenger. In nadeenaindallaha

il Islam. Wama yabitaghi ghayral islamideenan

falaniukhubalaminhu.

Whoever chooses a deen other than Islam, it

will not be accepted of him. Yes, if

somebody's ignorant, that might be an excuse. But

somebody who knows hidayah and rejects it, there

is no hidayah without Islam. So this is

at the base level. But the verse has

multiple meanings.

A secondary meaning,

the context of the verse,

The beginning of the verse, Allah says, There

is no that happens to you, except that

it is written in a kitab. It's already

decreed.

No calamity befalls you,

except that Allah has already decreed it will

befall you.

Then Allah says, waman yukmin billahiadriqalba.

So now, this phrase has a whole different

meaning.

What I said before is absolutely valid, but

now there's a whole different level of meaning.

What has a calamity

got to do with

Let me ask you, what happens

when you face a calamity?

What happens to your heart when you hear

of a tragedy?

How do you feel when you are dealing

with a crisis?

Your heart is not in peace.

Your heart is palpitating,

physically even. You're feeling anxiety.

And Allah azzawajal

is saying,

after a calamity befalls you,

When you turn to Allah,

your heart will find tranquility.

And so,

yahdi here is not just the hidayah to

Jannah, that's also there.

Yahdi here is the hidayah to tranquility,

the hidayah to courage, the hidayah

to overcome

Allah

says, if you turn to Me,

I will guide your heart. Your heart will

find tranquility.

And that's why one of the qira'at, you

know, there's multiple qira'at. One of the,

ancient qira'at of the of the tabi'un, it

was actually yahda'u,

which means his heart will literally find tranquility.

His heart will become calm when he turns

to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And so, a

more profound meaning, even though the first meaning

is absolutely valid, is that when your heart

is in need of tranquility,

when you are stressed out,

when life is causing you grief and anxiety,

Allah is telling you,

If you have iman in Allah,

then I, you hadi Allah, will give hidayah

to your kalb. And this means we turn

to Allah.

We make dua to Allah. We increase our

sajdas and ruku'is to Allah.

We believe in Allah's qadr because the verse

right before it said, whatever

happens to

you, It's already written down. It's already decreed.

No calamity happens except that it is done.

In Allah's qadr, it's there. So then Allah

says, and if you believe in Allah, which

means you must believe in qadr as well,

believe that everything is happening is happening for

a plan. Allah is our mawla. Not a

leaf falls, except that Allah has willed it.

Not a leaf falls, except that Allah has

willed it. When you have that iman, your

heart will find tranquility.

The world is not random. The world is

not chaotic. There is a plan, and you

must trust in the planner. You must trust

in the rab of this world. And when

you have iman, then you resign yourself over

to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So this is

a secondary meaning, which is absolutely valid. And

then there is yet a third meaning that

we can derive here. Woman yu min billahiyahdikalbaahu.

Whoever has iman in Allah, his heart will

be even more guided. Now, there's a bit

of a circularity. What do I mean by

this?

You cannot have iman without hidayah,

but you also cannot have hidayah without iman.

Let me repeat,

you cannot have iman without hidayah,

right? You can't have iman without Allah guiding

you, and you cannot be guided by Allah

without having iman.

So there seems to be a small circularity

in the verse.

Whoever believes in Allah shall have his heart

guided. But then, you cannot believe without hidayah,

and you cannot have hidayah without belief. And

our scholars mentioned what this verse is referencing

is each one

increases the quantity and quality of the other.

Each one leads to the other, and this

leads us to the third point, and that

is how do we increase our iman?

How do we increase our hidayah?

How do we make it even stronger?

We keep on pushing towards Allah. And the

more we push towards Allah, the more we

desire to have iman, the more

subhanahu wa ta'ala will grant us iman and

hidayah.

Iman is not stagnant. We all know this.

In this month of Ramadan, our iman is

at an all time high. Iman goes up

and down. We know this from the Quran.

And Allah tells us in the Quran, waman

yukmin billahi

Whoever has iman in Allah, Allah will guide

his kalb. The same thing that that we

went over here,

Whoever has hidayah, I will increase their hidayah

and increase their taqwa. And Allah mentions the

people of the kahaf, you know the young

men of the cave, Surat Al Kahf. Allah

mentions them. Innaum fitiatun, how does Allah describe

them? Innaum fitiatun,

aamanoo bi rabbihim, and then what?

When they turn to me in iman,

I gave them even more hidayah.

What this means in a nutshell,

if you're struggling with Iman, and we're all

struggling with Iman,

if you're struggling to be a better Muslim,

if you're struggling to be closer to Allah,

then realize,

if you take

one step to Allah, Allah will take 10

steps to you.

If you put in 10% of effort, Allah

will bless it 100%.

If you take one step, this isn't a

hadith, it's not me speaking. The Prophet SallAllahu

Alaihi Wasallam said in a hadith of Sayy

Bukhari that Allah says,

the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said that Allah

says,

Whoever comes closer to Me by one step,

1 shibr in the Arabic means one hand

span, I will come closer to him 1

arm's length.

And whoever comes 1 arm's length, I will

come 10 arms length. And whoever comes to

me walking,

I will come to him running.

Whoever comes to me walking, I will come

to him running.

This is what this ayah is about. Waladeenaamanu

Whoever has iman, Allah will increase their hidayah.

Allah will make their heart, yahdiqalbahu,

which means if you're struggling with iman, O

brothers and sisters,

you put in a little bit of effort,

and Allah will bless that effort much more.

You come to Allah with even 1% energy,

and Allah will make that 1% 10%.

Then when you have 10%, Allah will make

that 10% 100%,

and so on and so forth. You know,

it's inversely proportional. The

the the amount you put in, Allah subhanahu

wa ta'ala will bless it much more than

what you put in, which means

the going gets easier.

The going gets easier. It's literally the more

you effort you put in, Allah will bless

that effort even more. So do not give

up. Do not say, how can I climb

this big hill of iman? It looks big

when you're at the bottom. It does look

big. You look at the righteous people, you

look at the muttaqeen, you look at the

saliheen, you're like, I can never get there.

But Allah is telling us over here,

athyaqalba Allah is telling us, you just start

walking, and you know that hill, all of

a sudden is gonna start shrinking in your

eyes. All of a sudden you're gonna realize,

hey, I can do this. I can climb.

Before you know it, you're already halfway there.

Before you know it, mashallah ta'ala, you reached

levels you would never have expected.

So this ayah is an encouragement.

Don't give up. Keep on trying. Put in

a little bit of effort, and Allah will

bless you with a massive amount. Woman yu

min billahi yadiqalbahu

Have iman in Allah, and Allah will bless

grant us that iman and hidayah

grant us that iman and hidayah