Yousuf Raza – Ramadan Nights 2021 Day 16
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وَنَشْهَدُ وَأَنَّ مُحَمَّذًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَكُلَّ
مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٍ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٍ وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي
النَّارِ رَبِّ شَهْدِي سَدْرِي وَيَسَلِّي أَمْرِي وَكُلْ أُقْطَةً
مِنْ لَسَانِي يَفْقَهُ قَوْلِي اللهم انفعنا بما علمتنا
وعلمنا ماينفعنا وزدنا علمه اللهم أرنا حقيقة الأشياء
كماهي اللهم أرنا الحق حقا وارزقنا اتباعه اللهم
أرنا الباطل الباطل وارزقنا اجتنابه آمين يا رب
العالمين We move on from Surat Ma'idah
to Surat Al-An'am which is the
first of the Makkan surahs that we are
doing since Fatihah of course The organization of
the surahs in the Qur'an as we
see it is as such that the predominant
cluster of Madani surahs has been covered It
will be followed by the two Makkan surahs
that we are going to do now and
then there will be two Madani and then
the frequency of Makki is going to increase
and the frequency of Madani surahs is going
to decrease and as we see towards the
end there is a whole lot more Makki
than there is Madani and as we move
on we will talk more about which period
of Makkah in particular the surahs are from
the ones that we are going to be
talking about now Al-An'am and Al
-A'raf they are primarily thought to be
from the later Makkan period that towards the
end of Rasulullah's time at Makkah is when
Al-An'am and Al-A'raf are
being revealed Actually most of the earlier Makkan
surahs that we are going to be talking
about in the first half of the Qur
'an they are from the last couple of
years the last two or three years a
lot of them the last year of Rasulullah
ﷺ at Makkah give or take these are
not precise allocations but nevertheless the themes of
the surahs are such that they are thought
to be clustered right towards the end of
Makkah Hijr is going to be the one
exception when we get there we will talk
about how that is and as we move
on towards the end of the Muskaf most
of the surahs are from the earliest part
of Makkah so even the Makkan surahs have
this division of early, middle and late the
ones that we are doing now the ones
that we find at the beginning of the
Muskaf are more towards the later part of
Makkah and there is a particular tendency or
there is particular themes and there is particular
rhythm to the ones that are more later
on there is generally the difference between Makkan
surahs and Madani surahs that we will start
picking up on today there isn't going to
be much talk about hypocrisy in Makkah very
very little somewhat in An-Kaboot and that
is pretty much it one or two other
places because hypocrisy wasn't a problem for the
people of Makkah it could not have been
a problem for the Muslims of Makkah for
the simple reason that the two main deterrents
or the two main obstacles in the path
of the people who ended up becoming hypocrites
were already filtered out the demand on spending
and struggling was one of the reasons they
couldn't live up to their Iman potential and
inclined more towards their Kufr potential ending up
being hypocrites that in itself at Makkah just
to say La ilaha illallah just to accept
Rasulullah meant that you're opening the doors to
the opposition from all camps at Quraysh every
segment of Quraysh especially the leaders is going
to come at you with the kitchen sink
you're not going to have much breathing space
so you have to be really committed to
say La ilaha illallah and so that obstacle
was already something that they had overcome prior
to saying or accepting Islam so we will
not find hypocrisy being a main theme hypocrisy
is more for a people who have had
scripture for a very long time hypocrisy is
something that the presence of the Jewish communities
in Medina inspired hypocrisy within the Muslim community
it opens doors it opened their presence, their
practices, their conduct what they had made a
part of their culture through fraternizing with them,
interacting with them it became more of a
reality within the Muslims as well and of
course there is greater privilege in the people
of Medina the people of Makkah usually for
the most part did not have they're not
well off they're not rich and powerful for
the most part they're the underprivileged segments of
the Makkan society that are responding to Rasulullah
so hypocrisy not being a theme there is
going to be a lot of tazkir a
lot of reminder through the ayat of Allah
in the world, in the universe in the
afaq, in the anfus there is going to
be a lot of exhortations to those ayat
and there will be a lot of referring
to the stories of the prophets actually we
find them alternating in the earlier pairs of
Makkan surahs so this particular pair that we're
doing is more going to be about and
so those in the form of the ayats
in the universe around you if you want
to put it in another way then the
ayats in the material universe around you is
going to be focused more upon in an
'am and the ayat in history those which
refer to previous nations those are going to
be alluded to more in a'raf and
we will find this pairing that one Makkan
surah focuses more on the ayats in the
material universe the other Makkan surah focuses on
ayats in history and there are reminders being
put out through both these sets of ayats
and the believers and their iman is being
worked upon thus also whatever is going on
in Makka at that time for the most
part, what is most important with respect to
the challenges that Rasulullah and the Sahaba are
having to face whatever is different about them
and we will see that how differently the
surahs the themes that are carried within the
surahs so that area gets picked up as
well now from the madani surahs we will
see that shirk is criticized more the practices
of idolatry are highlighted more and addressed so
there is very little, you will not find
the Ya Bani Israel in most of the
Makkan surahs very brief mention of Bani Israel
you will mostly find even though Musa A
.S. and the Bani Israel will be mentioned
pretty frequently but generally clustered with the stories
of other prophets so moving right along from
the very beginning of surah Al-An'am
all praise and gratitude is for Allah the
one who created the heavens and the earth
so just as we saw at the very
beginning Fatiha began with this so now almost
one fifth of the Quran later we see
a repetition of the same phrase another surah
beginning with Alhamdulillah also very particular to Makkan
surah beginning with either the Hamd of Allah
and there is a cluster of Madani surahs
which will begin with the Tasbeeh of Allah
so Alhamdulillah the one who created the heavens
and the earth and he made shades of
darkness and the light whenever darkness is mentioned
it is mentioned in the plural and whenever
light is mentioned it is mentioned in the
singular so as to identify how darkness comes
in shades for one thing and that darkness
is more fragmented it has inherently a polytheistic
nature the multitude of gods of those that
are being worshipped disconnected from each other that
you find in the system of polytheism you
will find Tawheed being mentioned analogized with light
which is something which is continuous a singular
continuum that light is and that is reflective
of Tawheed and Zulumat is mentioned we don't
have an equivalent in the English language there
is no word as darkness but as Zulumat
is represented in the Quran we see the
multiplicity being highlighted the fragmented multiplicity there are
multiple deities being worshipped and there is a
disconnect between them generally Allah attributes their creation
or having made them himself darknesses have been
made by him as well and the light
alluding to the options that he put out
there that it is for you to choose
light is going to be in front of
you to pick up on that or to
identify more with darknesses to ignore the light
and to move towards darkness is going to
be an option that human beings always have
that is always going to be in front
of them the absence of light in itself
is going to be a fragment of darkness
that you are opting for and not taking
a deity in that fragment and understanding that
particular fragment whether it is an aspect of
your own personal life or it is an
aspect of society if it is cut off
from the attributes of Allah from the multiplicity
within the attributes of Allah which is multiplicity
but there is a continuity there is a
relationship between Allah's attributes with the deities there
is no relationship you let that go and
you are picking up on opting for darkness
and yet those who disbelieve with their Rabb
ascribe rivals equals with their Rabb Allah alluding
to the entire system of the universe this
entire creation the processes of the heavens and
the earth emanating from Him and when looked
at as a unity that Allah has created
which is intricately working together to bring about
the processes of life of biological life and
then the processes of human life it makes
sense it is how light opens up your
eyes and you can see everything in relationship
to everything else breaking up those systems breaking
up those processes of the material universe not
relating one to the other not being able
to see how one relates to the other
as if they are arising from a different
God as if they have a different purpose
as if there is no common goal no
common purpose no unity that they represent despite
their multiplicity is ascribing for that portion or
for that fragment of reality another deity as
if it comes from another God and then
continuing from the material universe to the biological
processes to the world of life biological life
and then from there arises human society and
to not be able to see again this
continuity that how all of this goes back
to Alhamdulillah is ascribing equal with Allah where
they would be concretely ascribed as deities back
in the day pre-Islam that there is
a deity for this there is a deity
for that there is an idol for this
we would have done that prior to the
coming of the Quran and some religions would
still do that in the form of idols
and deities very small population compared to how
prevalent this was before but now it is
more subtle it is more abstract as to
how conceptually this fragmentation takes place as to
how Allah's attributes and their relatedness to each
other how the creation of Allah in the
material universe in the biological universe in the
human world is fragmented it couldn't it could
not be related people look at it as
if they are studying something which is disconnected
from the practical routine day to day life
that they have going on for themselves the
stars that they are so in awe of
and the rotation of the day and the
night and the change of the seasons the
progression of life in general towards one's own
death as if it has nothing to do
with each other what we learn from the
stars what we learn from the heavens and
the earth can it have any bearing on
me as a person and how I live
my daily life in the world that I
am living in the connectedness, the relatedness is
lost and at a very abstract level I
am not able to see that the attributes
of the one reflected in this incredible universe
and the attributes of the one related or
reflected in my daily life my inner life
my family life, my social life to be
able to see the connections to be able
to identify one light the Noor if I
am missing out on it practically if I
cannot find those relationships then I ask myself
have I ascribed is there another equal with
Allah is there another Rabb that I have
identified now obviously this being a very subtle
form of shirk I am not conceptually or
verbally testifying to be in charge of this
aspect of my life I am not doing
that it is more subtle, it is more
abstract it is more difficult to pick up
but its practical bearings are important they are
important for myself as an individual for my
struggle to bring Tawheed into my life I
have to take these theories even to the
point that you would ascribe fatwas of shirk
on anyone else in any way but for
sure the process of becoming more Tawheedic of
becoming more of a monotheist we understand that
it is a deliberate conscious effort a reflective
effort that is what the daily prayer is
for so that effort is facilitated that we
do bring all of this in sync as
best as possible He is the one who
created you from clay then He decreed a
time of life and death and there is
another fixed time with Him too so the
time that He has created you for your
origin from clay and then your death that
He has decreed now it is between this,
in this time bracket that you do what
you have to do that you figure all
of this out that you are able to
identify Him, relate with Him and your understanding
of who He is it grows your understanding
and your relatedness to the world of clay
around you of the sort of harmony that
creation should be in related to Alhamdulillah and
there is another time fixed with Him too
so there is the afterlife and then there
is each individual's death yet you continue to
doubt again, doubt as a natural experience fair
enough, but continuing to doubt doubt as a
continuous experience doubting the same thing and not
settling it not looking to address it settling
for doubt believing in doubt how oxymoronic is
that something which has become very characteristic of
post-modern life just doubt everything how convenient
how utterly irresponsible it doesn't ask anything of
you it is a cop-out of the
one thing that characterizes human beings as being
able to work through doubt and come to
an opinion a belief continuing to doubt that
cowardice that is something that is not tolerated
a natural experience of doubt which is bothersome
it creates an angst and then a desire
to get rid of it and then allowing
the natural processes to go ahead of thought
to get rid of those doubts it is
very convenient believing 100% or doubting 100
% both of these have one thing in
common they take away your individual responsibility to
work things out and to make responsible choices
both areas he is Allah in the heavens
and in the earth he knows your secrets
and whatever you make public so he is
the creator of the heavens and the earth
but don't let that make you think that
he is not what is little old me,
big universe insignificant, what does he care he
wouldn't care no, he is very much involved
despite his creative power that extends across millions
of light years he knows the very secrets
of your hearts and he knows all of
what you do how convenient is that belief
that he is so powerful, so wise, so
perfect that he wouldn't care for what I
do my action doesn't make a difference to
him no, no, no he knows, he is
very intimately involved his imminence despite his transcendence
he knows all of what you do and
no sign comes to them from the signs
of their Rabb except that they always turn
away from it for they have denied the
truth when it came to them so continuously
the ayats of Allah presenting themselves to us
so that we have more and more understanding
of truth so as to address those doubts
or that state of doubt but refusing to
do so refusing to take those ayats into
account refusing to reflect between how the ayats
relate with each other how there are multiple
ayats but they are signifying one truth which
is Allah the truth that makes these ayats
most understandable, best explanation فَقَدْ كَذَّبُوا بِالْحَقِّ لَمَّا
جَاءَهُمْ but they have denied the truth when
it came to them فَثَوْفَ يَأْتِيهِمْ أَنبَاؤُ مَا
كَانُوا بِهِ يَسْتَهْزِعُونَ so soon they will receive
the news of what they have been mocking
they've been mocking the coming of the other
that the punishment of Allah which they don't
take seriously so the ayats of Allah how
they relate all of this, you don't take
that seriously enough there's going to be consequences
when an entire community of people refuses to
take it seriously when its presentation by an
individual or a group of individuals if that
individual happens to be a prophet as we've
seen across the stories of the Quran and
he has presented those ayats and explicated how
they relate and how they represent Allah and
yet they refuse to believe even though they
don't have a better explanation themselves what is
the job of a prophet?
the ayats that the prophet brings the ayats
that people have with them he brings those
together and he gives them an explanation in
the form of tawhid as the best explanation
for all of the ayats put together the
people they don't offer an alternate explanation which
is better yet they find reasons to oppose
the prophet and his message the prophet continues
more ayats more arguments more experiences of life
that are pointing towards the truth of what
the prophet has brought and then finally when
they still refuse to take the ayats seriously
they refuse to take the truth seriously and
finally the athab is brought upon them the
prophet is warning the Quraish about the same
consequence they're making fun of him if you
really are true, bring it now Allah presents
it before the prophet it is going to
come and ever closer than before bear in
mind for the Quraish the athab started with
Badr and ends with the conquest of Mecca
or Hudaybiyah if you want to put it
that way but the culmination is with the
conquest of Mecca that's the athab that the
Quraish experience for rejecting the ayats of Allah
very different and that's going to come up
the next pair that follows the one that
follows is Anfal and Tawbah so you can
see that Anam and Araf are being settled
against the Quraish you've gotten enough time this
is what Allah has already told you this
is what the prophet has already demonstrated before
you the ayats are in their place you
don't have any answer any better explanation and
all that you've manifested is the worst of
your potential and the evil that you've demonstrated
in what you've brought about in the society
and so this is it the athab is
around the corner the athab is very different
from the kind of athab that the previous
nations faced and we'll talk about that more
as Anfal and Tawbah come in but it
is an athab of Allah nevertheless so soon
they're going to see and taste what they
were making fun of interestingly enough they were
not just making fun of the ayats of
Allah and the athab of Allah is another
ayah of Allah they were also making fun
of the ayats in general they were also
making fun of the athab like I said,
the coming of the punishment that completely takes
care of a people or a group of
people who have rejected they were also making
fun of Rasulullah they were also making fun
of Sahaba all of what they were making
fun of is brought together from Badr to
Fath Makkah from Badr to the conquest of
Makkah all of what they were making fun
of the athab of Allah, the ayat of
Allah the Rasulullah and the Sahaba they all
come together and the Quraysh tastes exactly what
they were making fun of أَلَمْ يَرَوْكَ مَا
أَهْلَكْنَا مِنْ قَبْلِهِمْ مِنْ فَرْنَا have they not
seen how many generations we have destroyed before
them the creation of the heavens and the
earth human society is a set of ayats
or sets of ayats that point towards the
meaningfulness of Allah's creation as to how this
is to go somewhere somewhere real somewhere Allah
has an intent for it human beings have
a role to play in fulfilling that intent
human beings have they're a purposeful creation not
identifying with that meaning not identifying with that
purpose refusing to acknowledge the meaningfulness is then
resulting in the human beings not fulfilling their
role in that purpose in that meaning therefore
they don't remain meaningful they opt not to
participate not to live up to the meaning
they were created for the purpose they were
created for so they choose to be purposeless
it's another dead weight now what they give
to the earth decomposed is far better than
what they give alive, breathing and talking so
if that's the attitude that they persist with
they're going to be amputated away any part
of the body which is not allowing the
body to continue its normal function and it
has become incurably diseased incurably diseased then it
has to be amputated for the health of
that whole body and so for the health
of the creation of Allah of his society,
the human society that is the culmination of
his creation if there is dead weight holding
back if there is a pathological organ even
if that's an entire generation it is going
to be wiped off because life has to
proceed towards the fulfillment of its purpose مَكَّنَّاهُمْ
فِي الْأَرْضِ مَا لَمْ نُمَكِّلْ لَكُمْ we established
them on earth as we have not established
you وَأَرْسَلْنَا السَّمَاءَ عَلَيْهِمْ نَجْرَاهُ and we sent
down to them heavy rains from the sky
وَجَعَلْنَا الْأَنْهَارَ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهِمْ and we made
the rivers flow beneath them so one thing,
the aspect that creates this sense of invincibility
in the minds of the the kuffar, those
persistently refusing to take the ayat of Allah
seriously persistently leading meaningless lives yet enjoying a
privilege yet enjoying riches and wealth and success
for the sake of it and so this
creates this this sense, this deception that it
doesn't matter meaningless life works I've lived it,
I'm living it it's fun, it's enjoyable you
can get away with exploiting people, you can
get away with abusing people, you don't have
to be all high and mighty and moral
and responsible about stuff you don't want to
have your god interfere with how you deal
with other human beings eh, it's all okay
I did it, I got away with it
and so this continuously getting away with it
getting away with this persistent attitude of laziness
irresponsibility instant gratification continuously getting away with it
creates this belief that I'll always get away
with it other people's death, historical accounts of
an entire generation being wiped out it doesn't
penetrate the thick skull that's developed so Allah
reminds that listen, the people that the stories
that you're being told, they were better off
than you they were wealthier than you they
had rains and they had rivers and they
had the privilege that you've never had much,
much stronger than you فأهلكناهم بذنوبهم but when
they persisted in sin, we destroyed them وأنشأنا
من بعدهم قرنا آخرين and we raised other
generations to replace them ولو نزلنا عليك كتابا
في قرطة سن and even if we had
sent down to you a writing on papers
so this is one of the themes of
the Makkan surahs, more so the later surahs
the Quraysh's demand for a miracle, an ayah
as they define ayah Quraysh want an ayah
to come in accordance with their dictation one
of that dictation or one of that the
ayah that they ordered was the book, the
scripture reciting it out doesn't work for us
we want it on paper, we want it
on actual written down form that is seen
coming down from the sky that he brings
to us as evidence, as proof that is
going to qualify as an ayah and they
would say, make a river run through Makkah,
or turn this mountain to gold all of
these supernatural things that they would demand of
Rasulullah ﷺ if you really are a prophet,
then do this for us Allah tells, and
Rasulullah ﷺ and the Sahaba there were multiple
points within the Makkan Qur'an where they
would be at a loss where even they
would be led to wonder why doesn't Allah
just fulfill their demands get it over with,
show them what they want he can, why
doesn't he just do it why doesn't he
just do it and there's a lot of
sincere, committed Muslims coming into the ranks who've
started harboring doubts about it as well the
Quraysh are making sense the Prophet is saying
that he's from God God is all powerful,
why doesn't he just do it, why doesn't
he just respond the way the Quraysh are
asking for him to respond and again, expecting
God or expecting your relationship with God to
be such that he conforms exactly to your
understanding of him however immature, however naive that
understanding may be to have this relationship of
dictating him and controlling him and then getting
infuriated when he refuses to comply when he
doesn't listen to your demand Allah reassures Rasulullah
ﷺ even if we did send down to
you a writing on papers فَلَمَسُوهُ بِأَيْدِهِمْ and
they had touched it with their own hands
لَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا yet the disbelievers would definitely
say إن هذا إلا صحة مبين this is
nothing but obvious magic the entire idea with
the Qur'an and with the culmination of
prophethood with Rasulullah ﷺ this institution is closing
down the doors to prophethood are being sealed
with Rasulullah ﷺ humanity is being weaned off
of this divine of this level of divine
intervention these are in a sense training wheels
that are now being taken off the nature
of the ayat of Rasulullah ﷺ has to
be very different precisely because of his universality
precisely because the growth of the human society
after the culmination of prophethood the maturity of
the society requires that the sort of miracles
that the earlier humans were shown are not
shown that that doesn't become the ayat of
Rasulullah ﷺ have to outlive him they have
to continue after his life the Qur'an
being the chosen ayat of Allah to send
to Rasulullah ﷺ is not a mountain that
turns into a camel it's not a giant
camel it's not an asad that turns into
this giant anaconda it's none of that stuff
it is something that Rasulullah ﷺ passes on
to the people after him and they pass
it on from generation to generation it is
something that people 14 centuries later can relate
with any sort of physical miracle at that
time would have been for that time the
timelessness of the Qur'an the eternal relevance
intended for the Qur'an would have been
lost additionally, humanity has this potential for understanding,
for discovery within the world of nature those
ayat unexplored not developed the Qur'an opens
the doors to that those concrete ayat of
Allah within the universe the universe as scripture
the world of nature as scripture the patterns
within biological life, physical life, psychological life as
ayat of Allah speaking to human beings being
able to see, being able to identify God
not just in miracles in breaks, in routine
natural processes God is not just the God
of the gaps or the God of the
supernatural, inexplicable experiences or events
He is the God of rain He is
the God of the air that you breathe
every second He is the God of the
stars that you see every night to be
able to identify Him as not just the
one responsible for the inexplicable and the supernatural
but the one responsible for the natural or
the explicable, or the understandable to be able
to relate with Him on those terms in
that way, that intimately not just the one
who flashes himself every now and then, and
then disappears and the universe rolls on automatically
on its own no, there is no automatic
rolling on He is intimately involved in its
rolling on in every little process and within
that, yes spontaneity, novelty, newness He manifests in
that as well He manifests in the regularity
of how the universe works, and He manifests
in the spontaneity that the universe demonstrates every
now and then as well, that allows this
diversity this creativity within the universe which you
see He is in all of that to
be able to appreciate Him in both regularity
and change that's what He wants you to
achieve and you're restricting Him because it's very
convenient again, to have Him just manifest Himself
in these boom events because then you can
just forget about Him and move on sometime
later, as previous generations did do even
if they had been able to touch them
with their own hands they would have still
said this is nothing but obvious magic because
that's their explanation for everything else as well
وَقَالُوا أَنْ ذِي أَبْجَكْ لَوْ لَا أُنزِلَ عَلَيْهِ
مَلَكًا Why was an angel not sent to
him?
وَلَوْ أَنْزَلْنَا مَلَكًا Had we sent an angel
لَقُضِيَ الْأَمْرِ the matter would definitely have been
decided.
Then what's the point?
You being humans, you possessing the faculties that
you do possess, your greatness or your test
is in being able to identify and believe
in what you don't see, what you don't
concretely hear, to infer from what you see
and from what you hear, what is unseen,
to predict, to hypothesize, and to live in
accordance with those predictions and hypotheses, to see
that work or not work and then develop
your understanding better and better.
A dog would believe in something that's in
front of him.
What's the big deal there?
What's your achievement?
لَقُضِيَ الْأَمْرِ Once that happens, when you see
an angel, the deal is done.
That means your عذاب is nigh, it's close.
ثُمَ لَا يُنظِرُونَ Then they would not be
given any respite.
وَلَوْ جَعَلْنَاهُ مَلَكَنًا Had we made him an
angel, had the Prophet been an angel, لَجَعَلْنَاهُ
رَجُلًا We would have made him appear as
a man anyways.
وَلَلَّبَسْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ نَا يَلْبِسُونَ And that they would
still have been confused as they are confused
now.
وَلَقَدْ اِسْتُهْزِئَ بِرُسُلٍ مِّن قَبْلِكِ So Ya Rasulullah,
many messengers before you have been mocked.
Mocking the عذاب of Allah, mocking the ayaat
of Allah, mocking the Rasulullah ﷺ.
Who's getting hurt in all of this?
Rasulullah ﷺ is getting hurt.
So Allah reassures him.
Previous messengers have been mocked.
فَحَقَ بِالَّذِينَ السَّخِذُ مِنْهُمْ Those who used to
mock were enveloped مَا كَانُوا بِهِ يَسْتَهْزِئُونَ by
exactly that which they used to mock.
It was the punishment.
Interestingly, it was Rasulullah and Sahaba that enveloped
the Quraysh.
Came at them from all sides.
قُلْ صِيرُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ Ask them, travel through
the earth.
ثُمَنْظُرُونَ Then observe كَيْفَ كَانَ عَقِبَةُ الْمُكَذِبِينَ What
was the end of those who denied?
قُلْ لِمَمَّا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ Ask them, to
whom belongs everything in the heavens and the
earth?
قُلْ لِلَّهِ Tell them, it's Allah.
كَتَبَ عَلَى نَفْسِهَا الرَّحْمَةِ He has prescribed mercy
for Himself.
So you reflect upon the God of the
heavens and the earth.
Allah asks Rasulullah ﷺ to share with them.
And again, these are people for whom the
answer to that question is Allah.
For the most part, they are religious people.
There are exceptions.
There are exceptions who would doubt that.
But they were a very small minority, referred
to here and there.
And even that minority would have a problem
with the Day of Judgment more than they
would have a problem with Allah.
For the default arrow, the answer to who
is the creator of the heavens and the
earth is Allah.
That's the default answer.
A question which has a big question mark,
which is the question now in the day
and age that we're living in.
It wasn't a question mark.
Or as big of a question mark as
in the time of Rasulullah ﷺ.
That was something that the answer could be
taken for granted.
And you move the conversation forward from there.
As far as the day and age that
we're living in, take a step back.
Back to elementary readings, back to the basics.
That has become an additional responsibility on the
proponents of the Qur'an, the people of
scripture, before they take their audience through scripture
itself.
In any case, Qul lillah, tell them it's
Allah.
Kataba ala nafsihar rahma.
He has prescribed mercy for himself.
So it was easier for them to see
the power of Allah as it manifested in
the heavens and the earth.
But then to identify that same God as
merciful, as gracious, as intimately and personally concerned
about their day-to-day lives.
That connection, it is prophetic to help make
that connection, to see that that makes sense.
Rasulullah ﷺ was charged with that responsibility.
The Qur'an is a reflection.
It speaks the mercy of Allah.
Kataba ala nafsihar rahma.
He has obligated mercy upon himself.
Layajma'annakum ila yawm alqiyam.
And he will assemble all of you on
the day of judgment.
La rayba feeh.
There is absolutely no doubt about it.
Allatheena khasiru anfusahum fahum laa yu'minoon.
But those who will ruin themselves on that
day, they will not believe.
Walahu ma thakana fil layli wal nahaar.
And whatever dwells during the night and the
day belongs to Him alone.
Wahuwa assamee'ul a'aleem.
And He is all-hearing, all-knowing.
Qul aghayra Allahi attakhidhu walijan fatir assamawati wal
ardi.
Ask them, should I take someone other than
Allah as my protector?
The originator of the heavens and the earth?
Wahuwa yut'a'm.
And He is the one who feeds.
Wala yut'a'm.
He is not fed.
Qul inni umirtu.
Say, I have been commanded an akuna awwala
man aslam.
That I should be the first of those
who submit.
The one reason to doubt comes from not
enough evidence, doesn't make enough sense, doesn't add
up.
Right?
It's looking at the world around you, looking
at your own experiences.
And then looking at what Rasulullah ﷺ is
saying, the object of his speech, what he
is calling the people to believe in.
That's one thing to doubt.
That is one form of skepticism, is to
doubt what he is asking you to believe
in, in God, in His prophethood, in afterlife.
Right?
And for that, the ayats that are being
referred to.
Another reason to doubt or another way that
people doubt is to suspect an agenda behind
the profession of religiosity or prophethood.
What does he really want?
What is it that he's on about?
Does he want riches?
Does he want power?
Does he want, what is it that he,
does he want unlimited resources of pleasure?
What is it that he's looking for?
And that discrepancy comes about when the proponent
or the da'i or the prophet specifically,
is, he is exempted.
That's what a ruler would do.
The people accepting the rule of the ruler,
or the sovereignty of the king, they would
do all the hard work.
They would be required to make all the
sacrifices, not the king, not the one in
the position of power.
And so Rasulullah ﷺ's own conduct, his own
character in practically living more than anybody else,
what he is calling them to, is in
evidence, is proof that, listen, you don't have
to be suspicious about any ulterior motives, any
selfish vested interests.
This is, whatever I'm asking of you, I'm
the first one to do it.
I'll be the first in line.
I'll be the most to give.
I'll be the one carrying the most weight.
Rasulullah's entire life is a testimony to that,
that you cannot, looking at the 23 years
that he spent or his entire life for
that matter, look all of that together and
identify, hmm, he was up to something.
He got something out of it.
Qul inni umirtu an akuna awwala man aslam.
Tell them, I've been commanded.
I am under a command here.
I'm not, this is not my party.
I'm not the boss here.
I'm asked to work the way you're asked
to work.
An akuna awwala man aslam.
Wala takuna anna minal mushrikeen.
And never, ever be of those who commit
to shirk.
Because the demands, the way you're putting them
out to me, you're ascribing to me a
power that I don't have.
You want me to bring about a miracle
to you.
And if it was up to me, I
would have, but I can't.
I am required to submit just as much.
Qul inni akhwakoo inna aasaitu rabbi azaafa yawmin
aafi.
The rules are not different for me.
If I disobey my Rabb, I see you're
a punishment of a great deed.
I am vulnerable to his punishment.
Hellfire is as much of a reality for
me as it is for you.
Who aren't afraid of that?
Listen to these words.
Again, and we can say this categorically, for
the most of us, for the most of
us.
What we say in our beliefs is that
Rasulullah ﷺ guaranteed paradise.
As far as we're concerned, the vulnerability to
hellfire is far greater.
Who hellfire?
I compare myself to Rasulullah.
I am vulnerable to the hellfire.
He's not.
He's safe.
He's top level of paradise.
But in my subtle beliefs, in my wishful
beliefs, in my practical conduct, the way he
took hellfire seriously and feared it upon himself,
the way it was a reality for him,
is it really a reality for me?
Why really fear it?
Or am I more satisfied in my head?
My conduct depicts that I have a greater
certainty of ending up in paradise than even
he did.
I don't take hellfire as seriously as he
did.
How does this add up?
The degree of the amani, of the wishful
belief, that the best of this ummah, the
one guaranteed paradise by Allah Himself, took hellfire
more seriously.
The people he gave glad tidings of paradise
to, they took hellfire more seriously.
It was more of a possibility for them.
They felt more vulnerable to it than we
do.
And nobody's given us a chance.
Nobody told us that we're safe from the
hellfire.
Yet we have assumed the strength of our
amani, of our wishful beliefs.
And we call, tilka amanijuhum.
Qul inniya khawfu, tell them, I am most
definitely afraid.
Inna asaytu, if I disobey, rabbi, my Rabb,
athaba yawmin azeem.
From him, it's gonna be a very great
punishment.
A punishment of a great day.
May yusraf anhu yawma edhin.
He from whom the punishment is averted on
that day, faqad rahima.
He's the one who's earned the mercy of
Allah.
He's the one Allah has bestowed with His
mercy.
Wadhalik alfawzul mubeen.
And that is a clear-cut success.
Wa in yamsaska Allahu bidhurrin.
And if Allah afflicts you with a harm,
falakashifa lahu illahu.
There is no one who can remove it
except Him.
Wa in yamsaska bikhayrin.
And if He blesses you with a fortune,
fahuwa ala kulli shay'in qadeer.
And He has power over everything.
Wahuwa al-qahiru fawqa ibadih.
He is irresistibly powerful over His ibadah.
This phrase is going to come again and
again and again, even in this surah.
Wahuwa al-hakimu al-khabir.
And He is all-wise, all-aware.
Wal-ayyu shay'in akbaru shahada.
Ask them, whose testimony is greater?
Qul lillahi shaheedun bayni wa baynakum.
Tell them, Allah is the witness between you
and me.
Wa uhiya ilayya hadha al-Qur'an.
And this Qur'an has been revealed to
me.
Li undhirakum bihi wa man balagh.
So that I can warn you through it,
along with all those whom it reaches.
This is, these are the ayat of Allah.
It is going to be given to you.
And then it has the capacity to reach
far beyond me, far beyond the capacity of
my human life.
It is, it is going to reach.
It's, it has a greater impact.
And that's the brilliance of the Qur'an
being the ayat of Allah.
A innakum latashahadoona anna ma'a Allahi alihatan
u'ma.
So do you really testify that there are
other gods besides Allah?
Qul la ashhad.
Tell them, Ya Rasulullah, that I don't testify.
Qul innama huwa ilahu wahid.
Tell them that He is the only ilah,
only one worthy of all of what we
spoke about in terms of what ilah denotes.
Wa innani bari'un mimma tuchrikoon.
And I have nothing to do.
I absolve myself of all the shirk that
you do.
Allatheena aataynaahum wal kitaab.
Those whom we have given the scripture.
Ya'arifoonahu kamaa ya'arifoona abnaa'ahum.
They recognize it as they recognize their own
son.
They recognize this as the ayat of Allah,
this Qur'an, as a continuity of the
scripture.
And Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Allatheena khasiroo anfusahum fahum laa yu'minoon.
And those who have ruined themselves, they will
not be pleased.
Waman aghlamu mimman iftaraa alallahi kathiban.
And who is more unjust than the one
who forges a lie against Allah.
So Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is being accused
by the mushrikeen in Mecca that he is
lying, that he is not a prophet.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is telling them that
if that is the case, then I'm in
big trouble.
Who is more unjust than the one who
forges a lie against Allah, but also aw
kaddaba bi-ayati.
Similarly, one who is presented with the truth
from Allah, when he denies his ayat, he
denies his signs, that's you.
You're bringing this out against me and accusing
me.
Fair enough, if that is the case, big,
big trouble for me.
But you're rejecting his ayat if the opposite
is true.
If I am bringing the truth, then fend
for yourselves.
innahu laa yuflikhul dhalimun For sure, the ones
who are unjust are never going to succeed.
wayawman ahshuruhum jameeAAa And the day we gather
all human beings together, thumma naqoolu lilladhina ashraqu
And then we will ask those who committed
shirk, inna shuraka'ukumu alladhina kuntum taz'ubun
Where are the alleged partners, the deities that
you held against me or in my place,
your assumptions, the dhu'um, the idea that
these are assumed deities, alleged deities, that there's
no real basis in evidence for them, for
their presence, for their existence.
Where are they?
All of what you thought is going to
bail you out, whatever it was, a deity,
a thought, a concept, whatever.
Where is it today?
Where is its reality today?
thumma lam takun fitnatuhum Thereafter, they will have
no trick to play, illa anqaloo Except that
they say, wallahi rabbina, by Allah, our Rabb,
maakunna mushrikeen We were not of those who
did shirk.
unzur kayfa kazabu ala anfusihim See how they
lie against themselves.
So there's those who are going to own
up, even on the day of judgment, there's
going to be the entire spectrum.
Those who will finally acknowledge the truth.
And then there's going to be those who
are going to insist, no, we didn't do
that.
wadhalla AAanhum maa kaami yasturana All their fabrications,
all the concoctions, all of what they put
together with their own hands, would forsake them.
wa minhum man yastamiAAu ilayk And some of
them apparently listened to you attentively.
wajAAalna AAala quloobihim aqinnatan an yafqahu But we
have placed a veil on their hearts, lest
they understand it.
So some of the Quraysh, they would see
the influence that Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is
having, whatever influence, and we know it wasn't
a lot, but it was enough to disturb
them out of their wits.
They don't want him to have, or create
any sort of a response from the people
of Mecca.
So they're like, you know what?
Let me go see what he's talking about.
And they would go pretend to listen, so
that they can come back and say, I
haven't heard what he's talking about.
He got nothing.
He's, it's all, you know, made up stuff.
Doesn't make any sense.
It's not all of what it's made out
to be.
wa fee AAadhanihim waqraa And deafness in their
ears.
The attitude with which you're approaching a text,
the attitude with which you're approaching ayaat of
Allah, it matters.
The ayaat of Allah are the ayaat of
Allah.
Nothing taken away from the greatness that the
ayaat represent, that the greatness that the ayaat
have.
But if your attitude is not the one
for a person, of the one of humility,
but if it's kibar that you bring to
a text, you take nothing away from it.
It's kibar that you bring to ayaat, they
don't change you, except increase you in arrogance.
wa fee AAadhanihim waqraa wa ee yaraa kulla
aayatin laa yu'minoo bihaa Even if they see
every single ayaat, they will not believe in
it.
khatta itha jaaooka yujaadiloonaka yaqooloo allatheena kafaroo Even
when the disbelievers arguing with you, come to
you and say, in hatha illa asaateerul awwaleen
This is nothing but legends, stories of ancient
people.
So what this happened, that happened.
These are fairy tales.
Or these are, even if they did happen.
So what?
It happened then.
How is it relevant today?
How does it relate to me?
Firaan did this, Musa did this, the camel,
Salih.
So what?
We tell stories to each other all the
time.
So what if you're telling them?
These are all stories.
Idea being they're irrelevant to our context.
They're irrelevant to our lives.
These are asaateerul awwaleen.
You can claim, or you can talk about
how these are not asaateerul awwaleen.
How these are Quranic traditions and Quranic stories,
but we can treat them in exactly the
same way, the way we treat fairy tales,
the way we treat any other text which
is talking about anything.
So you read Pinocchio and the bearing that
that has on your life compared to you
reading the story of Musa Alayhis Salaam and
the bearing that that has on your life.
If there's no difference, if there's no difference,
then what are we on about?
wahum yanhawna AAanhu wa yan'awna AAanhu They
stop others from Him and are distant themselves.
wa in yahlikuna illa anfusawman They're not destroying
anyone but themselves.
wa maa yash'uun And yet they do
not understand.
walaw taraab idh wuqifoo AAalan naar If you
could only see when they are made to
stand before the fire.
faqaloo Then they will say, ya laytana nuradd
If we could only return.
Damn it.
wala nukaddhiba bi aayati rabbina We would never,
never deny the aayat of our Rabb.
wa nakoona minal mu'mineen And we would be
among the believers.
bal badalahum maa kanoo yukhsoona min qabl But
what they concealed earlier has become manifest for
them.
The iman that they experienced, the doubt that
they experienced in their own shirk, whatever aqeedah,
whatever dogma they were holding onto, whatever religiosity
they had claimed belief in, the coming of
Rasulullah ﷺ necessarily made them doubt it.
What Rasulullah ﷺ sparked something inside of them
that said something of what he's saying is
making sense.
There's something there.
That trigger happened.
Then everything that they did in opposition to
Rasulullah ﷺ was a process of suppressing that
potential for iman.
Deeper and deeper and deeper burying it.
That's what kufr is.
Literally kufr means to bury something under the
ground.
And they buried it with their opposition of
Rasulullah ﷺ and it takes the fire of
* to bring it out.
The day of judgment didn't bring it out.
Till the day of judgment, they were so
convinced that in their arrogance, their stubbornness, it
was so strong that even on the day
of judgment, they're like, we didn't do it.
We didn't do no shirk.
We're all, it was a manifestation of whatever
kind of religiosity that they were manifesting that
they thought was the truth.
The fire of *, that's what it took
to burn through those layers of deception.
Of not understanding, of not realizing.
And bringing out that iman that was there,
the potential for iman that was there, that
was looking to express itself, that was manifesting
itself as a doubt in their previously held
beliefs, in their ancestry, in whatever form of
idolatry or polytheism they had professed faith in.
بَلْ بَذَالَهُمَا كَانُوا يُقْفُونَ مِنْ قَبْلُ وَلَوْ رُضُّوا
لَعَادُوا لِمَا نُهُوْاً But even if they were
returned, they would repeat that which they were
stopped from.
They would do it all over again.
The tendency, the habituation is so strong that
even if they go back and are given
another chance, it's gonna be the same.
وَإِنَّهُمْ لَكَاذِبُونَ And they are certainly liars.
And there's manifestations of this attitude in dunya
as well.
Afflicted with small calamities and how all objections
and all demands against God are forgotten.
We'll talk about it a little bit.
وَقَالُوا إِنْ هِيَ إِلَّا حَيَاتٌ الدُّنْيَا And they
say life of this world is just this
life that we have here.
وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمَبْعُوثِينَ We're not going to be
resurrected.
So they had this diverse understanding that the
entire community had different beliefs about akhira.
Our deities are going to save us.
Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam is going to save us.
All of us are going to paradise anyways.
The more privileged of us, the rich, if
we're rich and successful here, we will be
rich and successful in the hereafter.
This entire spectrum of understandings about akhira, one
of them being there is no akhira.
We're not really sure if there is one,
even if there is one, that's sort of
an understanding.
The practical import of all of these beliefs
being nothing changes in their life.
What they're having to do today or what
they have in front of them in their
interpersonal dealings, their belief in akhira is not
going to make it any better.
If at all, it's going to make it
worse because they're granted paradise.
وَلَوْ تَرَىٰ إِذْ ظُقِفُوا عَلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ If you
could see, if you could only see, when
they will be made to stand before their
Rabb, all, and Allah will say, إِلَيْسَ هَذَا
بِالْحَقِّ Is this not the truth?
Is this evidence enough for you?
Is this concrete enough for you?
Is this what you were looking for?
قَالُوا They will reply, بَلَا بَرَبِّن For sure.
We swear by our Rabb.
قَالَ Allah will say, فَذُوقُوا الْعَذَابَ بِمَا كُنتُمْ
تَكْفُرُونَ Go, taste the punishment for the kufr
that you did.
Now there's no point in believing.
No.
It was when it was, it was more
human.
If you would have believed when the evidence
was not as concrete as it is on
the Day of Judgment.
قَدْ خَاتَرَ الَّذِينَ اَنْكَذَبُوا بِلِقَاءِ اللَّهِ And definitely
lost are those who deny meeting with Allah.
They're big time losers.
حَتَّىٰ إِذَا جَاءَتْهُمُ السَّعَةُ بَغْتَهُ Until when the
hour comes upon them, all of a sudden,
قَالُوا They would say, يَا خَسْرَتَنَا عَلَىٰ مَا
فَرَّطْنَا فِيهَا How great is our regret.
I wish, or we wish, that we had
not neglected it.
We had not ignored it.
How bad was that negligence?
How incredibly horrific the negligence was.
وَهُمْ يَعْمِلُونَ أَوْزَارَهُمْ عَلَىٰ ظُهُورِهِمْ And they would
be carrying the burden of their sins on
their backs.
أَلَا سَآءَ مَا يَزِرُونَ Without a doubt, wretched
is what they carry.
وَمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا نَعِبُونَ وَلَهَبُ And what
is the life of this world but play
and entertainment?
You take the concept of Akhira out.
You neutralize the concept of Akhira with all
these fanciful, wishful understandings.
What remains of the life of this world?
Nothing but play and entertainment.
Nothing but games.
Nothing but enjoyment.
And then, yes, the ideal for the life
or the play and entertainment, if that's all
of what this life is, is that retirement
and that vacation resort with a cocktail in
your hand, sunbathing.
That's the ultimate *, drug, and rock and
roll.
The ultimate, ultimate dream.
Pump yourself up with heroin.
It's as good as it gets.
If that's all there is to this world,
then that makes complete sense.
That is the lifestyle.
وَلَدَّارُ الْآخِرَةُ خَيْرٌ لِلَّذِينَ يَتْطَعُونَ But the final
abode is better for the people of Taqwa,
the people who learned to discipline themselves, to
delay that cult for pleasure and happiness.
That wasn't them.
Theirs was the conduct of Taqwa, of self
-development, of self-awareness.
Awareness of the self that comes with an
awareness or a relationship with an other, and
the ultimate other being Allah Himself.
And then the level of awareness that comes
when that's the other you're dealing with.
It's Allah.
That awareness is going to be far deeper,
far more profound.
And therefore, the impact that that has on
your conduct, on your action, is going to
be a lot more significant.
And that the impact of your action then
is going to be incredibly far-reaching.
How far-reaching?
All the way to Akhira.
All the way to the hereafter.
La'ib and Lahav, inherently, activities done for
the sake of themselves, both of them.
La'ib more for children, Lahav more for
teenagers, adolescents.
There's a sensuality to Lahav.
La'ib is like, but both.
Activities done for their own sake.
Activities that do not, by definition, do not
have a meaning to them other than themselves.
There's no question, okay, why are you doing
it?
There's no answer to that why.
It's just done for its own sake.
It's what it brings there and then.
That's what all of your life becomes.
La'ib and Lahav.
Play and entertainment.
Games.
Activities done for themselves.
Nothing outside.
And interestingly enough, games and entertainment, when they're
done for themselves, they even lose their charm.
They fall back on themselves.
They stop giving the kick or the pleasure
that they were supposed to.
Even the meaningfulness of play and entertainment in
a meaningless life is lost.
They don't even give what they're supposed to
give, that immediate kick.
That is, that potential is spent out.
It's lost.
It's gone.
Even inherently, activities that are inherently done for
themselves, for the sake of themselves, they find
meaning if they are placed in context of
a meaningful life.
Otherwise, the best example, you said *, drug,
and rock and rolls.
Let's talk about * and drugs.
We know from clinical experience that the greatest
problems that manifest in sexuality are because of
self-centeredness, excessive self-consciousness, excessive obsession with
pleasure, excessive obsession with getting it right, performance
anxiety.
It falls back on itself.
It cuts its own ends.
It is its own obstacle.
You have to get that focus out for
it to work.
You have to get that out of the
head of the person.
They have to not want that as the
absolute end and perhaps be worried about their
partner who, and make that act more self
-transcendent.
Drugs, we spoke about this yesterday.
The first experience is being chased for the
rest of their lives.
It's less about pleasure soon and more about
avoiding the pain.
It loses out on itself.
And if that's what your entire life becomes,
that's what it does become if there is
no Akhira.
If there is nothing to look forward to,
nothing to leave behind.
وَلَدَّارُ الْآخِرَةُ خَيْرٌ لِّلَّذِينَ يَتَّقُونَ أَفَلَا تَعْطِلُونَ So
will you not use your reasoning?
Again, this is something, this comparison is amenable
to reasoning.
قَدْ نَعْلَمُ إِنَّهُ لَيَحْزُونُكَ الَّذِي يَقُولُونَ We know
very well, Ya Rasulullah, that you're upset and
you have chosen.
You're grieved by what they say.
فَإِنَّهُمْ لَا يُكَذِّبُونَكَ Probably the 11th, 10th, 11th
year of prophethood.
But it's not you that they deny.
وَلَكِنَّ الظَّالِمِينَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ يَجْحَذُونَ In fact, it
is the ayat of Allah that these unjust
people are rejecting.
This is the first consolation that Rasulullah ﷺ.
Again, he's stuck between a rock and a
hard place.
The Quraysh making their demands, making their demands,
even the believers sort of expressing that, you
know, the demands, maybe they should be fulfilled
and Allah refusing.
Rasulullah is deeply grieved, he's stuck and he
is affected by their rejection.
He's affected by their mockery.
He's affected by everything that they're doing to
the rest of the Sahaba as well.
He's affected as to how it's not progressing.
There's no results coming in.
He's worried, am I doing something wrong?
Allah is reassuring him.
وَلَا قَدْذِبَتْ رُسُلُ مِنْ قَدْلِكَ Many messengers before
you were denied as well.
فَصَبَرُوا عَلَى مَا كُذِّبُوا وَأُذُوا And they continued
with sabr.
All of the denial and persecution that they
were put through, they kept going.
They kept going.
First consolation, they're rejecting Allah.
So it's not you they're rejecting, they're rejecting
Allah.
Second consolation, previous messengers faced this as well.
حَتَّىٰ أَتَاهُمْ نَصْرُنَّ And then their sabr yielded
fruit.
They kept going, they kept trying and our
help came to them.
وَلَا مُبَدِّلَ لِكَلِمَاتِ اللَّهِ There is no one
who can alter the words of Allah.
This is a decision Allah has made.
You can't blackmail him out of it.
وَلَقَدْ جَاءَكَ مِنْ نَبَأِ الْمُرْسَلِينَ And you have
already received the reminder or the news of
previous messengers.
وَإِن كَانَ كَبُرَ عَلَيْكَ إِعْرَابُهُمْ Now the reminder
to Rasulullah gets more stern.
First it was consolation, it was an expression
of empathy.
We understand you're hurt but understand that they're
rejecting us.
We're in this with you.
We know what you're going through.
And remember that there were prophets before you
and they persevered.
And then the reminder comes in.
You've heard this.
You know of the people before you.
You've heard the stories of the prophets before
you.
But if it is still too hard for
you to bear فَإِنِ اسْتَطَعْتَ Then if you
can أَنْ تَبْتَغِيَرْ Then see if you're able
to find نَفَقًا فِي الْأَرْضِ a tunnel in
the ground أَوْ سُلَّ مَنْ فِي السَّمَاءِ Or
a ladder to ascend the sky فَتَعْطِيَهُمْ بِآيَةٍ
Bring them a sign.
Bring them a sign.
Allah doesn't want to do anything like that.
He's deciding.
If you think otherwise, do it yourself without
the help of Allah.
وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَمَعَهُمْ عَلَى الْهُدَىٰ If Allah
wanted, He would have just united them upon
guidance as it is.
There was no need for all of this.
He would have just made everyone Muslim and
they lived happily ever after and paradise would
have been eternal.
End of story.
But He doesn't want that.
He doesn't want a baby humanity.
At least not anymore.
That is done.
فَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْجَاهِلِينَ So do not let
your emotions get the better of you.
Do not be overwhelmed.
Do not let this حُزن lead you to
overstep.
إِنَّمَا يَسْتَجِيبُ الَّذِينَ يَسْمَعُونَ And for sure, it
is only going to be those people who
listen.
They're going to be the one who will
respond.
وَالْمَوْتَ As for these dead people walking, يَبْعَثُهُمُ
اللَّهُ Allah will raise them one day.
ثُمَّ إِلَيْهِ يُرْجَعُونَ Then to Him they will
be returned.
They're talking.
They're yelling.
They're screaming.
They're threatening.
But they're essentially dead people.
And they'll wake up when they die and
then when they're resurrected and then when they're
brought together before Allah.
وَقَالُوا لَوْ لَا نُزِلَ عَلَيْهِ آيَةٌ لِّلرَّبَّ And
they continue to say, why was an ayah
not sent down to him from his Rabb?
Miracle.
We want miracle.
قُلْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ قَادِرٌ عَلَىٰ إِن يُنَزِلَ آيَةٌ
Tell them Allah is fully capable of sending
you down anytime that He wants.
وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ But most of them
don't know.
Most of them don't know.
And there is a meaningfulness behind this, the
way things are proceeding, the way Rasulullah ﷺ
is operating, required to operate, the bigger picture.
There is a future of humanity at stake
here.
And the consequences of having that miracle in
front of you, do you have any idea?
What that changes for you and then for
the rest of humanity to come?
وَمَا مِن دَبَّ فِي الْأَرْضَ There is neither
an animal on earth وَلَا طَائِنِ يَطِيرُ بِجَنَاحَيْهِ
Nor is there any flying creature flying with
its two wings إِلَّا أُمَمٌ أَمْثَالَكُمْ But they
are communities like you.
They are communities like you.
مَا فَرَّطْنَا فِي الْكِتَابِ مِنْ شَيْءٍ We have
not neglected anything in the book, this book
of creation.
Scripture, yes, but then how the scripture is
in continuity with the book of nature.
ثُمَّ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ يُحْشَرُونَ Then all of them
will be gathered to their Rabb.
وَالَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِآيَاتِنَا سُمٌّ وَبُكْمٌ Those who deny
our ayat are deaf and dumb فِي الظُّلمَاتِ
Living in layers of darkness مَنْ يَشَأْ إِلَّاهُ
يُضْلِّلْ Allah misleads whoever He wants وَمَنْ يَشَأْ
يَجْعَلْهُ عَلَىٰ صِرَاطِ الْمُسْتَقِيمِ And whoever He wants,
we will put him on the straight path.
قُلْ أَرَأَيْتَكُمْ Say, have you considered إِنْ أَتَاكُمْ
عَذَابُ اللَّهِ If the punishment of Allah comes
to you أو أَتَتْكُمُ السَّاعَةِ Or the final
hour comes upon you غَيْرَ اللَّهِ تَدْعُونَ Would
you call on anyone other than Allah إِنْ
كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ If you really are truthful فَالإِيَّاهُ
تَدْعُونَ In fact, you will only call on
Him فَيَكْشِفُ مَا تَدْعُونَ إِلَيْهِ إِن شَاءَ So
He will remove what you invoke Him for
He wants وَتَنْثَونَ مَا تُشْرِكُونَ And you will
forget whoever you associate with Him When a
time for When a real suffering afflicts you
When you're in a life-threatening situation When
you're really desperate for something At that point,
all these arguments are gone At that point,
all these contentions are gone At that point,
your reflexive focus on Allah The degree of
your commitment towards Allah It becomes so intense
It becomes so intense Doesn't that tell you
something?
Doesn't that reflexive tawhid, instinctive tawhid That instinctive
spirituality That instinctive dedication and commitment to Allah
Doesn't that tell you something?
Belligerent atheists would, in these sort of circumstances
Fall back Instinctively call out The idea is
not That instinctive spirituality in itself is a
sign A sign from within yourself A contradiction
emanating from yourself Contradicting what you usually hold
on to What you usually claim It's great
that you're spiritual in times of desperation But
the idea, the whole point of tawhid That
is, it's that unconscious reflexive spirituality All right,
but anyone would do it The demand from
you as human beings Is to reflect on
that experience Identify how you yourself contradict Your
routine life beliefs and activities Routine life, Allah
is not in focus Desperate situation, tawhid par
excellence This inconsistency you're required to reflect on
And look to balance the situation Look to
make this more consistent That's what's required of
you That is what is more human That
is what behooves the stature of being human
That you have this reflective capacity On desperate
situations And then you are able to struggle
And bring in that much routine That tawhid
in your routine That's what's asked of you
وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا إِلَىٰ أُمَمٍ مِّن قَبْلِكَ So we
have sent already the message to nations before
you فَأَخَذْنَاهُم بِالْبَأْسَاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ And we did afflict
them with tribulation and adversity لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَضْرَّعُونَ That
they may perhaps humble themselves That these experiences
of suffering They, the desperation that they elicit
The tawhid that they elicit The humility that
they elicit How the limitations of your life
Of your strength, of your power They become
so stark in front of you They're in
your face, undeniable That cloak of invisibility or
invincibility That you thought you had The invincibility
that you were so sure of It's stripped
right off you فَلَوْنَ إِذْ جَأَهُمْ بَأْسُنَا تَطَرَّعُونَ
Then why did they not humble themselves When
our punishment came to them?
So this would happen in the lives of
individuals With suffering and adversity being a part
of this life This happens in communities as
well This definitely used to happen prior When
messengers would come Then small punishments Or small
calamities Not the kind of calamities that would
wipe out the entire generation Calamities that would
just remind them Put them in place This
is possible It would have wiped you out,
it didn't Even at the time of the
affliction At the time of the calamity They
would humble themselves But after that the humility
would be gone The arrogance restores itself وَلَكِن
قَصَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ On the contrary, their hearts became
hard They became even more stubborn وَزَيْجَنَ لَهُمُ
الشَّيْطَانُ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ And Shaytan decorated for
them all that they used to do They
thought the inconsistency within their own beliefs and
actions themselves They demonstrated it That in itself
creates this cognitive dissonance This doubt in your
head What am I doing?
What am I saying?
What just happened?
But then you start rationalizing You start identifying
You start bringing back those arguments that you
had before And start thrusting them in the
face of whatever is prophetic or the truth
And turn very proud of yourself For how
you're standing on your faith Strong, unmoved And
how whatever it was that you were doing
was the way of life And how you're
still How you're so proud of yourself for
having recovered And life is now back to
normal Alhamdulillah فَلَمَا نَسُوا مَا ذُكِّرُوا بِهِ So
when they forgot that by which they were
reminded فَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ أَبْوَابَ كُلِّ شَيْطٍ We open
the gates of every kind of prosperity for
them You want to reinforce the attitude of
shirk?
Rationalize it?
Fair enough Allah will give you more to
reinforce it Go ahead, party, enjoy So so
much luxury So much prosperity فَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ أَبْوَابَ
كُلِّ شَيْطٍ To the point that they were
deep into the enjoyment of what they were
given More and more oblivious More and more
drunk on the joys that they were getting
أَخَذْنَاهُمْ بَغْتَةً Leave them all of a sudden
فَإِذَاهُمْ مُبْلِسٌ Then they were in despair فَقُطِعْ
دَابِرُ الْقَوْمِ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا And the very roots
of these unjust people were cut off They
were wiped out مُلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ All
praise and gratitude is for Allah, the Rab
of the Alam This attitude was contrary to
the Rububiyyah of Allah To the Hamz of
Allah These were It was a pathological joint
Or a pathological limb It had to be
amputated Then the process would have spread It
would have destroyed life itself And Allah wouldn't
have that He had it removed وَلَا رَأَيْتُمْ
إِنْ أَخَذَ اللَّهُ سَمْعَكُمْ وَأَبْصَارَكُمْ Tell them Have
you considered if Allah takes away your hearing
and sight The faculties through which you're supposed
to see and hear the ayat of Allah
وَخَتَمَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِكُمْ And puts a seal on
your hearts Now hearts reflecting the entire spectrum
Of a person's reflective capacity From the intuitive
flashes That are a very essential part of
the believing process Or the process of belief
that helps you If there's what you see
and there's what you hear And there's infinite
ways of putting that together And trying to
make sense of it Most of them won't
work But the flash that helps you The
intuitive flash The experience of your قلب That
helps you put it together in the best
way possible And then also a faculty or
a function of your inner self Is to
step by step work it out Reflect on
it Put together what you've seen, what you've
heard, what you've felt Put it together and
verify it That entire process Observation Intuition
Reflection What if Allah were to take away
these capacities from you?
What are you going to do?
مَنْ إِلَهٌ غَيْرُ اللَّهِ يَعْتِيكُمْ بِهِ Which God
other than Allah will bring it back to
you?
قُنْظُرْ كَيْفَ نُسَرِّفُ الْآيَاتِ Look at how we
explain our ayat in all these different ways
ثُمَّهُنْ يَسْلِفُونَ Yet they still turn away قُلْ
أَرَأَيْتَكُمْ Ask them have you considered إِنْ أَتَاكُمْ
عَذَابُ اللَّهِ بَغْتَةً أَوْ جَهْرَةً If Allah's punishment
comes to you suddenly and clearly هَلْ يُهْلَكُ
إِلَّا الْقَوْمُ الظَّالِمُونَ Will anyone other than the
unjust be the ones that are killed?
مَمَا نُرْسِلُ الْمُرْسَلِينَ إِلَّا مُبَشِّرِينَ وَمُنْذِرِينَ We don't
send messengers except to give glad tidings And
to warn فَمَنْ آمَنَ وَأَصْلَحَ The ones who
believe and reform فَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ
يَحْزَنُونَ And they will have nothing to fear
nor grieve وَالَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِآيَاتِنَا يَمَسُّهُمُ الْعَذَابِ And
those who deny our ayaat They will be
afflicted with a torment, with a punishment بِمَا
كَانُوا يَفْصُقُونَ Because of their rebellious disobedience قُلْ
لَأَقُولُ لَكُمْ Tell them I don't claim to
you عِنْدِي خَزَائِنُ اللَّهِ That I have the
treasures of Allah at my disposal The demands
you're making of me as if I'm king
As if I'm God As if I can
do whatever I want to وَلَا أَعْلَمُ الْغَيْبِ
Nor do I have the knowledge of the
unseen وَلَا أَقُولُ لَكُمْ إِنِّي مَلَكٌ Nor do
I tell you that I'm an angel Have
I ever claimed that I'm an angel?
إِنْ أَتَّبِعُ إِلَّا مَا يُهَى إِلَيْهِ All I
do is follow what is revealed to me
قُلْ هَلْ يَسْتَوِى الْأَعْمَى وَالْبَصِيرِ So tell them,
are the blind and the seeing alike?
Is it the same?
فَلَا تَتَفَكَّرُونَ Do you not then reflect the
way the conduct of the one who can
see the way they carry themselves in Rasulullah
ﷺ?
Does that not tell you anything?
From the ones who have blinded themselves to
the ayaat of Allah and they continue stumbling
وَأَنذِرْ بِهِ الَّذِينَ يَخَوْفُونَ يُحْشَرُوا إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ Warn
with the Qur'an those who fear being
gathered before their Rabb لَيْسَ لَهُمْ مِنْ دُونِهِ
وَلِيْهِمْ وَلَا شَفِيعٍ That there will be no
protector for them and no intercessor besides Allah
Whatever wishful ideas you have your deities that
are going to stand up for you No,
not in front of Allah لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَّقُونَ Warn
them so that perhaps they may attain taqwa
They may look to save themselves وَلَا تَطُرُضِ
الَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ رَبَّهُمْ بِالْغَذَاتِ وَالْعَشِي And do not
send those who invoke their Rabb morning and
evening يُرِيدُونَ وَجْهًا Seeking His pleasure So what
their shirk has sanctioned for them What their
shirk has allowed them is these rigid stratifications
in their society Where there are these untouchables
Practically These people who are less human closer
to cattle Who are slaves Who you can
do whatever you want to with Who have
no say No influence No power No authority
Nothing in the society This riffraff is all
of what is gathered around Rasulullah ﷺ taking
him seriously So the Quraysh they're like All
right, you want to talk to us Nobleman
to nobleman You get rid of this riffraff
We don't want to have anything to do
with them If there is anything reasonable in
your religion to consider If we do want
to make it our way First condition is
get rid of the riffraff That's continuously another
demand that they're making of Rasulullah ﷺ Which
is again Betraying their own agenda-based pursuit
of religiosity Because if Rasulullah ﷺ does that
If he does get rid of the sahaba
Who belong to the lower quote-unquote segments
of the society And then goes to the
Quraysh Now the Quraysh have opened the door
To hijacking this particular brand of religiosity To
maintain that class structure To make it all
the more rigid And continue to exploit this
riffraff For their vested interests Their intent to
use Rasulullah and Islam Muhammadism, God as a
tool to fulfill that priority That they harbor
so deeply And that expresses itself It betrays
itself in this demand The previous expression of
their skepticism Showed nothing more than their arrogance
The expression of their suspicion on Rasulullah ﷺ
having an agenda Is unveiled by the agenda
that they have When they make such demands
You re-do no wajhah, seeking his pleasure
Ma alayka min hitabihim min shay You are
not accountable for their deeds Wa ma min
hisabika alayhim min shay And they're not accountable
for yours But that's a rule-bound Yet
if you turn them away You would be
of the unjust ones Of the unjust ones
in that this is an injustice Straight out
But of the unjust ones you will be
like You will be one of them The
society of zalimeen The society of zulm The
injustice that has prevailed You will become a
tool for them You will become a tool
for them Wa kazalika fatanna ba'dahum bi ba'din
And that is how we test some of
them through others Because there is an element
From Allah in this stratification There is a
group of people that have And there are
groups of people who do not have They
are the have-nots This spectrum or this
polarity that exists within society This is not
God's judgment as to who is better And
who is worse Full stop That is not
at all what this is Kazalika fatanna ba'dahum
bi ba'din This is how we test them
with each other Will those in power Let
their power and authority get to their head
Such that they are exploiting And abusing those
who don't have that power and authority Or
are they going to use it for For
the justice for the empowerment of those Segments
To raise them higher That's the opportunity Similarly
Those who do not have Are they going
to let Their lack of privilege Become this
amassed resentment Which then manifests itself As a
reactionary rebellion In the name and both will
use the name of religion And the name
of God to justify those Their ends And
their intent is then to bring down The
people in power and then Revenge We show
you Sort of that Even if it is
not taken to that extreme There is always
this Massaging your own ego We're still better
than them Ah these people of power and
privilege We are so much better than them
We are so much We are more righteous
than them And then a condescension An ironic
way Of using religion and religiosity To look
down upon people of power Because there is
no other way of looking down upon them
The way they look down upon you And
that is how we test some of them
through others So that they say are these
the ones whom Allah has favoured more Among
us Doesn't Allah know better about the grateful
ones The statements This can go either way
And when those who believe in our ayat
come to you Tell them peace be upon
you The way to bridge these polarities Within
a society across the board Whoever it is
that is coming to you You start by
lowering your guard By saying salamu alaykum You're
taking the initiative You're trusting so the other
person lives up to that trust And therefore
becomes more trustworthy It is a risk It
is a risk Every time you say salamu
alaykum You're taking a risk That the other
person might not reciprocate Because salamu alaykum is
the beginning of an interaction, a relationship And
your initiation of that relationship is in welcoming
them in When they come in they can
do They may not respect your openness They
may use that In any case Rasulullah ﷺ
as the leader And the leader opening his
doors for Bilal Wadiyallahu ta'ala Saying salamu
alaykum to him Unheard of As far as
the mushrikeen of Mecca were concerned Salamu alayki
Salam on him You are sending salam on
him You're greeting him You're offering him peace
What's going on here?
Kitaba rabbukum ala nafsihir rahman Your Rabb has
prescribed mercy upon himself This expression of mercy
that you see from the Prophet of Allah
This is because Allah who is the most
privileged The most powerful It is his rahma
that allows for him to Empower, to relate,
to come closer So if you have in
any level Some ghina, some riches, some wealth,
some power Then do not forget that graciousness
Do not forget that rahma And Allah has
It is a restriction that you place upon
yourself A prescription An obligation And when you
do that freely Even though you could not
You could have gotten away with not doing
it Because you have that freedom You have
that authority And those that have that freedom
and authority Allah is the most freedom and
most authority Yet he chose Kitaba He himself
Ala nafsihir Upon himself he places this This
restriction In order to relate In order to
make a relationship A genuine relationship In which
the other is given a significance An honor
A respect A love And yes when God
does that He opens himself up to blasphemy
He gives the other person freedom and power
as well And then that freedom and power
Is used against God If God takes that
risk He's okay with doing that Because this
project This grand plan of his Of
that human being And those that community of
human beings That Tawhidic community demands That he
do that That he opens this door That
he restricts himself That he empowers the human
being Otherwise the creativity The growth The truth
The beauty The goodness That he envisions for
humanity That he envisions humanity to freely Become
creators of Participants in Is not going to
happen He doesn't want a puppet show He
doesn't want puppets He wants worthy contenders Companions
for himself in paradise And that companionship The
worthiness of it Potentially ingrained That it has
to be actualized He has prescribed mercy upon
himself He has obligated himself to be merciful
So whoever from you commits an evil act
Out of ignorance Or overwhelmed by emotion Jahala
goes in both directions Both being very intricately
related true Ignorance and being overwhelmed by emotion
That's fine That's human That's okay You're gonna
do that Because in this Process of relationship
When he has given you that That power
That ability You might usurp it You will
usurp it But it is about learning from
that Flip That sin That error In coming
back and improving That is going to allow
for you to become that That worthy companion
The Ashabul Jannah The companions of paradise Who
are the companions of paradise?
Muqarraboon Qurb To who?
Allah Fumathaaba min ba'di Wa asliha And then
they repent afterwards And then reforms Person reforms
The person repents So then Allah is also
forgiving And merciful You're taking steps towards him
He's taking steps towards you And the relationship
has grown And that's how Allahu Akbar Who
has greater And become of that relationship And
the more that these relationships grow The more
the community grows Salaamu Alaikum Wa kadhalika nufaslil
al-ayat And that is how we explain
Our ayat Wa li tastabeena sabeelul mujrimeen And
that is how The way of the criminals
Becomes evident Qul inni nuhintu an a'budallatheena
tad'uuna min doonillahi Tell them Ya Rasulullah
That I have been forbidden from worshipping those
Whom you call on besides Allah Qul la
'attabi'u ahwaakum Say I won't follow your
desires Again their Demand from Rasulullah ﷺ So
far we've seen two demands Bring us a
miracle Number two Bring us A get rid
of These riffraff around you And how both
of these demands Are reflective of their polytheism
One in trying to control God dictate to
him the way they Control and dictate their
deities They shape them in whatever form they
want to Two it reassures them or Reaffirms
their social privilege And does not demand of
them Any sort of Giving Any sort of
empowering Any sort of strengthening of these Weaker
segments of the society Rasulullah ﷺ's response I
am not worshipping these idols I got nothing
to do with this I have been told
not to worship Whatever it is that you're
calling upon And in fulfilling or responding to
these demands In accepting these demands And compromising
And giving in to what the Quraysh are
asking of Rasulullah ﷺ Is an act of
accepting their deities Their gods Some of them
the concrete idols Others their desires How do
we know that?
Qul la'at tabi'u ahwaakum Say I
will not follow your desires The Qur'an
psychoanalyzing What you call religion Is actually A
convoluted expression of your desires Of your vested
interests It is your wish fulfillment It is
your power structures being protected I got nothing
to do with that When you're asking me
to be tolerant of that You're asking me
to be tolerant of injustice Of intolerance So
that's not a joke If I do that
I would be lost I would be waylaid
And I will not be of those who
are rightly guided anymore Tell them I am
on clear proof from my Rabb All the
ayats brought together The ones in nature and
the ones in The self and the ones
in scripture And how they all add up
Clear, clarity from my Rabb And you have
rejected it I do not have what you
are so impatient for The azaab that you
keep asking for That you keep goading me
on to bring I don't have that That's
not my call to make The decision rests
with Allah alone As opposed to your religion
In which all authority is yours Where you're
the fir'aun The decision rests with Allah
alone He relates the truth And He is
the best of those who make decisions Tell
them straight out If I had what you're
being impatient for The matter between you and
me would have been decided What you put
me through And what you put my sahaba
through And for as long as you've put
us through it If it was in my
control To bring out the punishment It would
have been over It is the mercy of
Allah that you're still That you still have
time And Allah is the best in knowledge
Of the oppressors of those doing dhulm Again,
dhulm in also the three dimensions we spoke
about Dhulm in not giving Allah his right
Dhulm in not giving your own potential The
right that it deserves And as a consequence
of the injustice and oppression With whoever's under
your circle of influence وَعِنْدَهُ مَفَاتِحَ الْغَيْبَ And
He has the keys of the unseen لَا
يَعْلَمُهَا إِلَّا هُوَ No one knows them except
Him وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَخَرِ And He
knows what is on the land and in
the sea وَمَا تَسْقُطُ مِنْ وَرَقَةٍ إِلَّا يَعْلَمُهَا
And not a single leaf falls except that
He knows it He is that intimately involved
with His creation With His world, with His
nature With His world of nature Every single
leaf is in His knowledge وَلَا حَبَّةٍ فِي
ظُلُمَاتِ الْأَرْضِ Neither is there a grain in
the darkness In the darknesses, in the layers
of darkness of earth وَلَا رَطْبٍ وَلَا يَابِسٍ
Nor is there anything moist or dry إِلَّا
فِي كِتَابٍ مُّبِينٍ Except that it is in
a very clear book وَهُوَ الَّذِي يَتَوَفَّاكُمْ بِاللَّيْلِ
He is the one who collects you by
night This was the phrasing that we were
referring to earlier on When we spoke about
Isa Alayhi Salaam being false The same word
is used for every human being When to
sleep at night وَيَعْلَمُ مَا جَرَحْتُمْ بِالنَّهَى And
He knows what you have committed during the
day وَمَا يَبَعَثُكُمْ فِيهِ Then He revives you
therein Allah wants you to see the experience
of life and death in your daily life
While falling asleep and waking up Is dying
and being resurrected How there is so much
that goes on In this process of going
to sleep and waking up That has so
many similarities to dying and being resurrected You
experience resurrection every day You experience death every
day You carry until the end of day
Responsibility that you fulfilled or those you have
left unfulfilled And that is an additional burden
that you're carrying when you are resurrected Or
a relief that you're carrying if you did
end up fulfilling what you were supposed to
The urgency that night brings upon your activities
during the day so you get stuff done
Is the urgency that the idea of death
should bring upon you The meaningfulness that night
gives day In letting you realize that day
is going to be over I need to
make hay when the sun is shining Because
it is not going to shine forever Is
the meaningfulness that death gives your life Because
you know you need to make hay when
the sun is shining You gotta get to
it And is the meaningfulness that akhira gives
dunya That it is not eternal therefore there's
there's stuff that needs to be done You
cannot give entire nations an eternity to prove
themselves And that there will have to be
a time where enough is enough So that
a specified term is completed So when you
do wake up don't think that this sleeping,
waking, sleeping, waking, sleeping, waking is going to
go on to eternity You might go to
sleep and not wake up And that's it
That's the adal musamma, a specified term for
you Then the waking up is going to
be towards Allah Then to him is your
return And then he will inform you about
what you used to do Allah is irresistible
with respect to his slaves He has the
irresistibility of Allah as it manifests in sleep
The irresistibility of Allah is it manifests in
not being able to sleep and having to
wake up The irresistibility of Allah in all
the suffering that you experience The irresistibility of
Allah in death which is farting over you
The irresistibility of Allah with respect to the
life that doesn't let death come That easily
His irresistibility in how he brings all of
these opposites All of these desperate phenomena together
As a meaningful relationship That understanding them helps
you understand him and helps you understand what
you have to do His irresistibility in your
routine life He sends guardians over you You're
not going to die until it's your time
This experience of Allah's grace Of Allah's irresistibility
When you escape narrowly life-threatening experiences For
all practical purposes and all modes of calculation
and odds Or you should have died in
particular accidents or incidents or events But you
didn't But you don't That the bacterial and
viral load that is all over the world
Not just with COVID but prior to that
and after that Doesn't end up killing more
than it should given the calculations Given the
weight of that load He sends guardians over
you So to the point that when death
does approach one of you And the person
is taken by our messengers, angels And they
do not fail Then they are returned to
Allah, the real protector The real friend Unquestionably
the judgment belongs to him alone And he
is the swiftest to take account Ask them
who's going to rescue you From the dark
dangers in both land and sea Where you
invoke him, call on him Your dua is
so khalis, it is so dedicated With humility
and in secret You're not doing it for
nobody's watching you There's no pressure Fully coming
from within And you call out, ya Allah
just take us out of this Just save
me from this Let me go home Let
me make it Let me get through this
exam And then I will be of those
eternally grateful Always grateful I will become a
part of that community of grateful people That
those people I really didn't want to hang
out with before Tell them it is Allah
who saves you from this and every distress
The protecting guardian angels that he sends His
continuously rescuing you from all of these situations
He's the one doing that from every distress
Big, small Rather than doing shukr, you do
shirk You associate others with him That in
that time of suffering you're committed, you're dedicated
You know it's just him And you call
on him and you ask him And you
want him to get you out of it
And once he does that then you start
having other explanations Oh I did this and
I did that And then I was so
smart You know what I did?
I took that decision at that point And
right at that time when that car was
about to hit me And I was so
sharp, I just made that turn And did
you see that?
Did you see what I did?
Yeah right I fought through the illness, the
disease I was strong I was so strong
Just the way I roll Okay all of
these attributions to other than Allah And it's
not that those things necessarily have to be
false You probably were strong You probably did
take that very sharp turn But was it
all you?
Was it entirely you?
Or was it entirely whatever other phenomena it
is That you are as an absolute end
attributing that escape to?
Because whatever is an absolute end that you
attribute that escape to And if that absolute
end, that phenomena That event that happened That
person that saved you That move that you
made The idea that you had If it
is not God If it doesn't keep going
back to him If it does not all
come from him Then you don't owe it
anything What do you owe to an idea?
You don't owe anything to yourself for that
brilliant move you made You don't owe anything
other than you know Boding yourself You don't
owe anything to it Thank you at best
and move on But to identify Allah as
the source Ultimate source through across all the
means Through all the means Using all the
means That requires a response on your end
A gratitude on your end Practically manifested And
that's a burden of responsibility So it is
so convenient to attribute that success or that
escape or that Lakshmi Devi ki Kripa If
Lakshmi Devi ki Kripa You don't owe Lakshmi
Devi anything It's her Kripa It's her favor
on you You don't got to do nothing
But if it's Allah's favor on you Then
he expects you to be more responsible He
expects you to pay back And paying him
back is paying back to his community Contributing
Playing your part in Making this world a
better place And making it a better place
And the best place is what he's always
wanted And you continue to associate with him
All of these experiences of tribulation and suffering
The minor and the major and the life
-threatening And you know just the routine fever
It's his Qudra that he is showing you
And know that through these Learn that Allah
is fully capable And you know this from
books From history From the news That this
sort of stuff happens People die Lots of
them Know that Allah is able to send
a punishment on you Min fawqikum from above
you Aw min tahti arjulikum We're from beneath
you Aw yalbisakum shia Or he splits you
up in factions Wa yuzeeqa ba'dakum ba'sa ba'dum
So they So as to let some of
you taste the violence of others The third
form of punishment See these forms of punishment
They may or may not be punishments per
se They're natural disasters, calamities How the individuals
who died in these calamities Are going to
be on the Day of Judgment That's a
separate issue Not all calamities are punishments But
then there are those which are punishments Those
that happen in the aftermath of The rejection
of a prophet But now to start identifying
every calamity as a punishment It is an
expression of Allah's power for sure It does
result in suffering Yeah But then those sufferings
Or those experiences of suffering Are the best
experiences of a lot of people's lives Because
of what they make of them later on
Those who survived them And for whom that
experience resulted in death And then they did
leave responsible lives Then that's what their afterlife
is going to be judged on Nevertheless, the
power of Allah expresses itself through these calamities
We could make judgments Because the Qur'an
tells us On events that took place with
the people who rejected their prophets Pretty conclusive
judgments that that wasn't a punishment of Allah
And those people are being damned by all
means But not after the prophet Not after
what he has been concluded, perfected We don't
make those judgments anymore In any case, Rasulullah
ﷺ prays to Allah That my nation not
be wiped out entirely From an azab above
them Jibreel says, Ameen He makes dua that
his nation, his ummah does not get wiped
out So the azab that wipes out an
entire nation Through an azab from underneath them
Jibreel says, Ameen And he asks Allah that
his nation is not afflicted Riddled with a
punishment in which they're at each other's throats
Fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting Split up in factions
and ripping each other's heads off Jibreel does
not say, Ameen That's a vulnerability we still
carry And we see, we live Look at
how we present the signs in so many
different ways So that they may understand But
your people deny it, Ya Rasulullah And it
is the truth He'll tell them, I am
not a manager over you For every great
news, there is a fixed term And you
will soon find out And when you see
those who engage in vain arguments Oh, there's
the kind of discussion which is pointless, impractical
Nothing is going to come out of It's
a conversation for the sake of its own
self It's a game It's a game Most
of what goes on in most universities Conversations
which are inconsequential Discussions which are anything but
pragmatic Theoretical cobwebs being sprung around Discussion
for the sake of discussion I'm going to
say intellectual * When you see, Ya Rasulullah,
people doing this These kinds of discussions about
our ayat في آياتنا فأعرب أنهم Stay away
from them Don't engage The sanctity of the
ayaat of Allah And that's in the Qur
'an, yes But then it's everywhere Who have
vain discussions about them Pointless, impractical Discussions for
the sake of discussion These are to tell
you about Allah Learn something about Him You
already know all there is to know about
Him Really?
فأعرب أنهم Turn away from them حتى يخوضوا
في حديث غير Until their gossip or whatever
it is That their discussion for the sake
of discussion As it moves on to another
issue Another topic وإما ينسينك الشيطان And if
Shaytan makes you forget فلا تقعد بعد الذكرى
مع القوم الظالمين Do not sit with these
unjust people As soon as you realize that
As soon as you realize what they're doing
Get up and leave Sacredness, the sanctity of
the ayaat Require that you do not get
Socialized into this practice وَمَا عَلَى الَّذِينَ يَتَّقُونَ
مِنْ حِسَابِهِمْ مِنْ شَيْءٍ And the people of
taqwa are not responsible For their accountability in
any way For their accountability For what they're
doing وَلَكَنْ ذِكْرًا لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَّقُونَ But they are
responsible for a reminder Split out there Perhaps,
maybe, they do attain taqwa وَأَذَرَ الَّذِينَ ابْتَخَذُوا
دِينَهُمْ لَعِبًا وَلَهْوَى And let them be those
who treat their own religion As a play
and enjoyment For them religion is nothing more
than a game Nothing more than entertainment Nothing
more than they get a kick out of
it That's all what religiosity is Satisfy an
urge for pleasure وَغَلَّتْهُمُ الْخَيَاتُ الدُّنْيَةُ These people
have been deceived by the life of this
world And how does dunya deceive?
It deceives by portraying a permanence that it
doesn't have An eternity that it is not
That it is, this is how it's going
to be Day after day, year after year
That's not what it is A deeper reflection
over the phenomena of this dunya Is going
to tell you that there is so much
more to it وَغَلَّتْهُمُ الْخَيَاتُ الدُّنْيَةُ وَذَكِّرْ بِهِ
أَنْ تُبْسَ لَنَفْسُمْ بِمَا كَسَبَةً Keep on reminding
through this Qur'an, Ya Rasulullah Lest someone
be destroyed because of what he's doing of
his deeds Because of the actions that are
emanating from this sort of an attitude لَيْتَ
لَهَا مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ وَلِيْجِمْ وَلَا شَفِيعٍ They
will not have any protector or intercessor For
them, for this person This person will not
have any protector or intercessor Other than Allah
or against Allah وَإِن تَعْدِلْ كُلَّ عَدْلٍ لَا
يُؤْخَذْ مِنْهَا Even if they offer every possible
kind of ransom It will not be accepted
of them They take this, let me go
No, no can do أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ أُبْصِلُوا بِمَا
كَسَبُوا These are the people who have been
destroyed for what they earned, for what they
did لَهُمْ شَرَابٌ مِّنْ حَمِيمِهُمْ وَعَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ And
for them is a drink of boiling water
and a torturous punishment بِمَا كَانُوا يَكْفُرُونَ As
they used to reject the truth قُلْ أَنَا
دُعُوا مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ Ask them, should we
call other than Allah?
Should we make dua to other than Allah?
مَا لَا يَنْفَعُنَا وَلَا يَضُرُّنَا Which neither benefits
us nor harms us وَنُرَضُّ عَلَىٰ أَعَقَابِنَا And
we turn back on our heels بَعْدَ إِذْ
هَذَانَ اللَّهِ After Allah has guided us لَلَّذِي
إِسْتَهْوَتْهُ الشَّيَاطِينُ فِي الْأَرْضِ خَيْرَانَ Like someone who
has been enticed by the devils Wandering upon
the land, perplexed, confused utterly No idea what's
going on We had the ayaat of Allah
We were going strong on the ayaat of
Allah And then we gave in to your
polytheism And how it didn't make sense at
all We're neither here nor there, perplexed لَهُ
أَصْحَابٌ يَدْعُونَهُ إِلَى الْهُدَىٰ He has friends who
are calling them towards guidance إِئْتِنَا Come to
us قُلْ Say, O Rasulullah إِنَّ هُدَىٰ اللَّهِ
هُوَ الْهُدَىٰ That for sure the guidance of
Allah is the only guidance وَأُمِرْنَا لِنُسْلِمَ لِرَبِّ
الْعَالَمِينَ And we have been commanded to surrender
before the Rab of the Aalameen وَأَنْ أَقِيمُوا
الصَّلَاةَ وَالتَّقُوا And we've been commanded to establish
prayer and the taqwa of Allah وَهُوَ الَّذِي
إِلَيْهِ تُخْشَرُونَ And it is Him to whom
you will all be gathered وَهُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ
السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ بِالْحَرِّ And He has created the
heavens and the earth He is the one
who has created the heavens and the earth
with a true purpose, meaningfully وَيَوْمَ يَقُولُ قُنْ
فَيَكُونَ And the day He will just say,
be and it will آخرة قياماً أولوه الحق
His word is true, His word is consequential
His word comes to effect Not taking His
word seriously doesn't work وَلَهُ الْمُلْكُ يَوْمَ يُنْفَخُ
فِي السُّورِ And His alone is the dominion
on the day when the trumpet will be
blown عَالِمُ الْغَيْبِ وَالشَّهَادَةِ And the scene, the
witness وَهُوَ الْحَكِيمُ الْخَبِيرُ And He is the
All-Wise, All-Aware We will speak about
the story of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam first thing
in the next session Inshallah, we close with
this وَآخِرُ دَعْوَانَ أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْأَهْلَانِ