Yousuf Raza – Quran Daily Basmallah
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of bismism in synchronizing personal growth and personal development, but also the danger of conflict. They stress the importance of acknowledging oneself and one's responsibilities to achieve their goals. The speaker also discusses Surah F's responsibility to serve the people, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him, his love for Him,
AI: Summary ©
Alright, bismillah wa salatu wa salamu ala rasulullah,
salamu alaykum and hello to all those watching,
to all those listening This is Yusuf Reza
and you're watching Let's Grow Daily Qur'an.
Today, we're talking about bismillah ar-Rahman ar
-Raheem This may be the first ayah of
Surah Fatihah.
It may not be the first ayah of
Surah Fatihah.
There is a difference of opinion among scholars
regarding that.
Nevertheless, it is part of an ayah of
the Qur'an in Surah An-Naml and
we are required to recite this as according
to the practice of Rasulullah ﷺ before every
Surah.
And not only that, we're required to recite
this before any activity that we may be
doing throughout the day.
And that's what I want to focus on
right now.
The first point that I'm making with respect
to this is how the bismillah allows for
us to synchronize all of our activities, all
of our roles and responsibilities, and then pave
the way for us to synchronize our personality,
which is one of the most important goals
of self-development, of personal development.
One of the reasons for psychological distress, one
of the reasons why our growth is impeded,
is because of all of these conflicting parts
of our personality, conflicting parts of our personality
that are just...
There's a tug-of-war on the inside,
pulling us in all of these different directions,
and we're utterly confused as to what we're
really about.
What is it that we're really into?
What is it that we're really looking for?
Where is it that we're actually going?
It's like an inch in every direction and
no progress in any major direction for some
people.
For a lot of people, it is a
lot of progress in one particular avenue and
practically nothing in other avenues.
So, for example, there may be people whose
professional lives are very well developed, but they're
struggling in their relationships.
There's other people who may be doing very
well on their relationships, but professional life, they
may not be able to progress in or
understand how that fits in to the general
understanding of religion.
Most dangerously, we may have an understanding of
Allah, of God, and we carry that with
us to our prayer places, to our worship,
but that has little to no impact in
our interpersonal dealings, in our general life decisions,
as to where we're going, as to what
we're supposed to be doing.
So we may be very vigilant with respect
to our prayers, but we may be incredibly
unethical with respect to our dealings with our
families.
Or our friends, or in business.
So that unethical behavior on one side, and
persistently going on, something that we've rationalized, something
that we've accepted as part of our personality,
as who we are, as what we do.
And then that vigilant, conscious, that very dedicated,
committed act of prayer, that too persistent, this
doesn't go.
This seems very, very off.
It is as if, and it is a
very likely possibility, psychologically speaking, that that prayer,
with all its dedication, with all the commitment,
with all the tears therein, are little more
than a compensation of the guilt that we
feel for all of our unethical behavior, the
cheating, or the lying, or the fraud, or
whatever we're engaged in, in our social lives.
And that's incredibly dangerous.
This is where the Bismillah offers an incredible
opportunity to synchronize these different dimensions of our
lives, these different parts of our personalities, by
synchronizing all of these different activities that we
do.
So obviously, it's not, you don't just start
saying Bismillah, and it's all gonna magically happen
in one day.
We've been doing that for a while.
But foremost, developing the cognizance, the consciousness, the
realization of what it has to offer.
That before every activity, when I say Bismillah,
I remember that the Qur'an, that the
Allah, or the God that the Qur'an
introduces me to, when I recite it, when
I try to understand it, He's the one
in whose name I am beginning this particular
activity, this recording, for example, right?
My food that I'm eating, my pleasurable activities
across the board, my social interactions, my entertainment
that I may be resorting to, right?
So all of my patience that I'm interacting
with, that if I say a Bismillah before
that, then I am reminding myself that the
one to whom I have dedicated my worship,
to whom I recognize a sense of responsibility
to, that I have to become, for his
sake, a better version of myself, then in
this particular activity, with this particular person that
I'm engaged with, that I'm dealing with, that
I am trying to help heal, I owe
them an ethical responsibility.
Their confidentiality has to be maintained.
The best of my knowledge, of my expertise,
is to be deployed at their service, so
they can get what they have trusted me
with, or whatever it is, the business that
you're up to.
And yes, when I said every activity, and
I'm, as an example, purposefully said entertainment as
well, that it has to be so that
I recognize the role that my relaxation, whether
that's entertainment or sleep or just resting, how
that synchronizes with my entire life, how important
that is to my growth as a human
being, and therefore to the service that I
have to offer, or I freely choose to
offer to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So naturally what follows from this is that
my conception of Allah, my understanding of who
He is, cannot be that of a pharaoh
-like, dictatorial slave driver, who is intolerant of
most activities that are practically going on in
our lives.
That kind of a conception of Allah cannot
roll.
Otherwise I will be forced either to live
a very suffocating life that I am not
comfortable with, that I cannot seem to reconcile
with what goes on, what is natural for
me and what He wants.
Right, so I can, obviously there will be
some sacrificing, some giving up of undue pleasure,
some giving up of unethical practices, immoral practices,
but I cannot put myself in a straitjacket.
That kind of a conception will not roll,
right?
So understanding of Allah as such, and we'll
talk about that more, especially when we start
talking about Surah Fatihah, that He is accepting
and tolerant, as well as someone that I
owe my responsibility to.
So having this broad understanding that all the
activities of my life are synchronized with my
duty to Him, my responsibility to Him, my
love for Him in recognition of His love
for me.
So it's a very personal relationship that offers
an opportunity for me to get in control
by synchronizing these different dimensions of my life.
Again, He cannot be a slave driver.
He cannot be a dictator.
He cannot be a Firaun.
He cannot be a Pharaoh.
He has to be, as the Bismillah itself
goes on to say, Ar-Rahmanir-Rahim, incredibly
compassionate, incredibly persistently merciful, right?
So I'm gonna open this up when we
get to this ayah in Surah Fatihah.
But right now, just to recognize that yes,
the activity that I'm about to start, I
have to carry a sense of responsibility, freely
chosen, interestingly, but also recognize that that sense
of responsibility should not inspire within me this
incredibly daunting fear, this intimidation that renders me
incapable of performing that activity at all or
performing that activity up to par with my
abilities.
How does that happen?
When I don't recognize that the Allah whom
I owe my responsibility to is incredibly merciful,
is incredibly compassionate, because the forgetting of that
will render my performance, because it is so
ridden with fear, completely, it'll be chaotic, and
I won't be able to perform.
I will not be able to, I need
to know.
I need to have this faith that I
have the freedom to make mistakes, even whilst
regarding the best sense of responsibility, carrying that
balance with me.
So just this simple recitation or just a
simple invocation of Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim
before everything that we do, not only does
it allow for us to synchronize, in a
process, over time, days, weeks, months, years, that
we're just constantly reflecting and thinking as we
recite this.
We try to get out of the habit
of saying that as a cliche without actually
recognizing what it has to offer.
The Bismillah tells me not only of what
I'm doing is made possible because of Allah,
but that I am responsible to Him to
do it right, to do it to the
best of my abilities, to do it with
excellence, with ihsan, right?
I can't do a half tracker.
I can't do a bad job of it.
Oh, this is a dunya activity.
This is a worldly activity.
This has nothing to do with God.
No, it does.
It does, very much so.
When you say Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim,
that is precisely what you're reminding yourself of.
So not only are you relating that activity,
it's not just your prayer that relates with
Allah, it is all your other activities that
relate with Allah as well, at a very
personal level, mind you, very, very personal level.
And unless we have a cognizance of that,
we're not gonna carry that recognition and consciousness
into our daily life activities, and we're not
gonna have a daily life, routine relationship with
Him, which is what it is all about
to begin with, right?
So that sense of responsibility, it has to
be invoked.
So my dunya activities and my deen activities,
Bismillah, Bismillah, Allah is the Lord of one
and Allah is the Lord of the other.
This dunya activities do not have a lesser
God, do not have another God.
It is the same Lord.
It is the same compassionate Rabb that I
need to be invoking and be cognizant of
as I'm cognizant of in my prayer.
So whether it is an activity of sacrifice
or it is an activity of personal gain,
whether it is an activity of giving or
it is an activity of getting, whether it
is an activity of a struggle, of something
that I have to do outside of my
comfort zone, or it is a pleasurable activity.
We know from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
that there are du'as invoking Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la prior to the
beginning of sexual interactions.
So there you have an understanding of how
Allah is, your relationship with Him extends to
all of these domains of your life, right?
So whether I am giving charity or I
am making a profit, bismillah, bismillah, in both
of these domains.
Whether I am helping someone or getting someone's
help, bismillah, bismillah, in both these domains.
So I need to have, again, an understanding
of Allah who is the one who encourages
charity, yes, but who is also in favor
of making profits, of economic profits, who encourages
sacrifice, but who is also concerned with my
pleasure, who wants me to relax and have
fun at times as well, right?
And as we go through the different attributes
and the way the Quran addresses, particularly pleasure,
power, and economics, we will find that contrary
to popular understanding, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la's compassion, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la's comprehensive overwhelming of all these domains,
His tolerance, His acceptance, His encouragement, it extends
far beyond what we have restricted Him to,
right?
So with all of these understandings and with
the understanding of balancing hope, balancing responsibility and
hope, with an understanding of having the freedom
to make mistakes as well, that's something that
Bismillah beautifully communicates to me and allows me
through my activities, despite making sure that I
don't become too complacent, too lazy, too irresponsible,
but also making sure I am not driven
by fear to be unable to perform the
way I'm supposed to.
So with that reminder about what the Bismillah
as to how it can potentially help us
grow as a process over time, I'm signing
off with a promise to come back tomorrow,
InshaAllah, starting Surah Al-Fatiha.
Thank you so much for watching.
If you liked it, if you think this
is beneficial, leave a comment, share with your
loved ones, with people you care for, with
people you think will benefit from this series,
from this video.
Thank you so much once again.
Wa akhiru da'awana anil hamdu lillahi rabbil
alamin.