Yousuf Raza – Quran Daily Surah alFatiha Ayah4 Iyyaka nastain

Right, bismillah, as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa

barakatuh, all of those listening and watching, we

are talking about surah al-fatiha in Let's

Grow Qur'an Daily.

I'm Yusuf Reza and we have reached the

middle of the fourth ayah.

We spoke about iyyaka na'bud, now we're

going to wa iyyaka nasta'een, because as

soon as we recognize the immensity of the

task that iyyaka na'bud puts before us,

what we're acknowledging before Allah standing in front

of Him, repeatedly telling Him that we are

committing to discipline ourselves and then to work

in accordance with how He wants this world

to be a better place and our place,

particularly in making this world a better place,

when we commit to the fulfillment of that

meaning in our lives, then that's a tough

ask, right, to say the least, for the

very first few steps involved in self-discipline

become incredibly challenging, right, so there is so

much difficulty in giving up whatever it is

that gives us our immediate gratification.

It becomes a matter of great difficulty in

trying to make the world a better place

because whatever is going on, whatever kind of

place it is, change doesn't come easy.

Even if it's change for the better, people

don't usually roll out the red carpet expecting

for you to just do the good that

you're so capable of doing.

There's challenges, there's obstacles, internal, external, you name

it, there will be critics, there will be

opposition, there will be all kinds of challenges

that you'll have to face, and so naturally

what follows is that to you alone we

turn to for help.

Particularly important here is what kind of help

isti'ana is representing.

It is the kind of help that we

resort to after having given our best, right,

so we can use dua to evade responsibility

and we do that all the time as

human beings.

The kind of responsibility that does fall on

our shoulders, the ends that we need to

cover, the bases that have to be covered

by us, we in our laziness, our slothfulness,

let them be and expect for this divine

intervention to cover those ends for us.

So kind of like the people of Musa

alayhis salaam, when he asks them to come

forth and fulfill their responsibility, whatever it is

that they had to do to enter into

the holy land and get rid of those

tyrannical people that were already there, oppressive, unjust

people, and the Bani Israel straight out refused.

They said, You and your Rabgo, Musa, we're

sitting right here, we're sitting right here, you

do this for us.

So we have to be very, very careful

when we're turning to Allah for help and

dua in isti'ana, when we're asking Him,

we are not asking Him so as to

get a clean chit and not have any

responsibility to worry about.

Rather, we're asking Him so as to be

able to do our jobs better.

May Allah, we did the best we could.

Yes, there will be shortcomings, there will be

mistakes, there will be slip-ups.

We want those to be covered.

We did our best, but there are some

things that are truly and genuinely outside of

our power, they are within yours.

We leave that up to you.

Right, so very important in this process of

self-development and growth and fulfillment of our

meanings, as Allah would have us fulfill, is

to take our own responsibility.

Right, so if the ball is in our

court, we're supposed to be the ones playing

it.

So we're, not only do we evade responsibility

by this escape that a particular pathological kind

of dua gives us, that we're not doing

the effort that we have to, we're not

making the dua, we're not taking the responsibility

that we have to, the choices that we

have to, we're not making all of those

and we're expecting divine intervention to just rescue

us from that.

What that does is that not only are

we giving up the responsibility that we have

to take up, of choices that we have

to make, of actions that we have to

do, we're giving up opportunities of growth.

We're giving up opportunity.

So here we have Allah as our Rabb,

who wants nothing more than for us to

grow, as he has made clear repeatedly, right,

that this is his, whatever the Qur'an

represents of what Allah wants from us.

You read the law, what Allah wants, and

we're going to study that as we get

to Surah Nisa sometime in the future.

And everywhere other than that as well, within

Fatiha, within him telling us that he's our

Rabb.

So he wants our growth and we're like,

nah, we don't want to grow.

We don't want to do this.

Not us, not now.

We don't want, you just do it for

us.

It's like a child telling their grand, you

know what, I don't want to, I don't

want to learn to walk.

I'll stick to the stroller for the rest

of my days.

You know, you know, you take me everywhere.

Why the * do I need to learn

how to carry my own weight, right?

So we need to be very, very careful

that the dua that we're making to Allah,

the seeking, the reliance, the falling back on

Allah, the trusting him, the asking of him

is not an escape.

And so that's one of the integral meanings

within isti'ana is the kind of that

the effort has been put in, that there

is no evasion of responsibility.

And then yes, there is a recognition that

the immensity of the task is such that

we do need his help.

We do need his support.

We need him to empower us.

Strength, power comes from him.

We do what we gotta, but then we

make sure that we turn to him to

ensure that his help covers up any loose

ends that we've left.

They're not going to be just loose ends.

They're going to be like, you know, whole

areas of mistakes, of shortcomings, of wrongdoings that

we want for him to cover up for.

And not only that, the actual practice that

is taking place to ensure that we persevere,

we require his, his help, his support in

all of that.

That's what we want in Iyya Kanista'in

and also important to recognize that it is

his help that we fall back on.

And this is, it gets a little tricky

that his help doesn't mean that you give

up on the resources and means that, that

are necessary for you to reach your destination.

That is not like, I am not, I'm

not, I rely only on Allah.

I don't need no car, no vehicle, no

nothing.

I'm just going to rely on Allah.

He'll get me to my whatever destination I

want to go to.

No, but it is also important that there

are certain things that means and resources that

may be taken away from us, people who

support we lose and people or means who

support we should cut off from because in

the long run, when the bigger picture is

just not right, right, there are morals and

values being violated in resorting to certain means,

resources or people.

So cutting off from those is necessary and

representative of how we do truly and really

rely on Allah alone.

So for example, there, there is some sort

of haram earnings.

There are some sort of earnings, which are

prohibited from some kind of illegal source, be

it interest, be it gambling, be it cheating

others one way or the other.

And we're just into it and saying, you

know what, to fulfill my meaning in life

that Allah has for me, I have to

resort to this income.

That's not relying on Allah.

That's not relying on, yeah, relying and falling

back on everything that is halal, that is,

that is not morally objectionable.

That is not just that, that, that signifies

trust in Allah, that signifies having in Allah

that we resort to all of what he

has declared for us to use.

Right.

So that's an important recognition.

Thank you very much for listening me out,

having these, you know, giving me the opportunity

to share these insights with you with the

dua to Allah that he helps us in

growing and growing for as good as our

growth is.

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