Yousuf Raza – Ramadan Conversations Episode 3 Surah AlMuddathir 17
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So, ready to take off.
I've put it on a different angle.
One of the feedbacks that I got said
you guys were kind enough to go that
I was too much in your face.
Right on top of the camera, which I
had to do since I have YouTube live
and Insta live running parallel.
So now I've sort of placed them at
an angle.
So I'm going to be looking here, there,
there, there, you know, it'll be a little
confusing, but for me, I hope it works
out for you.
I'm not going to be in your face
too much.
I already am with the pace with which
I speak and what it is that I
say tends to be overbearing.
So at least you shouldn't have to have
my face in your face.
Right.
So moving right along to our third episode,
Surah Al-Muddatir is what we're covering today,
inshallah, over the course of the next half
hour or so.
Surah Al-Muddatir is, again, understood by scholars
to be the third revelation that Rasulullah ﷺ
received.
Taking a step back, the first two, quick
review, Rasulullah ﷺ having everything that a man
would want in the Meccan society at the
age of 40, brilliant family, beautiful, incredible emotional
attachment, you name it, everything Rasulullah ﷺ has
going for himself, wealth, social status, reputation, he's
really there, but incredibly dissatisfied.
As far as his personal understanding of Tawheed
is concerned, he's on the Deen of Ibrahim
ﷺ as best as it has reached him,
as much as he understands of it, and
in accordance with that understanding, he is in
some way or the other reflecting, meditating, worshipping
Allah as only one.
No polytheism, no shirk at all.
The confusion, the difficulty is how does that
great Lord, the great Rabb of Ibrahim ﷺ
that Rasulullah himself worships, how does he relate
with the world, with individuals, given the difficulties,
the evil, and the suffering in the society
around him?
That the exploitation that is rife, the injustice
that is rife, how does that work?
So there is this discontent that he's carrying,
again, by the testimony of Khadijah ﷺ that
you are the one who ties bonds of
kinship you strengthen bonds of kinship, you help
people, that is who he was consistently prior
to revelation as well.
And so the response that he gets from
Allah after his recluse in the cave of
Hira is that you need to read, iqra,
and that's how it all begins.
Read in the name of your Rabb, the
Rabubiyah of Allah, the message of Tawheed in
the context of Allah being the evolver of
the universe and of individuals.
What does that mean?
He takes them from stage to stage across
their growth to live up to the potential
that they have been created for, created from
what?
Some very humble origins.
Now of course we spoke about incredibly overwhelming
experience that it was, how Rasulullah ﷺ was
shocked, petrified, incredibly scared with whatever Khadijah ﷺ
did to calm him down, to reassure him.
And that did help of course, and which
is in the aftermath he received the second
revelation.
And this ties in with what we want
to talk about today.
This surah too begins with, يَأَيُّهَا الْمُدَّثِّرُ O
you who are wrapped up.
The previous surah, يَأَيُّهَا الْمُزَّمِّلُ O you who
are wrapped up.
مُزَّمِّل, مُدَّثِّر, roughly translated mean the same thing,
that you're the one who's wrapped up, rise.
The next word is also the same, قُم,
get up, stand up.
Now the difference, the importance difference, the important
difference مُزَّمِّل refers to a wrapping up of
yourself that you do out of fear.
And it adds up, it makes sense that
Rasulullah ﷺ after اقرأ, after surah Alaq was
very scared, very fearful, very insecure.
And we tied that insecurity in with the
doubt that he has, what was that experience?
Was that, what was it?
It was a demonic experience, it was what?
And so Rasulullah ﷺ was very afraid.
So appropriately the address is يَأَيُّهَا الْمُزَّمِّلُ That
O you who are wrapped up out of
fear قُم, stand up, a part of the
night.
And so he's he is called towards prayer
and how a particular type of night prayer
and a particular type of night prayer with
measured mindful recitation.
And that how that mindful recitation ties in
with a calmness or how it helps bring
about a stability to counter the instability that
is associated with the insecurity of doubt.
And so Rasulullah ﷺ with this mindful vigil
at night, reciting again and again, is preparing
himself for a very heavy task, for a
heavy responsibility that the revelation of the Qur
'an places upon him.
And that will allow for him to be
more mindful in his speech, to be more
resilient, to be stronger because he is delaying
the gratification of sleep and therefore fighting the
natural impulsivity that human beings have.
And so with that strengthening, disciplining and mindfulness,
his responses, his speech, which is something very
important for the task that he is being
charged with, the responsibility that he is being
given.
Now that speech is going to be more
reflective, mindful, measured as well.
So a mindful recitation of the Qur'an
is tying in directly with the mindful speech,
mindful communication, measured communication that Rasulullah ﷺ has
to do for whatever responsibilities are coming up.
So this night prayer, that's the second message.
We spoke about the standing up part of
this spirituality and how this spiritual vigil, this
exercise is entirely spiritual, right?
Standing up in the middle of the night,
reciting Qur'an, that's a very spiritual exercise,
but it's standing up.
It has to be done standing up.
And so the proactive nature of this spirituality
from the get-go is being established.
Now with this, now Rasulullah ﷺ with his
following in with this revelation, praying, reciting again
and again, he is doing that what the
surah asked him to do.
And here comes the third revelation.
And that too starts off with, يَا أَيُّهَا
الْمُدَّثِّرُ O you who have wrapped himself up.
Now again, the word used here is again
loosely translated as wrapped himself up or covered
up.
In your clothes, but it is different from
مُزَّمِّل.
Where مُزَّمِّل was a type of wrapping up
that you do out of fear and insecurity,
مُدَّثِّر is the sort of wrapping up that
you do to sort of shun society, to
sort of turn away from society, to sort
of not be, to cut yourself off.
Almost being unaware of whatever it is that
is going on around you.
Unaware of where you have to be or
where you want to be.
Sort of implication of heedlessness settles in to
this sort of covering up.
I don't want to have anything to do
with anyone.
There's a lot going on.
I don't want to think about it.
What am I doing?
I don't, it's too much, it's getting too
overwhelming.
And this ties in here as well because
of course the night vigil, the spirituality, the
prayer at night, we will see this more
explicitly in Surah Al-Inshirah that it has
this tendency, and we would see this in
Dawud Alayhis Salaam as well, that there is
this tendency in spirituality that once you get
the hang of it, once you really get
into it, the tranquility that it does eventually
come with after the struggling part, it is
very soothing.
It is very alluring to just have that
and not have much to do with the
outside world.
I mean, you're talking to God for crying
out loud and God is talking to you.
It doesn't get any better than that.
And so you would want that this connection
with God is all of what you have.
So that, and of course we spoke about
in the very beginning, that Rasulullah ﷺ is
going to the cave of Hira is the
going of a person who is lost.
And we see in Surah Al-Duha that
will come later, Allah acknowledging this.
وَوَجَدَكَ ضَالًا فَهَدًا We found you lost and
We guided you.
So that this heedlessness or the feeling of
being lost, completely clueless as to what needs
to be done for whatever you see in
the society, whatever you see in the world,
you don't like.
What is there to like about injustice and
people getting exploited?
What is there to like about that?
Nothing.
And Rasulullah ﷺ, deeply empathic person, is deeply
hurt at the pain that he sees around
himself.
And the cluelessness, the lostness, covered beautifully in
the word that means covered up.
يَأَيُّهَا الْمُتَّثِّرُ You who are covering himself up.
It's time to uncover.
It's time to get out.
You don't like what you see in the
world around you?
Change it.
Change it.
قُمْ فَأَمْذِرُ Stand up, get up, and warn.
The previous instruction was get up and pray.
The second instruction is get up, stand up,
and warn.
You got to talk to people now.
You got to tell people the consequences of
what you've already seen.
The consequences of their actions that are before
them, they don't see it, it keeps getting
worse.
Let them know how bad it can really
get in this world and in the hereafter.
Get up and warn them.
Let them know whatever it is that you're
doing, the path that you have chosen for
yourself, it does not end well.
فَأَمْذِرُ Stand up and warn.
The status code cannot be maintained anymore.
Warning has to be issued.
This is not on.
This doesn't work.
قُمْ فَأَمْذِرُ Stand up and warn.
So this dimension of spirituality, this social dimension
of spirituality where it is directed towards society,
towards people, towards their problems, that this needs
to stop.
Warnings have to be issued.
Precautions have to be taken.
Change is necessary.
Real, definitive change.
قُمْ فَأَمْذِرُ Stand up and warn.
And this triad, if you will, reading, educating
yourself, learning, praying, and social activism, socially doing
something, how the three feed into each other.
You take any one of these out, you
take any one of these out, and what
you're left with is evil.
What you're left with is that same evil
gets reinforced.
If there is a lot of education and
it has no social output, what's the benefit
of that education?
What is that education doing?
Except the one who's being educated is increasing
himself in arrogance.
He doesn't know it all.
What's the benefit of your knowledge?
What's the output?
How is the world any different?
Similarly, spiritual activities, spiritual worship, spiritual rituals, all
of what you're doing, your meditations and your
reflections and your prayers, isolated from that social
activism, cut off from education, from knowledge.
What are you going to, what is that
increasing you in?
A feeling of self-righteousness, a feeling of
disconnect from all the problems, and just this
center of relaxation and tranquility for your own
self.
How selfish is that?
How anti-social is that?
Third, if you have activism, if you have
that, let me bring in the change.
This is wrong with society, that is wrong
with society, that is wrong with society.
And what you are essentially doing is riling
people up for anarchy.
Because one, you do not know any better,
you are not educated, you haven't learned.
The two sources of knowledge, particularly acquired knowledge,
revelatory knowledge, the relationship between those, the intuitive
and the acquired, you have no idea.
And you're going around calling everything wrong, how
everything is messed up.
So I just realized that most of this
time that I was live here on YouTube,
I was not live on Instagram, I had
forgotten to press the go live button.
In any case, I just pressed it there.
So those of you who are just catching
up, you might want to catch up with
the first 15 minutes of this segment on
YouTube.
My apologies for that, but I'm going to
continue from where I am in this YouTube
recording at least, and you guys can catch
up with that.
So in any case, the importance of carrying
the three together, the social activism, the prayer,
and the education.
One of the crises of modern times, postmodern
times now, is that all three of these
have become so segregated from each other, so
widely distanced, so far apart, that it's very
difficult to even see how they relate, let
alone bring them into relationship within an individual.
When you look to educate yourself, it seems
almost a necessity that you have to cut
yourself off from a social activism.
When you look to become more and more
spiritual, the demands that that places upon you,
or the people of spirituality, what they ask
of you, is to turn yourself away from
whatever it is that education has to offer,
from anything that may be realistically necessary within
the society itself.
It's almost as a demand put before you
that you want to really be spiritual, you
have to turn away from society.
You want to really be educated, you have
to turn away from society and spirituality, for
that matter.
And then there's going to be this attitude
within social activists, people who are very critical
of the status quo institutions, people very critical
of whatever else is rampant within society, but
they would look down upon education and spirituality.
Spirituality is going to be the opium of
the masses.
It is going to be a way of
deceiving yourself and making yourself feel too calm
and not doing whatever it is that is
necessary to be done.
It's a drug.
They would look at education as the same
way, that all that education does is that
it makes sure that you become a cog
in the wheel of this status quo, that
you're just being trained and engineered to become
somebody who maintains rather than challenges this particular
way things are in society.
So that's the challenge that we're faced with
as we speak.
And it's not that any of those criticisms
are entirely wrong.
There is definitely truth in them, which makes
it all the more difficult to navigate through
these, the gaps and the contradictions between these
three areas when we look to really develop
ourselves in them.
And so all the more reason that within
Rasulullah ﷺ we see the importance at least
of how there need to be carried together
and then how that's going to work in
our individual lives in this day and age.
It's a challenge in itself and we look
to gain as many lessons from Rasulullah ﷺ
as we possibly can to carry that forward.
Now, moving right along.
يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُدَّثِّرُ قُمْ فَأَنْذِرْ وَرَبَّكَ فَكَبِّرْ And
your Rabb exalts.
Literally translated this ayah means make your Rabb
great.
Isn't he already great?
Isn't he the greatest?
What does it mean that you have to
make him great?
What's going on there?
So again, go back to the problem that
Rasulullah ﷺ takes to the cave.
Allah, you're great.
The world is not so great.
It does not reflect your greatness.
There's people doing all kinds of things they
shouldn't be doing.
Messed up to the nth degree.
No remorse, no guilt whatsoever.
It's actually institutionalized.
It's sanctioned.
People laugh at it.
People are okay with it.
What in the world is that?
And the response that Allah gives is yeah,
it's a world in progress.
It's development in progress.
This Rububiyah is ongoing and guess what?
You're supposed to be part of it.
You're supposed to be a part of this
process of Rububiyah, of this process of evolution
of the society, of progress, of growth.
You're supposed to help me finish this.
Literally, these are the words used in so
many different parts of the Qur'an.
Help Allah.
That yes, this is his project, his grand
project, project of humanity, project of creation.
But he doesn't want, he doesn't call dibs
on pretty much everything and anything that needs
to be done in this.
He's inviting human beings over.
Come play your part in taking this to
its culmination, to its actualization.
And he phrases it in the most incredible
way possible.
Exalt me, make me greater, make your Rab
greater.
That's what it means to be invited, to
become a co-worker with God.
This world is his work, but it's a
work in progress.
What's necessary for this progress?
What is necessary for this progress to go
through?
Your contribution, your effort, your humanity has to
become a part of this divinity.
It doesn't, it doesn't get any more radical
than that.
It doesn't get any more radical than that.
The first revelation began with the identification of
the humility of the human being, of the
weak origins of the human being.
This revelation in Surah Al-Muqaddas, the point
or the direction is towards the great goals
or the great ends towards which human beings
are here for.
Yes, your origins are humble, which is what
makes your destination all the more great, which
is what makes your destination all the more
incredible.
Humble origins, great destination, incredible.
What is that great destination?
To literally, literally exalt your Rab, to work
with him towards making all of these challenges,
making all of these evils, all of these
difficulties that you see in the world around
you lesser, more rights, more justice, more truth,
more people living up to their potential, that
process continuing to go to more better growth,
the good type of growth, not the cancerous
growth.
There was some form of growth in Quraish,
there was some form of growth in the
Roman Empire and Persian Empire at the time,
it was cancerous growth.
The good kind of growth, the Rabubia kind
of growth, Allah being the Rab sort of
growth.
Your role in that, you gotta exalt him,
you gotta really make him great.
And your garments, your clothing, purify him.
Because really, when you're gonna go out there,
you're gonna have this problem.
It's not gonna be a walk in the
park, people aren't gonna roll out the red
carpet for you and welcome you.
Come, bring the change that you want to
bring, we've been waiting for you, oh dear
Messiah, for all this time.
No, no.
Quite literally to understand this ayah, the phrase
that we use for what happens to people
who try to do anything at all positive.
And then again, these people are coming from
a good educated background, they know what they're
talking about.
They're not calling for anarchy.
They're not saying do away with everything and
then we'll see how to deal with the
chaos that results.
No, no.
That's not the chaos.
Rasulullah ﷺ did not call for chaos.
When you do call for a very measured,
mindful, positive change in the direction that Allah
wants for you to take this world, mudslinging
is going to take place.
Literally people are going to throw mud, actually
a lot of times literally, but in terms
of your character, in terms of your actions,
in terms of what the words you say,
all kinds of allegations are going to follow.
So you can almost read this as, yeah,
okay Allah, I am going to go out
there and I'm going to do all of
that, but then they're going to throw all
these stones at me, they're going to be
mudslinging, they're going to be character assassination of
the nth degree.
And remember, Warqa bin Naufal had to some
degree indicated to Rasulullah ﷺ that your people
are going to actually drive you out of
the city.
He didn't believe it.
He didn't know.
Me?
They're going to drive me out of the
city?
They love me.
But now the understanding seems to be coming
in that I'm going to get really dirty
in this process.
You can't clean up without getting yourselves dirty.
And so to be very clear, to keep
yourselves pure, to continue to clean as a
continuous process, that cleanliness is going to become
necessary.
Because when they're going to come at you
and accuse you and throw dirt in your
face and mudsling like anything, you're going to
want to react.
You're going to want to stoop to their
level and speak their language, which is very
abusive.
And that's, those are the stains that they're
waiting for.
Aha, look, he's calling a change, he's calling
a good, look at him, look at his
character, look at the way, look at the
language he uses, look at the way he
talks, look at the sort of stuff that
he does.
Although they threw out the baits repeatedly so
that you would, Allah says, yes, you will
get hurt, you will feel the pain, you
will, you will inspire envy, you will inspire
anger.
And that anger, that envy will try to
pull you down so that you become like
it yourself.
It is but natural that that is going
to happen.
So purify your garments.
And shun uncleanliness, shun these impurities, this filth.
Because again, there's this indication at the very
beginning that there was a sort of shunning
going on, that shunning is going to be
necessary, but it is filth that needs to
be shunned.
The good you do need to sift out,
you need to go to words.
And as it gets on you, you continue
the act of purification, of cleaning yourself.
And your education to continue to read, recite,
and your قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا قَلِيلَ standing up
at night, your prayer is going to be
integral to this process of cleanliness.
And do not do more, do not do
more accepting more or expecting more for yourself.
One of the greatest obstacles in the path
of anything good that you're looking to do
is this impulse that comes from within that
says, I should be seeing the rewards straight
out.
And the more I do, the more I
should get, the more I put in, the
more I should be expecting from in the
form of results, in people responding.
And naturally, in other ways as well, people
should be liking, people should be, you know,
there's, there's so much good that can come
out of here.
So I do more, I get more, and
the cause gets more.
Not so fast.
Be very mindful, be very careful that whatever
it is that you're going to try to
do, results won't follow.
The greater expectations you have that the results
will follow immediately or in the near future,
no, they'll trickle in.
They will trickle in.
The more you do, okay, somehow the sound
is gone.
Again, people, my apologies.
You can't even hear whatever this is.
Can you guys hear me now?
Better?
Audio gone?
Still gone?
Hang on.
Hang on.
Okay, not cool.
Not cool at all.
Anyways, my apologies, Insta people.
You guys are going to have to catch
the video on, okay,
I'm just going to wrap up on at
least the YouTube feed.
Insta people lost me.
Issues going on.
I have to wrap up anyways.
So the last point that I was trying
to make, do not be, go on expecting
immediate results, especially personal favors or personal results.
The more you do, the more you get.
No.
Keep going.
For your Rab, continue to practice patience.
Persevere.
Keep going.
Sabar in the context of keep going.
Results not coming, ease not coming, more and
more difficulties, more and more dirt, more and
more mud.
Keep going.
Why?
For your Rab.
For your Rab.
Because that's how he brought you into being
as well.
Stage by stage, step by step, gradual process.
Gradual process.
We end with this.