Yousuf Raza – Ramadan Nights 2021 Day 2
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah nahmaduhu wa nastaeenuhu wa
nastaghfiruhu wa nu'minu bihi wa natuwakkalu AAalayhi wa
na'udhu billahi min shururi antusina wa min
sayyiati a'malina man yahdihi allahu falaa mudallalahu man
yudhulilhu falaa hadiyalahu wa nashahadu wa laa ilaha
illa allahu wahdahu laa sharika lah wa nashahadu
anna muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluh amma ba'ad
fa inna khair al hadithi kitab Allah wa
khair al hadi hadi Muhammadin salallahu alayhi wasalam
muhshir al umuri muhdathatuha wa kulla muhdathatin bid
'ah wa kulla bid'atin dalalah wa kulla
dalalahin finna yaqulu subhanahu wa ta'ala fi
kidabihil kareem ba'd an aqool a'udhu billahi
min al shaytaanil rajim bismillahirrahmanirrahim ya bani israeel
ya
bani israeel ya bani
israeel ya bani israeel ya bani israeel ya
bani israeel ya bani israeel ya bani israeel
ya bani israeel ya bani israeel ya bani
israeel ya bani israeel ya bani israeel ya
bani israeel today
if we're going to conclude this within Ramadan
see I don't have the pressure of taraweeh
usually this program would always accompany or supplement
taraweeh and for taraweeh you have to finish
at least a juz or a little under
that or a little over that every day
so I didn't have the luxury of time
that I do now that does mean that
I tend to go overboard and not regard
that time or the amount that we have
to get covered so inshallah we'll try to
pick up pace today so we're moving along
with the fifth ruku we've spoken about the
first four the first four ruku or the
first four passages of surah Baqarah are of
an introductory nature right not just an introduction
to surah Baqarah but an introduction to the
Quran itself we saw in the very first
ruku a response to ihdinas salatul mustaqeem that
in the first two rukus actually that you
want guidance then there's three groups of people
that you need to know about and it
is these three groups of people that we
will find mentioned throughout the Quran in various
ways and it is upon us to identify
these as three tendencies that we have potential
that we have both incredibly great potential of
an amta alayhim and incredibly heinous and horrific
potential that we saw mentioned in in ladine
kafaru and the people who think that they
believe or they claim that they believe but
in actual in reality they don't those are
the hypocrites and to recognize that threat that
tendency within us is to be able to
identify the ayat in the Quran that relate
with us talk to us and rectify ourselves
accordingly so that's the first two passages the
third passage is a summary of the call
of the Quran you have an introduction to
tawheed to Allah himself an invitation from him
to for a bada then a mention of
Risala the Prophet hood of Rasulullah salallahu alayhi
wasalam especially characterized by the inimitability of the
Quran itself the challenge of the Quran itself
you don't like it you have a problem
with it come up with something better come
up with something better which you feel is
a better representation of reality a better in
terms of the eloquence of the Quran the
linguistics of the Quran the wisdom and practicality
of the book all of these domains and
many more bring up something better and then
that goes on to talk about the Day
of Judgment itself heaven and * and then
the fourth Ruku talks about some of the
some of the preconceived notions that we have
about the Quran about what the speech of
God should look like and how that those
those idols are broken and how we are
told that there is incredible guidance and knowledge
potential and what you would consider very insignificant
and that there is even misguidance potential and
what you would consider to be a foolproof
plan for guidance so taking it from there
and then the essence of the feed with
respect to keeping up to your word with
a lot of the covenant that you make
with Allah and the relationships that you establish
as a consequence and how strong those relationships
ought to be of course represented in a
in an inverse fashion in which the people
who are breaking the covenant and breaking the
ties are the ones depicted or mentioned there
that culminates with really the the love of
Allah imploring in the way that I had
that that particular I how could you reject
Allah how could you even imagine doing something
like that when he did all of that
for you and then the issue of knowledge
picks up and that of his love for
the human being with the mention of the
story of Adam I lay his salam as
to how his creation and the conversation Allah
has with the angels how that opens up
the door the the human potential or language
culminates with the human gift that Allah gives
to the human beings out of revelation how
the both come together to to to address
the problem that angels themselves highlighted the problem
of evil if you will and how this
this relationship of acquired knowledge and reveals knowledge
is so incredibly integral to helping the human
being navigate his own inner evil potential which
was brought out or which was made all
the more worse by the demonic rebellion or
the rebellion of Satan and that that the
face for life in this world which is
going to be riddled by conflict which is
going to be a process of painful learning
right a process of growth marred by pain
that's something which is going to be which
has to become which we have to come
to terms with coming in terms with our
imperfection in all the different domains and all
the different dimensions of our existence and then
looking to overcome those step-by-step and
growing to our real potential in accordance with
the image that Allah has of us in
him being the loving rub that he is
the one looking to nurture us to our
full potential so we go from there straight
out to the example that the first very
first example that the Quran is giving us
that of the bani Israel again the background
of these of the entire surah Baqarah actually
this is the this is between migration of
the Prophet SAW and the Battle of Badr
so those of you those of us who
have something of an idea of the seal
of Rasul Allah SAW this is the first
two years of Medina right and in these
two years the Muslims are now for the
first time coming in contact with the Jewish
tribes that are settled within Medina or around
Medina and so their example is being coded
because they represent a whole lot of what
went wrong in a previous nation given scripture
right remember the second Ruku of Surah Baqarah
the hypocritical tendency or the hypocrisy which all
of us have a potential for the self
-deceit that all of us are capable of
that manifested itself in the Christians that manifested
itself in the Jews that manifested itself in
the Muslims right so the bani Israel being
our ancestors as Muslims they are our ancestors
as well not just the ancestors of the
Jews today this is our ancestry and we
have to take ownership of that ancestry in
learning from all that was good about them
and all that was criticized about them all
the all the mistakes that they made all
the crimes that they committed right and so
Allah spoke of his love for humanity in
general but then there are specific groups that
were charged with responsibilities the individuals have a
purpose within their own lives and then humanity
has a purpose right and within that purpose
that grand purpose of humanity where Allah wants
humanity to progress through individuals fulfill their roles
but then communities fulfill their roles there's there's
groups of people umma umum that fulfill their
role bani Israel had a specific role to
perform as well they were chosen for that
role they were preferred for that role they
were gifted so many gifts and they made
a lot of sacrifices as a well but
then they committed a lot of crimes as
well so that is what is being alluded
to in the next 10 passages and in
these next 10 passages is a mirror of
our history as well as our current state
current in this current day where we stand
we will see so much of social pathologies
when a religion fails to perform its social
purpose every religion has a social function to
perform and when it stops performing that function
evil emanates in the name of religion so
all the possible good that religion can and
should do for society if that's not done
and it's not that nothing's gonna happen evil
ensues at the hands of religious people at
the hands of religious people and so at
the hands of the people of scripture we're
giving we're given that example so it's something
that we can all see in the society
around us and as individuals within us so
with that introduction we move right along yeah
beneath I let go beneath that you remember
my favor that I blessed you with Allah
is addressing the bunny Israel and telling and
acknowledging and telling us as well they were
favored they were chosen but what they forgot
as we will see is that Allah was
the one favoring them Allah was the one
blessing them because for them it became and
it's something that they just inherently had something
they were entitled to and this sense of
entitlement that led to that arrogance and the
privileged way they started acting like the spoiled
brats that are that that's going to be
highlighted over here well oh fool be and
the and fulfill your promise to me the
your the favor and the blessing as great
as it is with great power comes great
responsibility with great favor and blessing comes great
responsibility as well I will feed the and
they come and I will fulfill my commitment
to you what you gotta have a bone
and fear me and only me so straight
out we can see that the the tone
is very threatening there's there's an anger the
huddle model be I lay him remember very
beginning so it's fat the huddle is is
showing that you there were expectations of you
there was you were supposed to act in
a particular manner the bunny Israel to cut
a long story short we're supposed to be
the original and saw Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam
was supposed to be helped by the Jewish
tribes in Medina if his own family if
his own Quraish rejected him they were or
even if they had accepted him his first
reinforcement should have come from the bunny Israel
that is why these tribes had settled there
to begin with that was their historical legacy
that is where the house and the coverage
the polytheistic tribes in Medina that's where they
had learned about the coming of a prophet
otherwise they would not have known they learned
of it when the Jews were threatening them
and when our last and final profit profit
comes then we'll show you that that's how
they learn oh there's someone coming right and
when Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam did come I
was in hazardous believed in him the the
Jewish tribes refused their attitude completely they were
they were they were stubborn they were arrogant
they were they had all and we're gonna
read about all of what they were as
these passages progressed so they had to carry
that legacy forward they had to open themselves
up to the repair that the last and
final profit had to offer but their sense
of entitlement and their self-perception of perfection
that they're already the most guided they already
have all the knowledge that they have to
have they can't learn anything new especially if
that something new is coming from someone as
distant as being outside of the Bani Israel
that was unacceptable that was unacceptable there the
humility required for Iman for knowledge that that
one that was completely missing what EIF or
have on and so Allah's response to that
fear me and only me again remember the
Quraysh did not get this tone or this
anger for a considerable amount of time the
Bani Israel immediately get that this is two
years two years into it why because they're
people of scripture better is expected of them
they know this stuff for the Quraysh they
weren't attuned to prophethood to revelation to walkie
it was all new for them for the
Bani Israel this is their tradition a continuity
of their tradition well I'm gonna be Mandela
to Musa de Calima my I come and
believe in what I have revealed confirming what
you already possess in the form of scripture
the prophecies of the Bible being confirmed by
the coming of the Quran and Rasool Allah
sallallahu alayhi wasallam the truth of the Bible
that it was from Allah the Quran comes
and affirms to that truth so in establishing
that continuity that that exists between scripture the
Quran is a friend to the biblical scriptures
and as a friend it repairs what over
the years was either and we will see
how or at least some of how how
the message got distorted and how the message
for necessity because the time was not right
it wasn't appropriate or the it wasn't completed
it wasn't time for a good part of
revelation to come prior to the soul of
us or I seldom humanity was not simply
not at that stage right so like a
good friend it was confirming affirming repairing what
it's and it's it's predecessor if you will
the previous scriptures had brought well I'm gonna
be man saluto Musa de Calima my I
come well at the coonu oh well like
everything we do not become its greatest enemies
do not become its greatest deniers where does
the greatest opposition or for new ideas or
new knowledge from from it comes from the
custodians of the old one the specialists of
that particular area from before right so they
they're they're going to be the greatest enemies
standing in opposition to whatever is being brought
although the Quran and Rasool Allah Sallallahu Salam
continue to claim that this is not new
this is in continuity all you have to
see is the evolutionary nature of knowledge of
revelation even that revelation evolved to perfection to
become what it became in the form of
the Quran it didn't start with Rasool Allah
Sallallahu Salam it started all the way back
with all the other prophets with all the
other Russell right and it culminates with Rasool
Allah Sallallahu Salam but where does the greatest
opposition to the latest version if you will
where did the greatest opposition come from it
came from those who had the earlier versions
because they'd like to think that the earlier
version is the version only well at the
start of the IIT feminine Kalila and do
not sell my I asked for a petty
price because one thing that happens in a
society where religion has lost its utility or
the function that is supposed to perform is
that then religiosity scripture all of that serves
vested interests immediate selfish interests of a particular
religious or scholarly group from within that society
it has an economic value more than anything
else and so it is in their economic
interest to reject the I asked that Rasool
Allah Sallallahu Salam is bringing and the I
asked that they already possess with them that
confirm what Rasool Allah Sallallahu Salam is bringing
what yeah yeah but that one and save
yourselves from me and me alone attain to
my Taqwa well I tell this will happen
about what that will happen what and whom
do not mix the truth with falsehood nor
conceal the truth while you know again whenever
for anything to stand even if it is
falsehood it requires in it requires to be
mixed or propped up by truth my truth
so just the falsehood is just slipping in
there is just slipping in there the booth
is what is being used to conceal it
so the Quran is very apt in not
criticizing them as being a completely on falsehood
or absolute falsehood no you have truth with
you you are upon truth but that truth
is mixed up and it is hiding falsehood
it is hiding what should what it was
that's not what it was supposed to do
it was supposed to be it was supposed
to acknowledge and verify truth from other sources
as well well I'll give us a lot
of what I was the guy established prayer
and pay the guy what a cow all
my rocky I mean and bow down with
those who bow down again the bowing down
representing the humility that should be there in
a believer which would open them up when
they learn something new that they would humble
themselves before that new knowledge and accept it
right the humility that bowing represents and then
bow down with the others that bow down
that this is a humility in congregation and
community that when you are bowing down with
others essentially you are extending them that right
to the relationship to community that you know
you can help me to that before our
the heed that we have acknowledged for a
lot we are all there's an equality there
is an equality there is we require to
give each other their rights and in that
a bunny said I even can learn from
somebody from money right there is there is
significance and importance before Allah or every role
that different community members have and that's a
knowledge that's honored one cannot be given an
absolute superiority over the other and the other
well agreed it as as insignificant and useless
right so this this mutual support this mutual
humility humility that opens itself up to a
an input from the other a need for
the other and find strength in that rather
than feeling insecure because of that what got
all my rocket and that's a bit bitty
what then sauna and physical would you ask
others to practice righteousness and forget to practice
it yourself you want others to do good
you are the the moralizers of the world
when people ask you what is it that
you do as religious people or as religious
scholars then for one of the things that
you would identify as as a defining characteristic
of who you are is the morality and
ethics that is supposed to be taught to
the world to the people how moral uprightness
moral values emanate from you so if you're
the you're the teachers of morality and ethics
for the entire world probably a good idea
to set your own house right all the
unethical and immoral practices that are so prevalent
within your own ranks how about setting them
straight first you forget that for yourself you're
offering the world a panacea let's see scripture
religion our scripture our religion offers you this
incredible panacea which is a solution to all
of your problems and it is a cure
for all of your ailments and it is
this and it is that fair enough in
that small community of believers that you are
in that panacea in that scripture where is
the change in you how are you not
the most morally upright people the most ethical
people the most contributing members of the society
you don't have that for yourself you think
if we accept it it's going to start
happening so would you ask others to practice
righteousness and forget it yourselves one of the
characteristics of the people of the Jew of
living in Medina the Jewish people in Medina
is they would look at us and the
polytheists and everyone else and they would pride
themselves as people of scripture and civilization and
they would look at the rest as barbarians
unlettered people immoral people and they would they
would hold others in disdain for this and
they would tell others as to how they
are privileged how they are more civilized more
educated people of the book right and the
Quran comes here and says that's all fine
and dandy but by those moral standards you're
not living up to them yourselves and you
recite the book you are the people the
people of the book are supposed to be
a people of humanity constantly looking to see
what they've gotten wrong and repairing repairing repairing
within themselves foremost don't you use your aqal
don't you have any aqal again don't you
use your your intellect how to see the
inconsistencies within your own moral practices within your
own ethical practices the Quran not only validates
and accommodates it necessitates the use of aqal
the use of rationality that a religious people
in order to reach their religious ideals their
moral ideals their ethical ideals they require rationality
they require to they require it to see
their own inconsistency what's that he knew this
somebody was Salah and continue to seek help
through perseverance and Salah a continuous process this
whatever it is that you're being called to
is not something that you just get done
once and you're good believed in the Quran
now I'm a believer and a story no
that's where the story actually begins right when
you acknowledge Iman you have it is something
that has to be continuously practiced continuously worked
on right and again it is this is
the ana which we spoke about in Surat
Fatiha as well that is being reflected over
here which represents a proactivity on the part
of the person the human being Sabr as
well is proactive it is not passive Salah
is proactive and not passive there are passive
elements to it for sure there are elements
within Sabr within Salah which you are falling
back on Allah relying on Allah trusting Allah
calling out to Allah asking for help by
all means for sure that but that's not
all of what it is as far as
the Quran is concerned the definition the description
of Sabr that we find that we will
continue to find note for how proactive that
Sabr is that is a Sabr that reflects
perseverance constancy continuous effort continuous struggle and same
in Salah it is self-reflective it is
a process of dialogue communication it is in
a standing upright before Allah accepting acknowledging gratitude
and responsibility rather than just I can't do
this I'm so weak and it is not
for you to it is not a place
to whine like babies it's not a place
to victimize yourselves and just the time for
the head comes as well at times that
helplessness becomes but that's at times not all
the time not all the time what you
know how like a beer I don't know
how she ain't and it is it is
hard except for the people who are humble
except for the people who would hold themselves
in place not look to exceed their boundaries
الذين يظنون أنهم ملاقوا ربهم those people who
are sure that they are going to meet
their Rabb again the Rabb who is for
the most part he is their nurturer he
is the one who is looking to nurture
them step by step to become the best
that they can وأنهم إليه راجعون and that
they are going to return to him يا
بني سايلة فرون إعمتي التي نمت عليكم so
when you say remember my my favor my
special favor that I I blessed you with
وأني فقلتكم على العالمين I exalted you above
all others there is no doubt that you
were exalted that you were preferred that you
were given that present position but it was
me I gave it to you again الحمد
لله رب العالمين the very beginning of Fatihah
remembering Allah as the one who has given
us this and therefore we owe him our
our gratitude practically entailing responsibility entailing proactivity right
so they understood that they were blessed they
understood that they were favored again it was
a impassive form we are blessed we are
favored so the emphasis was on we Allah
shifts that emphasis I favored you وَاتَّقُوا يَوْمًا
and save yourselves from that day when no
one will be able to benefit anyone at
all in any way again this ayah talks
about how the belief in the hereafter is
edited that there are footnotes that go with
it that are hidden that are hidden such
that the impact that the belief in the
day of judgment is supposed to have in
your conduct in your behavior in your interaction
with others in the fulfillment of your responsibilities
in the proactivity that it is supposed to
inspire is lost you edit in very subtle
ways your belief in the day of judgment
so that it rather than becoming an inspiration
towards action it becomes an excuse for being
passive and inactive right so the Quran makes
explicit in these passages how that change has
taken place how you have your interpolations in
those beliefs it's not just belief in the
hereafter that is going to be that is
finding to find these these these subtle changes
that render it useless that render the belief
not just useless counterproductive that evil emanates from
that kind of a belief rather than good
and what are those beliefs beliefs of that
there's somebody's gonna bail me out in the
day of judgment I'll be okay I'll be
fine somebody's gonna be there who's gonna bail
me out Allah says no no one will
be able to benefit anyone on that day
well I don't believe in hash if I
no one's intercession will be accepted and you're
hoping again hoping that you can get away
you can do whatever the * you want
to ignore all the responsibilities that you may
have and simply somebody's gonna say no no
no he's with me let him through he's
part of my umma he's part of my
this or that well I will come in
here at the loan nor would anyone's compensation
be taken that you're in some sort of
some some some some sort of mental attitude
that develops and this is particularly for rich
people that they think their money can buy
them anything and get them out of anywhere
and so for some twisted reason that becomes
for them something that they can do that
they see that as a sign of God's
special grace on them and we are this
and as a set it is a special
grace there's nothing wrong with that other than
it's just us who this sense of entitlement
comes back and they feel that they can
buy their way out of anything and money
can buy paradise even or any sort of
compensation one thing or the other that we
will have an opportunity to do to make
up for all that we haven't done before
whether that's in the form of of money
or effort or what it will take care
of it then no nothing can we get
taken care of then it's over well I
you have them in her I don't know
what I'm gonna sort of and they will
not be helped with that Jane Ackerman and
if it on and when we delivered you
from the people of it on again this
is our history we're talking about we are
the continuity of the Jewish tradition and we
have to see that so the favor of
Allah on the people of Musa alayhis alayhi
wa sallam saving them from Firaon is a
favor upon us a favor of Allah on
the mess in the Rasool Allah sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam Muhammad Rasool Allah sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam and the Sahaba is a favor upon
us a favor upon our ancestry 14 centuries
of a tree of tradition our own historical
legacy wherever we come from in the world
we will see within our history how Allah
has blessed our people to the point that
you and I are sitting here and we
have liberty and the understanding to say la
ilaha illallah if we have that then there
is a innumerable instances in our tradition in
our history even going before Musa alayhi salam
all the way to today that we have
been blessed but so individualistic is our conception
of ourselves of our own identity we see
ourselves as such isolated entity that we don't
identify with that historical tradition that we are
a continuity of we don't see what has
gone into bringing us about or making us
possible the fact that we're sitting here and
talking and understanding all of what's going on
to a certain extent how many centuries of
Allah's great has made that possible and how
we need to take ownership and acknowledge the
gratitude for that grace and if we cannot
relate with these ayats and most of us
cannot is because we've lost that forget about
being able to identify ourselves with a with
the continuity of history in our own historical
tradition in our own people and our ancestry
and our religious ancestry in the prophets we
find it difficult to identify ourselves as a
continuity within our own immediate families from our
parents what could talk of centuries ago and
so yes we feel alienated when we're talking
about these ayat as if they're talking about
you know some random group of people God
knows how many thousands of years ago but
the idea that is being advocated here the
identity that is being the sense of identity
that we're looking for within the Quran is
being we're being oriented around that this is
your historical tradition who are torturing you brutally
all of what that on was doing to
Musa and to the people of Musa alayhis
-salam treating them like slaves killing your sons
and sparing your women and in all of
that you were facing a tremendous trial from
your Rabb so it was the evil of
Firaun it was the torture of Firaun and
just like we saw that there was the
rebellion of Shaitaan but Allah in his incredible
capacity that he has the incredible divine way
the sunnah of the divine is that he
is able to incorporate even that perpetration that
evil within his grand plan of Rububiyah within
his grand scheme of Rububiyah within his grand
the idea of making humanity better and people
stronger even through all of these difficulties and
suffering that they're inevitably going to go through
when people abuse the authority the freedom that
Allah has given them the more authority they
have the more freedom they have the more
power they have the greater the abuse but
within within within the Rububiyah of Allah acknowledging
that Rububiyah giving into that Rububiyah gives you
that scope to find meaning even within that
suffering and to grow out of it despite
how torturous it may be وَإِذْ بَرَقْنَا بِكُمُ
وَالْبَحْرَةَ and when we parted the sea for
you فَأَنجَيْنَاكُمْ and we rescued you وَأَغْرَقْنَا آلَ
فِرْعَونَ and we drowned the people of Firaun
وَأَنتُمْ تَنظُرُونَ and you were watching وَإِذْ وَعَدْنَا
مُوسَىٰ اربْعِينَ لَيْلَهُ and remember when we appointed
for Musa 40 nights Musa alayhi salam his
time of solitude with Allah Subhan Allah his
mi'raj that Musa Alayhi Salaam was invited
to because again, the responsibility that he was
being charged with, the importance of the responsibility
that the Bani Israel had to go on.
It was important, this sort of salah or
this mi'raj was important to strengthen and
empower Musa Alayhi Salaam for what lay ahead.
Delivery from Firaun, getting saved from Firaun was
just one stage.
What was to come, that delivery or that
rescue from Firaun was towards a bigger goal.
And it is in preparation for that, that
Musa Alayhi Salaam finds strength in these spiritual
recluses that he is being invited to.
But what does Bani Israel do when Musa
Alayhi Salaam is gone for these 40 nights?
You took that calf for worship in his
absence.
And you were incredibly unjust.
The Bible represents this instance as it says
that you are the people who cheated on,
you are that bride that cheated on her
husband the first night of marriage, that you
just got delivered from Firaun.
Musa Alayhi Salaam is going to Allah and
here you are worshiping a calf.
Worshiping a calf, why is that a big
deal?
Because it represents how intimidated they were of
the people of Firaun.
The people of Firaun and they were the
rulers, they were the rich, powerful folk.
The Bani Israel were the paupers, they were
the slaves.
And they would look up to Firaun regardless
of how much Firaun had tortured them or
how much hatred they may have had for
Firaun, they idealized them at the same time.
It's everything and anything that they do, there
has to be something good and great about
it.
You gotta experience it, you gotta do it.
It's just, it's the complex that we would
have as Muslims, as Easterners, as South Asians,
looking towards the West, looking towards the rich
and the prosperous, everything that they do, everything.
Oh my God, there has to be something
in it, right?
And we just don't have, you know, the
light.
So they're living out that intimidation and now
they're doing it freely.
Now that they don't have to do it,
but it's so deeply ingrained that they are
practicing that worship of the calf, that shirk.
ثُمَّ عَفَوْنَ عَنكُمْ مِّن بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُونَ
Even after that, we forgave you so that
you may become grateful.
Again, the importance of Bani Israel.
One of the roles that they have with
respect to humanity and the progression of humanity,
as we said, was of course the aid
and the support of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
when Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would come, right?
So the Bani Israel are centuries before Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
That's one of their functions.
But another function that they had to perform
is that morality, as humanity would learn it,
one of the very important sources for that
is going to be the Bani Israel.
Is going to be the Bani Israel.
Even today, even in this day and age,
where, which is an irreligious age, where people
will not adhere to or claim adherence to
or acknowledge adherence to a formal organized religion,
whether Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, less so than
ever before, at least.
Even then, where the population of people who
do not adhere to any organized religion, the
ethic that they live by, the morality that
they hold near and dear, despite being irreligious,
that ethic, that morality is very heavily inspired
from the Abrahamic tradition, from the Judeo-Christian
-Islamic tradition, right?
So what's going on in that little, in
that small tribe of people worshiping the calf
and Mutha Alaihissalam being in his solitude with
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, it's
incredibly important with respect to how, that's not
what they're supposed to do.
This has to be addressed.
This cannot be taken lightly.
They're carrying forward the practices and habits of
Firaun, which are destructive for humanity for all
times to come.
Where is that ethic and morality going to
come from?
That ethic and morality is going to come
from their Tawheed.
And what is a negation of that Tawheed?
It is shirk.
What does idolatry do?
One of the functions that idolatry performs is
that the responsibility that Tawheed engendered within you
to be a relationship-forming person, a community
-developing person, it takes that away from you.
So bowing down in front of an idol
or a calf or anything other than Allah,
what you're doing is whatever guilt you have
for not being a responsible citizen or not
being a responsible community member, you are finding
a way to address that guilt, suppress that
guilt by these religious practices of which are
disconnected from your social responsibility.
That calf or that idol has nothing to
say when it comes to your social relationships,
when it comes to your social responsibility, when
it comes to your spiritual growth or development,
which is going to be relationship-forming.
The calf has nothing to say on that.
The idol has nothing to say on it.
You can speak for the idol, you can
speak for the calf, you can put words
in their mouth, and those words are usually
gonna be, you're okay, you bowed down before
me so well, I love you.
Everything you've done, don't worry about it, it's
forgiven, it's forgiven.
And so that being institutionalized, that idol worship,
it negates the effect of Tawheed in the
society.
The relationship that an individual has with Allah
becomes very utilitarian.
Utilitarian, not in a very technical sense, but
it's in which you are using Allah, abusing
him or the God that you're worshiping, dictating
to him rather than coming in dialogue with
him.
This is not a, idol worship is not
a dialogical relationship.
It is not a two-way process.
It is one way in which the control
is entirely and absolutely in the hands of
the person doing the idol worship, right?
So it is a very subtle way of
looking to control Allah, making him a pocket
God, right?
And then the evil that emanates from there.
So that has had to be, and continuously
has to be, what has happened now is
we don't worship calves anymore, we don't worship
idols anymore.
But if our abstract concept, or we do
it more abstractly now, idolatry is performed more
abstractly now.
We don't have to have a concrete idol
in front of us to be idolatrous.
So Allah can perform namaz prayer performed in
the masjid if it's performing the same function,
and we're looking to control God the way
a polytheist would control idols, then the effect
in society is going to be the same.
It can be, you can call it Allah.
And if he has nothing to do with
the rest of your life, with how you
are with your family and the rest of
society, he's an idol, he is an idol.
If he has nothing to say there at
all, and there's no principles, no values that
he gives you, that you live by in
those other settings, then what good is he?
Other than just dispelling that guilt for you,
giving you that relaxation of salvific exclusivity, that
you're going to attain salvation on the Day
of Judgment.
Don't worry, you're okay.
فَمَا عَقَوْنَ عَنْكُم مِّن بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ
Even after that, we forgave you so that
you may become grateful.
وَإِذْ آتَيْنَا مُوسَى الْكِتَابَ وَالْفُرْقَانَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ And
remember, when we gave Musa the scripture, the
criterion of right and wrong, so that you
may be guided.
You, Bani Israel, you, humanity.
وَإِذْ قَالَ مُوسَى لِقَوْمِهِنْ When Musa said to
his people, يَا قَوْمِ إِنَّكُمْ ظَلَمْتُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ بِاتِّخَاذِكُمُ
الْعِجْلِ People of my nation, you have wronged
yourself.
You have been incredibly unjust to your own
selves.
You deserve better than worshiping a calf.
Because in worshiping Allah, the growth that that
promises, you were unjust to your own selves,
to your own future selves, to your own
potential that you have.
You sold yourselves cheap.
فَتُوبُوا إِلَىٰ بَارِئِكُمْ So turn in repentance to
your Rabb, to your Creator.
فَقْتُلُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ You have to kill the culprits
from among yourselves.
The atonement for this, the cleansing that is
necessary.
Again, you just came.
Fir'aunah, the whole nation was destroyed, so
that you could carry this legacy forward.
The moral uprightness of future humanity is dependent
on how you carry this forward.
This is what you do.
This cannot be ignored.
This cannot be ignored.
It is an incredibly, this is treason against
what that group stands for.
They're the custodians and standard bearers of Tawheed.
And an act of shirk was treasonous.
Against that, it cannot be ignored.
فَقْتُلُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ ذَلِكُمْ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ إِنْ ذَبَارِكُمْ That
will be better for you in the sight
of your Creator.
فَتَابَعَ عَلَيْكُمْ And then in response, He accepted
your repentance.
You did that, you were cleansed.
That's how you proceed.
إِنَّهُ هُوَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيمُ He is the relenting,
the one accepting of these acts of atonement,
of repentance, and the persistently merciful.
وَإِذْ قُلْتُمْ يَا مُوسَىٰ لَنْ نُؤْمِنَ لَكَ حَتَّىٰ
نَرَىٰ اللَّهَ جَهْرًا And when you said, Musa,
we'll never believe in you until we see
Allah with our own eyes.
فَأَخَذَتْكُمُ الصَّاعِقَةُ وَأَنْتُمْ تَنظِرُونَ As a thunder struck
you while you were looking on.
Again, the trust that is necessary for the
process of learning and being guided.
Like Musa, we don't trust you.
We don't trust you.
How come you get this experience and we
don't?
You want us to follow?
We want this privilege.
Again, this is something that Musa Alayhi Salaam
asked for as well.
And we'll read about it in a different
place.
This is something similar was requested of Isa
Alayhi Salaam by his disciples.
That was appreciated.
Even prophets made these requests of Allah.
And that is appreciated because the request can
sound very similar, but it is done from
a very different motivation.
The Bani Israel, their motivation was arrogance, audacity.
It challenged.
For the prophets and the disciples, the motivation
was a genuine yearning, an actual need.
Over here, they have just seen what happened
to Firaun, yet the challenge, yet the audacity.
And so Allah said that they were struck
by a thunder simply looking on.
Then We raised you after your death so
that you might be grateful.
So whatever state of unconsciousness or coma or
real death that they experienced, after being thunderstruck
for the audacity of their request, you wanna
see God?
Here you go.
It was actually a response to the request
or the demand that they made.
This is what it is.
You couldn't bear it.
Oops.
And then they were revived.
So as to say, are you okay now?
Does that satisfy your need, your demand that
you made?
So they experienced all of that.
This is all the Bani Israel being prepared
for the responsibility that they have to carry.
Then We raised you after your death so
that you may be grateful.
Wazallalna AAalaykumul ghamama And We shaded you with
clouds.
Waanzalna AAalaykumul manna wa salwa And We sent
down upon you man, something sweet, a source
of carbs and salwa, meat, protein.
So whatever nutrition they require, that was provided
for them.
They didn't have to do anything for it.
Kulu min tayyibati ma razaqnakum Eat of the
pure things We have provided you with.
Wama thalamuna walakin kaanoo anfusaham yazlimoon But they
did not harm us.
Instead, they have been harming themselves.
They did not do zulm upon us.
They did zulm upon themselves.
Because at the end of the day, fulfilling
in the, following in the path that they
were required to, they would have found, they
would have been attained to salvation.
They would have become more empowered, stronger and
better human beings.
Wa idh kulna dhkhulu hadhihi alqariya And when
We said, enter into the town, fa kulu
minha haythu shi'tum raghadana And eat freely of
whatever it is therein for you.
wa dhkhulu albaaba as-sujjada wa maqulu hittatun
And enter through the gates, prostrating in the
form of, in the state of sajda and
asking for forgiveness.
naghfir lakum khatayakum We will forgive you your
sins.
So the Bani Israel, after getting delivered from
Fir'aun, after having that experience with the
calf and the atonement that they had to
do, one thing that we need to know
is that these 10 passages that are gonna
talk about Bani Israel, these are not in
chronological order.
Some events that happened later are mentioned earlier.
Okay, so this is not necessarily a chronology
that is being followed.
This happened after Musa Alayhi Salaam had passed
away.
Under the leadership of Yusha, the prophet who
followed Musa Alayhi Salaam, the Bani Israel were
able to enter the holy lands.
They were able to conquer Jerusalem, right?
And what they were required to do, the
conduct that they were required to follow was
to enter in humility.
They're not going there as conquerors to desecrate
whatever comes in their path, to just take,
to be these dictators.
They were not required to become Fir'aun
themselves.
They were required to go in as saviors.
They were required to go in as upholders
of justice and to become that, to be
that, to liberate the people of the tyranny
that the people were living under, the barbaric
rulers that they had.
But to be able to do that, to
be able to be genuinely a savior, a
savior who has just fought a battle and
won, you have to have that humility.
Otherwise to become a tyrant is, it's only
natural.
It's only natural.
And so we see Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
at the time of the conquest of Mecca,
he was, his head bowed on his camel.
He was entering in a state of sajda,
asking Allah to forgive him and all the
Sahaba, asking for forgiveness.
And it was this attitude of humility that
inspired for him to be able to forgive
everybody and be a source of justice and
kindness, rather than tyranny and corruption that the
Bani Israel ended up becoming.
Their conquerors, at least a portion of Bani
Israel, not all of them, but a portion
of them.
So rather than doing what they were told
and saying what they had to, wasa nazeedul
muhsineen, and sorry, so they're told, enter in
a state of sajda, say hittatun, which is
asking for forgiveness.
We will forgive you all your shortcomings, wasa
nazeedul muhsineen, and we will give the people
of Ihsan even more.
fabaddala allatheena dhalamu qawlan ghayra allathee qeela lahum
They were, the transgressors changed the words for
others.
So they were supposed to say, yeah, Allah
forgive us, and that would be a reflection
of humility, but then there is no humility.
For a lot of them, there's arrogance.
So rather than saying, yeah, Allah forgive us,
what hittatun would translate to, they changed it
for a word that meant food.
We want food, a particular type of food,
and we're gonna read about as well pretty
soon.
So they're like, okay, now it's time for
food.
Where's the party?
Right, so this is a joke, but a
joke reflective of an attitude of arrogance and
how the joke was the people who were
reflecting or saying stuff like that, they were
the ones who ended up plundering and looting
and * for whatever they could or however
they could.
andalna allatheena dhalamu rrijaza minas sama'i bimaa
kaanoo yafsuqoon So we sent over the transgressors
a wrath from the heaven on account of
their repeated disobedience.
So they were inflicted by a disease that
spread through them, specifically to those of them
who did wrong.
So there is this continuous process of favors
and part of the favors is a cleansing
that has taken place.
That for the Bani Israel to perform the
function that they have to perform, live up
to their historical responsibility, these people with these
attitudes have to be cleansed out of them.
And so the first cleansing we saw with
the atonement, with the punishment that they had
to give each other, the ones, the perpetrators
from among themselves, and then this punishment in
which the wrath of Allah or the plague
that is reported to have killed 30,000
of them.
The seventh ruku, ayah number 60, wa-ithi
istasqoo moosa li qawmihi fa-qul nabdrib bi
-asat al-hajjah And so when Musa, alayhi
salam, asked for water for his people, so
they're in the desert, right?
And they're thirsty, that's the desert.
And they don't really have a water supply.
So that's pretty tough.
And Musa, alayhi salam, similar to how Rasulullah,
salallahu alayhi wasalam, just before the Battle of
Badr, made dua to Allah, Musa, alayhi salam,
makes dua to Allah for water.
And Allah says to him that your staff,
staff that Musa, alayhi salam, was given as
a miracle, his ayah from Allah, they spiked
a rock with your staff.
fa-anfajarat minhu thnata-ashrat-a-ayna So
12 springs gushed out of the rock.
qad alima kullu unaseh mashrabahum And so each
tribe knew its own drinking place.
The 12 tribes of the Bani Israel, each
of them had their own little stream springing
out of the rock.
kulu wa-shraboo bil-rizqillahi wa-la ta
'faw fi-l-awdi mumsideen So eat and
drink of what Allah has provided for you,
but do not act corruptly, creating trouble on
earth.
So as far as eating, drinking is concerned,
Allah will provide you, but then you have
something to do as well.
wa-ifqultum ya Musa la-nafbira ala ta
'amin wahidin And then you said, Musa, we
can't just add one kind of food.
So remember the man and salwa we spoke
about, they're in the desert, water has been
provided for, their carbs and proteins are coming
in as well, but people had to get
bored of the same food again and again
and again.
So they're like, Musa, can't you work your
magic?
Why don't you ask Allah?
fad'u lana rabbaka yukhrij lana mimattum bitul
-awd Why don't you call on your Rabb
for us So he brings for us from
what the earth grows, mimbaqliha wa qitha'iha
wa fumiha wa adasiha wa basaliha green herbs,
cucumbers, garlic, lentils, onions, fa-la atathtabdiluna allatheehuwa
adna billatheehuwa khayf Musa said, would you exchange
what is better for what is worse?
Now, this requires a little going into.
It is pretty natural to get sick and
tired of one kind of food, even if
it is blessed, even if it is something
that you don't have to work for and
you just get it, right?
But then there is a taste that you
acquired growing up and you long for it,
you yearn for it.
As far as the people, as far as
the Bani Israel are concerned, it's not just
that they're asking for, you know, onions and
lentils and herbs and all that.
They've been offered that.
They've been told that you can get that.
You have to go into the Holy Land.
You have to fight for it.
You have to struggle for it.
You have to work for it.
They refused to do that.
They refused to do that.
They said, we're not ready.
This is, it's too scary.
It's too frightening.
Barbarians live in that land.
We're not going no way, right?
And they're not doing their part, the proactivity
that is required from them.
Rather, they're falling back on Musa alaihi salam,
work your magic.
You've done it so many times.
Why don't you just do this for us
as well?
I mean, we are after all the, you
know, the favorites of God.
So why not this favor as well?
And Musa alaihi salam, like, what is this?
Again, when did they have this?
They had it when they were in captivity
of Firaun.
So there is an implicit suggestion here that
we were better off with Firaun than we
are with you.
You made us go through all of that.
We took a stand.
We came with you.
We risked everything.
And now we're here.
How is this any better?
At least over there, fair, we were in
slavery, but we had onions.
We could eat whatever we wanted to, right?
And because at the end of the day,
even if it is a state of slavery,
you develop a comfort zone in there.
You get used to it.
And being liberated of that, this liberty is
not like, okay, now I'm gonna fly wherever
I want to.
The liberty comes with doing a whole lot
of things that you didn't have to do
before.
Being more proactive than you ever had to
be before.
Taking more choices, making more choices than ever
before.
Taking risks like you didn't have to before.
So there were some perks that slavery came
with.
And it is that state of, living those
privileges of slavery, if you will, that they're
reminiscing about.
And Musa Alayhi Salaam is livid.
He's like, how could you?
This responsibility that you have, the freedom, what
freedom offers you.
Yes, it's difficult, it's challenging, but the growth
that it will provide you, what you will
become as a consequence of the effort that
you're required to put in.
But you want all the fruits and you
don't wanna put in any labor.
You're just too, the comfort zone has grown
on you far too much.
Ihbidhu misran fa-inna lakum maa sa'altum
So go settle down in the country, and
in a country, and you will have what
you want, what you demand.
wa-dduriba AAalayhimu al-dhillatu wa-al-maskanatu
wa-ba'u bi ghadabin min Allah They
were covered with humiliation and helplessness, and they
drew on themselves the anger of Allah.
So these pathological personalities that develop in a
religious community, which are passive, inactive, don't do
anything, and expect a mere dua to fix
everything, that they exalt dua so much, and
its significance and importance is exaggerated so much,
so as to relieve them of all responsibility
for effort.
And that's exactly what the people of Musa
Alayhis Salaam are doing for Musa.
Just make dua for us, you know, get
it, let that happen.
The effort we're required to put in, uh
-uh, not happening, not today.
So this spoiled brat attitude, which hides itself
behind the exaltation of dua, the fadila of
dua, the awesomeness of dua, the wonder that
duas can bring, the miracles that duas, and
it's all perfectly right.
The power of dua, the greatness of dua,
that's all right in its own place, for
sure, but it's taken out of place.
It is used as an excuse.
It is used as an escape from responsibility,
from being more proactive.
And so the response, Allah takes that very
seriously, because these people are, Allah humiliated them,
because they preferred the humiliation of slavery, and
musk and helplessness, because they were putting themselves
out as victims, as helpless, as incapable and
unable.
So Allah says, if this is what you
would prefer, this is what you're going to
have.
Wa ba'u bi ghadhabin min Allah.
And it comes with the anger of Allah,
with the wrath of Allah.
Ghalika bi anhum kanu yakfuluna bi ayati Allahi
wa yaqutuluna an-nabijina bi ghayri al-faqh.
That is because they went on rejecting the
ayat of Allah.
See, to persist in that attitude with those
habits is to continuously reject the ayat of
Allah when they show you how wrong you
are.
When they show you that your conclusions or
beliefs or your conceitedness or your arrogance or
the sense of entitlement or the lack of
work that you have to do just doesn't
make sense.
Continuous ayats of Allah, explicit in the form
of scripture, but then also events around you
that take place as a result of your
activities.
Ghalika bi ma'a asawm.
It was because they disobeyed Allah.
Wa yaqutuluna an-nabijina bi ghayri al-faqh.
And they killed the prophets, the messenger, the
one bringing them the ayat of Allah, showing
them their dirty selves, their evil selves.
They didn't want to see that.
They would end up killing the an-nabiyah.
And that's something that continues to this day.
The enmity, the animosity for anyone who is
going to, who's gonna have the guts to
say that the emperor is naked and there
are no new clothes and they're not all
that pompous and all that great.
Ghalika bi ma'a asawm.
It was because they disobeyed.
Wa kanoo ya'tadoon.
And they used to transgress.
Inna allatheena amanoo allatheena hadoo wal-nasara wal
-sabee'een.
And for sure, the Muslims, the Jews, the
Christians, and the Thabians.
Man aamana bil-lahi wal-yawmi al-akhri
wa-'amila salihan.
Who believed in Allah and the last day
and performed righteously.
Falahum ajroohum AAindha rabbihim.
For them, with their Rabb is a reward,
is their reward.
Wala khawfun AAalayhim wala hum yahzanoon.
And moreover, they will have nothing to fear,
nor there will be no fear upon them,
nor will they grieve, nor will they be
bad.
Now, there is that perception that seeps into
the ranks of a religion, of any religion,
that they have the salvific exclusivity merely by
association.
That we will attain salvation.
We will be protected from all damnation, from
all punishment, from the hellfire, from anything bad
that can happen, merely by association with a
group, with a sect, with a religion.
Yes, this association is going to be enough
for us to attain salvation.
It is a very primitive defense.
That we use against the fear of being
harmed, of being hurt, here and in hereafter.
So association with a group, it helps take
away that fear.
It provides a sense of security.
It helps deal with loss, with grief.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la repeatedly
in the Quran asks for us to take
that understanding to a higher level, to a
more mature, less primitive, less infantile, to a
more mature way, in a more developed, to
a higher level of religiosity.
And what does that entail?
That this paradise that you're looking for, this
freedom from fear, and ability to deal with
grief that you're looking for, a mature way
that you're looking for, you're gonna have to
work for it.
It's going to come at the end of
a process, a continuous process, which requires effort,
right?
So the ones who believe in Allah and
Yawm al-Akhirah, yes, wa amila salihan, and
worked righteously.
You can't just reduce this to claim to
belief, and then claim to salvation.
That's not how it works.
That is not how this is going to
work.
Whichever group, party, religion you have belonged to,
Allah has never associated salvation by mere belonging
to a group.
Every group has required to put in the
effort.
The Jews did not have an exception on
this.
The Christians did not have an exception on
this.
The Sabians did not have an exception on
this.
The Muslims don't have an exception on this.
You have to do your part.
You have to fulfill your responsibilities.
You have to live up to that iman,
right?
Mere association, mere belonging to a group, giving
you that passport, visa to paradise, that's not
how it works.
Typically, this ayah, ayah number 62, and a
similar one in Maida, is gonna be picked
up, and people are gonna be talking about,
oh, you know what?
There's salvation for others.
You don't have to be a Muslim to
attain salvation.
You can be any other religion, and you
can attain salvation.
And then that will be reacted to.
No, no, no, no, no.
Only Muslims attain salvation, right?
So there is a group that is pretty
intent on making sure that all non-Muslims
get to paradise, and then there's another group
which is pretty intent that only all non
-Muslims do end up in the hellfire.
Context, people, what is the ayah talking about?
The proactivity, the effort, the responsibility that we
have to put in as Muslims now.
How about focusing on that?
Rather than playing God on the Day of
Judgment, he goes, you wanna make all the
decisions as to what is going to go
around on the Day of Judgment today.
And that discussion has to end with me
getting to paradise and everyone else going to
*, thank God.
Or everyone going to paradise, including me, because
I took them there.
Relax, that's not your job, that's not your
responsibility.
Allah is just, Allah is knowing.
He will take care of everyone, give them
exactly what they deserve and where they have
to be, Muslim or non-Muslim.
Receive the message, didn't receive the message.
He knows all the complications, all the unique
conditions of each individual.
It will be an individual judgment.
It will be an individual judgment on the
Day of Judgment and it is going to
be taken by the one who has the
knowledge of everything.
So relax.
وَإِذَا خَذْنَا مِثَاقَكُمْ وَرَفَعْنَا فَوْقَكُمْ الطُّورَ And remember,
when we took a covenant from you and
we raised the mountain of Tur over your
heads.
خُذُوا مَا آتَيْنَاكُمْ لِقُوَّةٍ وَذْكُرُوا مَا فِيهِ Firmly
hold on what we have given you.
So the Torah that Musa Alayhi Salaam brings,
the Bani Israel are given the Torah and
they are literally shown that this is a
mountain load that you're carrying.
It is a lot of responsibility.
And so the mountain of Tur is raised
over them to symbolize that.
لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ So firmly hold on to what
you've been given and remember what it contains
so that you may save yourself, so that
you may attain the Taqwa, so that you
may grow and you may develop that self
-discipline within you.
فَمَا تَوَلَّيْتُمْ That self-discipline, which is a
consequence of self-consciousness and God-consciousness.
فَمَا تَوَلَّيْتُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ تَالِكِ Yet even after
that, you backed out.
فَلَوْ لَا خَضُّوا اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَتُهُ And had
it not been for the grace of Allah
and His mercy upon you, لَكُنتُمْ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ
you would definitely have been among the losers.
وَلَقَدْ أَلَمْتُمُ الَّذِينَ أَعْتَدَوْا مِنْكُمْ فِي السَّبْطِ And
you very well know, those of you who
transgressed in the case of Sabbath.
فَقُلْنَا لَهُمْ كُنُوا قِرَدَةً خَاسِئِينَ And we told
them, become apes.
لِتْفَاهِدْ Again, what did they do?
They were required to conform to this commandment
that they're not gonna work on Saturday.
There's going to be a day of worship.
Of all the days in the week, there's
going to be one day, no work, just
worship.
No earning money, just focus yourselves, rejuvenate spiritually,
and go back to your work the next
day, right?
But the fish were kind of playing tricks
with them and wouldn't come on the rest
of the days, but would be there on
Saturday because they know that's the day they're
not gonna be hunted or fished out.
So they're kind of messed up and worried
about that.
It's gonna be such an easy catch.
We can just have it.
And so they devised a little plot.
We're not technically working on Saturday.
We'll cast down all the nets the day
before so that we end up getting the
fish anyway.
And the, would insist to hold yourself back
from this kind of immediate gratification.
And it's a very human thing to do,
right?
On living up to a value, living up
to an ethical or moral value, a personal
value or a social value, and not giving
in to impulses that drive you to immediately
gratify yourself.
That's a very human thing to do.
And they chose to let go of their
human side there.
They did not develop themselves in that sense
and acted more like animals would looking for
immediate gratification.
And so the response that they got or
the punishment that they got was one of
having been turned into apes.
Faj'alnaha nikalan lima bayna yadaiha wama khalfaha
And we made it a deterrent punishment for
their own time and the time to come.
Fama u'ivata lil muttaqeen And a lesson
for the people of taqwa.
Don't play with the rules and regulations of
Allah.
Don't try to manipulate in such ways.
We're gonna talk more about this.
This incident is going to come again.
Wa yattala moosa li qawmihi And remember when
Moosa said to his own people, inna allaha
ya'murukuma anta thabahu baqara Allah commands you to
sacrifice a cow.
So an incident took place.
There was a murder and it was a
mystery.
Who is the murderer?
Who committed the crime?
And Moosa alayhis salaam being a prophet among
his people, Allah guides him to find out
the identity of the criminal.
But more than finding out the identity of
the criminal, it is the wickedness and the
pathologies, the illnesses of the Bani Israel at
that time that are being highlighted for us
as perennial religious illnesses that we do get
stricken with.
Right, so they're told that thabahu baqara, simple
command, go and sacrifice a cow.
All the first response, atta taqweeduna huzuq Are
you kidding us?
Are you making fun of us?
And there's like, you know, murder mystery going
on.
He wants us to sacrifice a cow.
It doesn't add up.
Qala audhu billahi anakuna minal jahileen Moosa alayhis
salaam is like, I seek the refuge of
Allah from being a jahil, from being overwhelmed
by emotions so as to the responsibility that
he has, that of a prophet, who just
randomly start putting out commands which have nothing
to do with what they're supposed to, what
they're required to do, or that does not
behoove the status that he has as a
prophet of Allah.
Qala du'ulana rabbaka yubayyilana ma'ani They're
like, okay, you're not kidding.
This is serious.
So why don't you ask your Rabb on
our behalf to make it very clear to
us what the cow exactly is.
Qala innahu yaqool Moosa alayhis salaam is finding
that Allah says, innaha baqaratun laa faradun wa
laa bikool The cow should neither be too
old nor be a virgin.
awanun bayna dhalik But of the age in
between.
taf'aloo ma'adsu umaroon So do, immediately
do what you're being told.
Qala du'ulana rabbaka yubayyilana ma'ani They're
like, no, no, no, no.
Ask your Rabb to clarify for us.
We want the exact detail.
We wanna be really, really certain about this.
We're so good.
We want a hundred percent certainty.
We want the exact, we wanna get this
really right.
Exactly right.
Precisely of what is required of us.
Tell us her color.
Qala innahu yaqool He said, Allah said, innaha
baqaratun safraa ufaqi'un laam It has to
be bright, rich, yellow in color.
surroon nazareen Pleasing to the observers.
Qala du'ulana rabbaka yubayyilana ma'ani They're
like, tell them, Musa, ask your Rabb.
Exactly, what kind of cow is this?
innal baqarat tashabaha AAalayna All cows look the
same to us.
wa innaa insha'Allahu la muhdadoona If Allah
wills, insha'Allah, we will be guided.
So this perception of guidance, this self-deceived
perception of guidance, which demands 100% precision,
100% certainty.
And in its reality, in its essence, this
obsessionality is another way of evading responsibility.
As you go down so much into hair
-splitting details, in the nitty-gritty of it,
that what is required of you, again, the
function that religion is to perform is completely
lost, is completely lost.
So where is the morality of the society
going?
What are the crises that humanity is confronted
with?
What are the challenges that people are facing?
And as a religious people, what is it
that you can do for humanity in all
of those areas is lost, is forgotten.
And the discussions that are taking place and
the conferences that are being held and whatever
is being learned and taught oblivious of the
real problems of the real people in the
world is obsessionality with hair-splitting details of
the nitty-gritty of matters that are pretty
straightforward, or that should have been pretty straightforward,
but it is in the nature of these
matters, as we see from this example, that
the more you go into the hair-splitting
details, the more they open up for you,
the more they open up for you.
So you're just getting more and more lost
in them and have completely forgotten what it
was that originally had to be performed, what
it was that originally did.
Qala innahu yaqul Musa said, Allah says, innaha
baqaratu la dhaloolun tatheeru al-ardha wa la
tasqil harth.
It's a cow that is neither used to
till the land nor water the field.
Musallamatu la shiyata feeha.
And it should be sound without any blemish.
Qalu al-anajikta bil-haq.
It said, now you have brought us the
accurate description.
And so every single one of us in
our religious journeys, we've had this phase.
We want to know exactly how the Prophet
prayed, exactly.
Exactly where should we put our hands?
Exactly what should we say?
And down to the last detail, our prayer
should be exactly.
And then when we find a variety and
a diversity, just, oh my God, is this
the right prayer?
Is this the right prayer?
What do we do?
The idea is to pray.
No, no, no.
Exactly how should we pray?
And then you follow that logic in further
and you pick up one detail and you
exalt it above the other detail.
And this detail is superior and that detail
is inferior.
And that's exactly how he prayed.
Not, and then there's bashing.
And this prayer is accepted and this prayer
is rejected.
Our prayer is accepted and your prayer is
rejected.
And we're on the way of the Prophet
and what's going on?
And that's become the standard of who's on
the right path and who's on the wrong
path.
And who's really Muslim and who's really not.
And that all there is to religion.
But that's all I was supposed to do
for you spiritually, religiously, for the society?
Nah, who cares?
At least I got my hands in the
right place.
I know exactly the amplitude of my Ameen
as to what it's supposed to be.
فَذَابَرْخُوهَا وَمَا كَادُوا يَفْعَلُونَ Finally, they slaughtered her
and they really didn't want to.
It almost declined.
وَإِفْقَتَلْتُمْ نَفْسًا فَادَّارَأْتُمْ فِيهَا Now the context of
the incident comes in.
When you murdered someone and they disputed over
it.
وَاللَّهُ مُخْرِجُ مَا كُنتُمْ تَكْثُمُ And Allah was
going to reveal what you were hiding.
Not just what they were hiding in terms
of the actual criminal, but also hiding in
terms of their evasiveness, their irresponsibility, garbed as
wanting to know the nitty gritty.
فَقُلْ نَبْرِبُوهُ بِبَعْبِهَا So we said, strike the
dead body with the flesh of the slaughtered
cow.
Of course, this is being explained.
What the ayah says is strike it with
a part of it, right?
So the interpreters say that it's the dead
body being struck with a part of the
slaughtered cow.
كَذَلِكَ يُحْيِي اللَّهُ الْمَوْتَ That's how Allah brings
the dead to life.
وَيُرِيكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْفِلُونَ And shows you His
ayat so that you may understand.
ثُمَّ قَصَتْ قُلُوبُكُمْ مِّن بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ Then your
hearts turned hard despite all of that.
So you experienced one ayah after another that
Musa Alayhi Salaam showed you, yet your hearts
turned hard.
فَهِيَ كَالْحِجَارَةِ أَوْ أَشْدُّ قَسْوَةِ They were hard
like rock or even harder.
وَإِنَّ مِنَ الْحِجَارَةِ لَمَا يَتَفَجَّرُ مِنْهُ الْأَنْهَارِ Because
even there are some rocks from which rivers
rush out.
وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَشَقَّقُ فَيَخْرُجُ مِنْهُ الْمَاءِ And
there are some which break asunder and water
flows out from them.
وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَفْضِقُ مِنْخَشَّةِ اللَّهِ And for
some, they fall down out of awe of
Allah.
وَمَا اللَّهُ بِغَفْلٍ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ And Allah is
not unaware of what you do.
That these kinds of practices, these kinds of
habits, these kinds of attitudes, they necessarily result
in hard hearts.
What are hard hearts?
Nothing goes in, nothing comes out.
That there is light and guidance outside that
has to go in.
And there is a potential, a light inside
that has to come out.
But a hard heart means that's not happening.
But Allah says, all hope is not lost.
Even as hard as a heart can be,
there are some rocks from which streams gush
out.
That there's so much iman at the level
of ihsan.
They respond despite having been hard of heart
at one point.
They respond the way Abu Bakr رضي الله
عنه responded, flowing out, gushing out.
And then there's those that even if it's
not a gush, it's not like a powerful
river flowing outside, it's a trickle of water
nevertheless.
A trickle of water.
And even if there's no trickle of water,
the heart, despite its hardness, still submits to
Allah.
So ihsan, iman, Islam.
And as it appears, the state of Islam
or the stage of Islam in this spiritual
progression seems to be such that there's no
feeling involved, no drive, no motivation, no passion
as such, but there is obedience, there is
submission.
There is a spiritual practice, even though there
may not be a spiritual gush that you're
feeling inside.
So even though you're not feeling it, you're
still doing it because you know you should.
And that's a very important stage in the
development of spirituality.
It is actually a very difficult spirituality to
want to do even when you don't feel
like doing it, to actually do even when
you don't want to or don't feel like
doing it.
We'll talk more about that later as well.
Wamallahu bi ghaflin AAamma taAAmaluna fatathmaAAoona ayn yu'minoo
lakum So do you, Ya Rasulullah, still hope
that they will believe in you?
Waqad kana fariqun minhum yathmaAAoona kalaam Allah While
some of them used to hear the words
of Allah.
So whenever there is any revivalist movement, wherever
there is some social good that anyone is
looking to do, in this case, of course,
it is a prophet himself, right?
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And the hope, the expectation is that religious
people, people of scripture, they will be the
first to respond.
They know what we're talking about.
They know what this is all about.
They will jump at the opportunity of facilitating,
of helping, of responding to something like this.
So Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is, and the
Sahaba radiAllahu ta'ala anhum, they're hoping that,
okay, the Quraysh gave us a hard time
and they did what they did, but then
they didn't have any experience with scripture or
book or prophets.
The Bani Isra'il do.
These concepts are not new to them.
Tawheed is not new to them.
Scripture is not new to them.
Akhira is not new to them.
It's very similar.
They have the Bible.
So it's gonna be, you know, it shouldn't
be that difficult.
It'll be easier for them to respond.
Allah says, no, no, no, no, no.
You really think these people are going to
respond to you?
That the best response you're going to get
is from the custodians of religious authority and
scholarship.
These are those people.
They heard the kalaam of Allah.
Fuma yuharrifoonahu min ba'di maa'aqaloohu wahum ya
'lamin.
These are the people who heard it and
then they intentionally changed it after they had
understood it.
So when we talk about self-deception, when
we talk about a manifestation of hypocrisy, we
tend to look at it as a completely
unconscious process.
If we come to terms with an understanding
of it's the unconscious element in it or
the predominance of the unconscious element.
But within that entire process, there are moments
of consciousness.
So there are incidents of comprehension, of coming
into confrontation with the inconsistencies of your own
understanding of your own belief and having that
period of doubt that maybe I was wrong.
What this ayah is telling me is something
different.
Maybe my understanding of God was limited, restricted,
of religion, of my responsibility was limited, restricted.
This seems to be making sense, but that's
brushed aside.
Not only is that brushed aside, and we'll
talk about how that process works when we
talk about the progression of hypocrisy.
It's not just brushed aside, it's put procrastinated.
It's put off till a later time.
And that time goes on for so long
that even that understanding that you once felt
unnerved by, it's done away with.
It's rationalized.
It's even looked upon as, no, it's best
that people don't hear about it.
No, it's in the social interest.
It's in our religious interest if we sort
of keep this information away from people or
just present it in a very different way,
change it altogether.
So Allah is saying, this is what these
people are guilty of.
They edited the Bible to suit their vested
interests when they were confronted with the ayat
of Allah that showed them the shortcomings and
inconsistencies of their understanding.
They edited the source itself.
They were so intent.
They were so committed on preserving their particular
belief, how they had originally understood it, that
for the sake of that certainty that they
had, even the Bible was sacrificed.
The original source of that faith, of that
iman, of that certainty was sacrificed, changed.
That's who these people are.
That's what we're capable of as human beings,
that we value that certainty so much because
that certainty protects us from the unnerving doubt,
the fear, the insecurity that comes with it.
I may have been wrong.
That vulnerability is so difficult to confront.
You change everything at the cost of doing
the right thing, at the cost of the
very source of your inspiration, of your identity
as a religious person, change that, but do
not let go of that certainty that you
have.
So they changed after having understood it.
وَهِذَا لَقُلْ لَذِينَ آمَنُوا۟ قَالُوا۟ آمَنَّا۟ And when
they meet the Muslims, they say, we believe,
we have the same faith.
You believe in God, we believe in God.
You believe in scripture, we believe in scripture.
Most of the prophets were all on the
same page.
وَهِذَا خَلَىٰ بَعْضُهُمْ إِلَىٰ بَعْضٍ But when they're
alone with each other, قَالُوا۟ تُحَدِّثُونَهُمْ بِمَا فَتَّخَ
اللَّهُ عَلَيْكُمْ They say to each other, well,
you're the source of the Muslims, what Allah
has revealed to you.
You're sharing, you know, qaybah with them.
You're telling them about what you've learned, what
you have.
But if they pick up on, you know,
they see that some of that stuff is
actually confirming what they have.
لَيُحَجُّكُمْ بِحِينٍ لَا رَبِّكُمْ What if they use
that on the Day of Judgment against you,
against in front of Allah?
So this is how these inconsistencies betray themselves.
They seep out, they leak through the cracks.
Like what if they use that against you
on the Day of Judgment?
هَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ Are you two out of your
mind?
Can't you use your sense?
Again, another use of mind, another use of
your rationality to hide.
This is rationalization, to hide your wickedness, to
rationalize whatever it is that you have done
to justify the evil that you perpetrated.
وَلَا يَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا يَسِرُونَ وَمَا
يَعْلِمُونَ Don't they know that Allah knows what
they conceal and what they reveal?
We've seen this in other people, in our
daily interactions with people, how the inconsistency of
lying comes out and everyone knows it except
the perpetrator.
The one who's doing it, they don't see
it.
They think they're doing it for all the
right reasons or whatever.
But whenever they did see it, they shunned
that.
وَمِنْ هُمْ أَمِيُّونَ And among them are unlettered.
There's another way of making sure that the
potential of scripture of the Bible or of
the Quran, that it has the power that
it has, the ability that it has to
rectify society, to positively direct society.
There is another way of making sure that
doesn't happen.
First way we saw, edit it altogether, change
it.
The second way is hide it, don't let
people read it.
Tell them it's not for them.
It's for a specific elite class of scholars
only, restricted access.
So put it in an ivory tower and
raise it up so high that really no
one can get to it.
And then, or hide it behind so much
jargon, so many terminologies that people are lost.
And mind you, this is not just done
by people of the Bible.
This is not just done by people of
the Quran.
This will be done by people of science
as well.
They muddy the water to make it seem
deep.
They infest it with so much jargon and
terminology that you have to spend a lifetime
just to understand that behind all the big
words, it's lost.
It's lost consistently.
Anyone looking to hide knowledge will hide it
behind these webs of complexity, these
spider webs of complexity.
So naturally, most people are unlettered.
Most of them don't know the book.
La ya'lamuna al-kitaba illa amaniyya.
Who don't know the holy book except some
wishful beliefs, amaniyya.
What do you give people from all of
what you've hidden behind complexities and spider webs?
Wishful beliefs.
All you need to know is that you
believe in A, B, C, and you're good
on the day of judgment.
You attain salvation.
Heaven is yours.
Good luck.
That's it.
So that's all they need to know.
And they're like, okay, you give us that,
good enough.
You take care of the rest.
Thank you.
Our charities are coming to you.
Our sadaqat, our zakat, you the man.
You just keep giving us these reassurances of
our righteousness and our rights to paradise, and
we keep giving you the tax for that,
the peacefulness that we feel for hearing that
every now and then.
وَإِنْهُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ All they're doing is assuming.
These are all assumptions.
They're not based on anything concrete.
There's no evidence for this.
These amani, these wishful beliefs.
فَوَيْلُن لِّلَّذِينَ يَكْتُبُونَ الْكِتَابَ بِأَيْتِهِ So destroyed are
those people.
Damn those people who write the scripture with
their own hands, arbitrarily coming up with stuff.
ثُمَّ يَقُولُونَ هَذَا مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ And then
they think this is from Allah.
فَيَشْتَرُوا بِهِ ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا So that they may
sell it for a petty price.
Some vested interest that's being served.
فَوَيْلُن لَّهُمْ مِمَّا كَتَبَتَيْدِهُمْ So damn them for
what their hands have written.
وَوَيْلُن لَّهُمْ مِمَّا يَكْسِبُونَ Maybe they'd be destroyed
for what they earned.
وَقَالُوا لَن تَمَسَّنَ النَّهْرُ إِلَّا أَيَّامٌ مَعْدُودَ So
one manifestation of those wishful beliefs.
Their claim that the fire won't touch us
except for a few days.
So any evil, any immorality, any shortcoming, anything
that is pointed out to them, these big
stuff that needs to be fixed, like, nah,
don't worry about it.
Even if it is bad, even if we're
punished for it, ultimately, we all began to
belong to paradise.
Ultimately, that is where we are going.
Inshallah, brother, paradise is ours.
Don't worry about it.
Don't worry about it.
Jahannam is like, you know, a weekend, couple
of days here and there.
Bear it out.
It will all be okay in the end.
All's well that ends well.
So Jahannam becomes this, you know, weekend spot
where I can't go because, you know, I
belong to this sect of this religion with
this understanding, which only requires me to do
A, B, and C sometimes.
And if I can't, that's okay.
You know, if I'm exploitative, abusive, irresponsible, it's
okay.
I'll be in paradise anyways.
We will see that the world that we're
living in, the more proactive people, the more
determined people, the people doing something for society,
would typically be people without scripture, people who
have little to do with scripture, for the
most part.
Those doing it on the basis of scripture
and motivated by scripture are there, but unfortunately,
exceptions.
The most that you will see people of
scripture do is thump the scripture in the
faces of other people, Bible thumpers.
You can do Quran thumpers too.
Qul attaqattum AAinda Allahi ahda I ask them,
have you received such a promise from Allah?
Falain yukhlifallahu ahda For Allah never breaks His
promise.
Antaqooloona AAala Allahi maa laa taAAalamoon Or do
you say against Allah what you know nothing
about?
Bala man kasaba sayji'atan wa ahata bihi
khati'atun No, those who commit some evil
can even be a single evil, and that
evil surrounds them.
And evil has that tendency.
It has that tendency, it proliferates.
It has this, it can grow too.
It can have a neoplastic growth, a cancerous
growth, such that the cancer is all that's
left.
You can be a person of the book,
you can be a person of the scripture,
you can be a Jew, Christian, or Muslim.
Whoever does this and it just overwhelms him
or her.
Faoolaika wasqaabunnaa These are the people of the
fire.
Qum feehaa khaalidoon And they will live therein
forever.
Walladheena aamanoo wa aamanoo salihaat And those who
believe and perform righteously.
Oolaika wasqaabul jannaa These will be the residents
of paradise.
Qum feehaa khaalidoon And they will live therein
forever.
Paradise is largely dependent on fulfilling its prerequisites.
Then of course the fadhal of Allah.
But human proactivity, responsibility, action, effort, risk, necessary,
unnecessary.
No sneaking away from there.
Okay, bismillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala
rasoolillah wa ala alihi wa ashabihi ajma'in
Moving on with the 10th ruku.
We are talking about the various pathologies or
various illnesses that seep into a people of
religion, a people of scripture, and how they
become dangerous as a result.
Rather than doing good that they're supposed to,
they become a source of evil.
And continuing with the 10th ruku, ayah number
83.
wa idh akhadnaa mithaqa bani israeel And when
we took a firm commitment from the bani
israeel saying la ta'buduna illallah You will
not do anybody else's ibadah other than Allah.
wa bilwalidayni ihsana And you will be good
to your parents.
wa dhil qurba And relatives.
wa alyatama And orphans.
wa almasakin And the needy.
wa qulu linnati husna And you will speak
nicely to people.
This is what your religion was supposed to
bring out from you.
Your ibadah of Allah, okay, and then extending
from that ibadah is you taking care of
the vulnerable segments of your society.
Those relationships, those nearest and dearest and closest
to you, but because they're near, dear, and
close, they are the most vulnerable to harm
from you.
Your parents, your relatives, the orphans in the
society.
So immediately after your close relationships, who should
be considered your close relationships?
Those who are considered to have no relationships,
which are the orphans.
wa almasakin And the needy, the helpless.
That's what a community should look like, that
the people of religion or a religious or
spiritual community is a community in which people's
attachment and commitment to Allah is reflected in
their attachment and commitment to the vulnerable segments
of the society.
Was that too difficult?
What's complicated about that?
What complications does that have to hide behind?
What jargon is necessary to get that message
across?
wa qulu linnati husna And you will speak
nicely to people.
You will have this attitude of ihsan.
It will reflect in your speech to all
of humanity.
Because one manifestation of cultish religiosity is that
this niceness extends only to your in-group.
And the out-group, there is no niceness.
And if there is any niceness out of
your group or your cult or your religion,
it is only with the intent of conversion.
It is only with the intent of preaching
and proselytizing.
Not because you should just do that because
they're human.
That's a cultish mentality.
Another aspect of a cultish mentality is that
vulnerable segments of the cult are not protected.
They're exploited.
Their vulnerabilities are further exploited.
There is a clear-cut stratification within the
cults.
Those privileged, those not privileged.
Those privileged will get more privileges.
And those not will be shunned altogether.
wa aqeemus salah wa aatuz zakah And establish
salah and pay zakah.
Ibadahs are going to be the pillars of
that community.
They're going to be the particular specific ritual
ibadah.
Because let's face it, it's very straightforward and
easy in what needs to be done.
But when it comes down to actually doing
it, the level of commitment, dedication, reflection that
it requires is such that prayer, salah, repeatedly.
Continuously is important.
Zakah as an expression of selflessness or charity
that opens the doors to more charity, that
opens the doors to sadaqahs and more self
-transcendent behavior.
thumma tawallaytum illa qaleelam minkum Then you broke
that commitment, except a few of you.
wa antum mu'ridhun And you were a
people who refused.
This is what you were supposed to do.
And you let go of that.
And all the complications ensue.
wa idh akhadhna mithaqakum And when you took
a commitment from you, la tasfiqoonat dhimaakum Do
not shed each other's blood.
wa la tukhrijoon anfusakum min dhiyaarikum And do
not expel.
The way the words are phrased in Arabic
is do not expel yourselves from your own
homes.
Basically, don't expel each other from your own
communities, from your own houses, from their houses.
But expelling them is expelling yourself.
Killing them is killing yourself because you are
a whole, a body.
That's how close you are to each other.
You're them and they're you.
To be able to see yourselves like that.
And you'll be able to see yourselves like
that in view of your common relationship with
Allah.
thumma aqraartum wa antum tashhadoon And you confirmed
it and you bore witness to it.
thumma hantum haa oolaa'i Yet you are
such people.
faqtooloon anfusakum You killed each other, yourselves.
wa tukhrijoona fariqam minkum min dhiyaarihim And you
expel some of your own from their homes.
fa-dhaaharoona AAalayhim bil-ithbi wal-'ulwaan Ganging up
against them in spit and aggression.
ma'in ya'tookum usara tufadoohum And if they
came to you as captives, you ransomed them.
wa huwa muharramun AAalaykum ikhraajihum And it was
forbidden for you to expel them to begin
with.
So particularly in the history of the Bani
Israel, the 12 tribes, they started, this animosity
between them developed.
And what they did was they would gang
up on one of the tribes or some
of the tribes, and they would get reinforcements
from adjoining enemies of the Bani Israel.
And there would be massacre, they would be
killing, they would be taking over their properties.
And when they're taken over, expelled, then they're
sitting ducks for the other enemies who then
take them, abduct them, captivate them.
And all of a sudden, these Bani Israel
were like, oh my God, what have we
done?
No, let's pay their ransom and free them.
That's charity, right?
That's good, we should do that good.
And so they ransomed them, they paid that
charity, and they're like, see, we're so good,
we're so righteous, we freed you.
We took you away from that captivity that
you were in, the slavery that you were
in.
Well, I was like, okay, but you weren't
supposed to put them in that position to
begin with.
Afa tu'minuna bi ba'd al-kitabi wa takfuruna
bi ba'd.
So this concrete example is a manifestation of
a principle or a pathology, a social ailment,
a spiritual disease.
What is that disease?
You believe in a part of the book
and you reject the other.
Fa maa jaza'u maa yuf'alu thalika
minkum.
So what punishment do those who behave thus
among you deserve illa khizyun fil hayaati al
-thunya?
Except a disgrace in the lifeless world.
So the part where they were supposed to
be nice to each other, good to each
other, respect each other, honor each other, strengthen
the ties between each other, protect the vulnerable,
that part completely forgotten, rather transgressed against, blasphemed.
And then that one piece of charity, God
knows what that charity now represents, if not
another way of asserting your * over the
weak, and that's the one thing that charity
can do.
It is a way of self-transcendence, for
sure.
It is a way of community development, but
it can be a way of permanently fixating
the stratifications in society.
Your charity, your institutions of charity, in a
place where the comprehensive understanding does not exist,
charity and institutions of charity, they do help,
but in a lot of ways, they fixate
the stratification in the society.
And what I mean by that is that
the poor become indefinitely dependent on that charity,
that the charity is not the kind that
can liberate them from that state of neediness
and subjugation.
It is the kind that ensures that they
stay there, that they become that and nothing
more, that that relegated, deprived part of society
forever.
And their function in society is to just
massage the ego of the rich, who feed
them the crumbs off their table, but make
sure they stay under the table and do
not have the opportunities to rise up.
So you pick up a part of the
book and you reject the rest.
Don't think you're doing God any favors and
he's just gonna look fondly towards it.
فما جذاب ما يفعل ذلك منكم What is
a, what kind of a reward does this
deserve other than إلا خزي في الحياة الدنيا
except humiliation, it's great in the life of
this world.
ويوم القيامة يردون إلى أشد العذاب And they
will be driven to the worst of punishments
on the day of judgment.
ومالله بغفلنا ما تعمل And Allah is not
unaware of what you are doing.
Again, we look around us in the world,
the privileged position that we put ourselves in
as the custodians of the final message, the
last and final prophet and the Quran and
all of that.
The disgrace in the world that with the
humility, the humiliation that we face in the
world is telling of the threat of what
is to come in the hereafter if we
don't mend our ways.
أولئك الذين اشتروا الحياة الدنيا بالآخرة These are
the people who purchased the life of this
world exclusively, preferred it, wanted it at the
cost of the hereafter.
Again, Allah is the one آتنا في الدنيا
حسنة وفي الآخرة حسنة And He's the one
who says, ask me the good of this
world, no problem, no issues.
The akhira that I promises you does not
demand that you shun the world completely, not
at all.
But the demonic instincts or the demonic tendencies
that you have demand that akhira be sacrificed
for the immediate gratification.
That's what he doesn't stand for.
At the cost of others, at the cost
of tawhid, at the cost of relationships, at
the cost of good portions of the book
of the scripture.
فَلَا يُخَفَّفْ وَنْهُمُ الْعَذَابُ So neither their punishment
will be reduced for them.
وَلَا هُمْ يُنصِرُونَ And they will not receive
any help.
وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَ مُوسَى الْكِتَابَ And we definitely did
grant Musa the book.
وَقَفَيْنَا مِنْ بَعْدِهِ بِالرُّسُلِ And we followed him
up with a series of messengers.
وَآتَيْنَ عِيسَى بِنَ مَرْيَمَ الْبَيْجِنَاتِ And we gave
Isa, the son of Maryam, Jesus, عليه السلام,
clear signs.
وَأِيَّدْنَاهُ بِرُوحِ الْقُدُسِ And we strengthened him with
the Holy Spirit.
أَفَكُلَّمَا جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ And hasn't it always been
that whenever a messenger came to you, بِمَا
لَا تَهْوَىٰ with that which did not please
yourselves, which was not in sync with your
desires, you became arrogant, you rejected him, you
weren't willing to accept him because the entire
institution of religion had become a front for
your vested interests, for your personal desires, or
that of a particular privileged group.
And so when the prophet comes and highlights
that, shows you your ugly faces, you become
arrogant, you reject him.
And mind you, the rejection was on a
religious basis.
Isa, عليه السلام, was not rejected on a
secular basis.
He was rejected on a religious basis.
This is a magician.
Magic is kufr, kufr is haram.
It is apostasy.
An apostate deserves punishment by death.
Crucifixion.
فَفَرِيقًا تَذَّبْتُمْ Then you denied some of them.
وَفَرِيقًا تَقْتُلُونَ And you killed others.
They did that not just with, or the
attempt at crucifixion of Isa, عليه السلام, that
wasn't just with him, it was with other
prophets as well.
Some of them they did manage to kill.
The anbiya.
وَقَالُوا قُلُوبُنَاهُفِ And they say, our hearts are
wrapped up, sealed.
What is this representative of?
What you may call an arrogance, particularly with
respect to knowledge.
The absolute source of knowledge is A.
I have A.
I have absolute knowledge.
A can be the Torah, the Injil, or
even the Quran.
And anything outside of A is going to
be rejected.
There is no scope that, okay, what I
have is an interpretation of A, and it's
fallible.
It may be mistaken.
And maybe something outside of A can help
me see that mistake.
Maybe my use of Aqal, for example.
But no, no, no, no.
The people of Aqal are the people of
Shaytan or something.
Or the people who have those ayats, quote
unquote, of Allah.
No, no, they're not rightly guided.
They're not from us.
They're from outside of us.
For the Bani Israel, it was, he's from
Bani Ismail.
He's not of us.
Why do we accept him?
We already have all of what we need.
وَقُلُوبُنَاهُفِ All the knowledge we needed, we have.
Perfect, perfection has been attained.
What do you add to perfection?
Get away from here.
We replicate the same attitude.
Even if it is in the name of
Quran.
Our hearts are wrapped up and sealed.
Guidance is complete.
Nothing else necessary.
We're gonna hold on to it for dear
life with our teeth if we have to.
بَلْ لَعْنَهُمُ اللَّهُ بِكُفْرِهِمْ No, no, no.
This is not certainty or guidance that they
have.
This is Allah's curse on them.
Due to their kufr, their ungratefulness, their disbelief.
فَقَلِيلًا مَعَيُّمْهِنُونَ So they will believe in very
little.
What they have is a portion which they
think is all of it.
They have a portion of truth.
No doubt about that.
But they think it's all of truth.
And so they reject the rest of truth.
And when you reject the rest of truth,
even the truth that you have gets undermined.
وَلَمَّا جَاءَهُمْ كِتَابٌ مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ And when
there came to them a book from Allah,
مُصَدِّقُوا لِّمَا مَعَهُمْ A book that was confirming
what was already in their position.
The book did not come to supplant, to
absolutely reject.
That's like it confirmed what they had.
It affirmed it.
It was giving it support.
وَكَانُوا مِنْ قَبْلُ يَسْتَفْتِحُونَ عَلَىٰ الَّذِينَ كَفُرُوا And
earlier on, they used to pray for victory
against those who disbelieved.
They would say that this last and final
messenger would come with more truth, with more
revelation, with more guidance, and we would rally
around behind him.
And then we would show you.
They would say to the Aus and Khazraj,
فَلَمَا جَاءَهُمْ مَا عَوَفُوا But when there came
to them that which they recognized very well,
a continuation of their own, their truth pointed
towards that truth.
Their truth supported his truth, but they rejected
his truth and said, they lost their own
truth.
كَفَرُوا بِي They refused to believe in it.
فَاللَّعْنَةُ اللَّهِ عَلَىٰ الْكَافِرِينَ So Allah's curse is
on such disbelievers.
That's how Allah's لعنة works.
What is that لعنة?
That's it, nothing more for you.
If you think that's all of what is
needed, then that's all you're going to get.
Even that you're going to lose.
كَفَرُوا مَا اشْتَرَوْا بِهِ أَنفُسًا So ridiculous is
the price for which they sold themselves away.
هَنْ يَكْفُرُوا بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهِ That they denied,
but Allah revealed a million merely out of
a grudge.
It is not from us.
It is from a circle outside of us.
It is from the other.
How can we accept that which is from
the other?
So the religion that was supposed to be
universal, the religion that was supposed to be
open to relationships, you made that the source
of disconnecting and cutting off from others.
هَنْ يَنَزِلَ اللَّهُ بِمِنْ فَضْلِهِ عَلَىٰ مَن يَشَاءُ
مِنْ عِبَادِهِ That Allah sends down His grace
upon whomever of His عَبْد, of His عِبَاد
that He wants, that He pleases.
You're going to tell Him who to send
grace to and who not to, who to
do His فَضْل upon and who not to?
You're looking to control Him?
How dare God send truth upon any non
-Muslim, non-Jew, non-Christian?
How dare He do that?
How could He?
It has to be our hegemony.
It has to be from us.
It can't be from any other.
How could it?
And if it is from the other, even
if it is truth, to * with it,
to * with it.
So be it, that would be غضب على
غضب.
And so they have drawn anger upon anger.
وَلِلْكَافِرِينَ عَذَابٌ مُحِينٌ And for such disbelievers, there
is a humiliating punishment.
It was their استكبار, their arrogance, their lack
of humility that led them towards this attitude.
And it is humiliation that they're going to
get as a consequence.
وَإِذَا قِيلَ لَهُمْ And when they're asked, عَمِنُوا
بِمَا أُنزِلَ اللَّهُ Believe in what Allah has
revealed.
قَالُوا They say, نُؤْمِنُوا بِمَا أُنزِلَ عَلَيْنَا We
believe in what has been sent to us.
Contrasted to the hadith of Rasulullah صلى الله
عليه وسلم, where he says, كَلِمَةُ الْحِكْمَةُ ضَلَّةُ
الْمُؤْمِنُ Word of wisdom is the lost treasure
of the believer.
وَأَحَقُّ بِهَا حَيْثُ وَجَدَهَا He has a greater
right to it wherever he wants it, wherever,
with whoever.
نُؤْمِنُوا بِمَا أُنزِلَ عَلَيْنَا They say, no, no,
no, we believe in what has been given
to us.
وَيَكْبُرُونَ بِمَا وَرَاءَهُ And we reject that which
is besides that.
Again, we are going to follow in the
footsteps of the Jews and the Christians.
Footstep by footstep, dot by dot.
That was the hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ.
If they manifested an attitude, we're going to
manifest an attitude.
An attitude similar to that, to the point
of how one shoe is similar to another,
to the effect that if one of them
followed, went down a lizard's hole, we're going
to go down that lizard's hole.
And this is the lizard's hole we're in
right now.
The one they went into.
No knowledge except the knowledge that we have.
The world is going to leave us behind,
so be it.
And if we make our own knowledge irrelevant,
so be it.
Our iman is so firm, we're still going
to hold on to it.
We're going to start losing people in our
ranks, but we're still going to hold on
to it.
We're going to, all our efforts are going
to be to no effect, no yield, no
results, no benefit.
We're still going to hold on to it.
Our own children are going to look us
in the face and be like, daddy, you've
lost it.
We're still going to hold on to it.
Congratulations.
By all means, hold on to it.
All that you sacrifice for certainty.
We have our certainty, even if we've lost
pretty much everything else.
And really that certainty is not there either.
It's really hollow from inside.
We'll only have to knock it to see
how hollow it is.
You only have to look at those faces
which have lost all hope.
And therefore they have to resort to, the
Mehdi is going to come and save us.
The Antisa is going to come and save
us.
Only du'as can save us.
The religion of victimized, whiny.
I feel like cursing, but I'm not.
Wa huwa al-haqqu musaddiqal lima ma'ahum
Qul falima taqtuluna anbiyaa Allahi min qablu in
kuntum mu'mineen Ask them, why did you kill
the prophets of Allah earlier on, if you
really are believers?
Because this is the same attitude that resulted
in the killing of prophets.
It is the same attitude that resulted in
the killing of Sahaba.
It is the same attitude that was the
hallmark of the Khawarij.
It is the same attitude that could not
tolerate Ka waliyu la rahimahullah, translating the Quran.
It is the same attitude.
Wa laqad ja'akum Musa bil bayjinat And
Musa did bring clear signs to you.
Thumma attakhastum al-ijla min ba'dihi wa anthum
zalimoon Even then you took to worshiping the
calf and you were unjust.
Wa idh akhadhna mithaqakum And when we took
a firm commitment from you wa rafa'na
qawqakum al-toor And we lifted the mountain
of Toor above your heads khudhu ma a'taynakum
bi quwwatin wasma'oon We said, hold on
to what we are giving you firmly.
Allah affirms that, yes, we were the ones
who told you to hold on to that
Tawrah.
But holding on to the Tawrah does not
mean rejecting everything that comes only to affirm
it, rejecting all forms of other truth.
Rather, holding on to the Tawrah meant that
you were in a better place to hold
on to the Quran.
Holding on to the Quran means that you
are in a better place to see truth
outside of it and align it with that
of the Quran.
Qalu sima'na wa asayna And the response
that we hear and we disobey.
wa ushribu fee qulubihim al-'ijla bi-kufrihim So
the love of that calf.
Again, the intimidation of the people of Fir
'aun.
It was imbibed into their hearts.
It was deep-seated.
It was unconscious.
Bi-kufrihim, on account of their disbelief.
Iman would have opened themselves up to cleansing
of that deep-seated tendency towards kufr and
shirk.
Qul biksama ya'murukum bihi imanukum min kuntum mu'min
Tell them ridiculous is what your iman is
commanding you to.
Talk about that.
Allah does not beat around the bush.
Your iman is the worst thing possible.
You have glorified and decorated it with all
these wonderful terminologies, religious terminologies.
Allah says, damn them.
Biksama ya'murukum How ridiculous, how evil, how filthy.
Is your iman.
If this is what your iman has led
you to.
And we say this about the Bani Israel.
Very openly in all durus, in all our
lectures and all our translations of the Quran,
that their iman led them to evil actions.
Are we willing to consider that what it
is that we call iman may have led
us to perpetrate evil as well.
Can our iman be ridiculous?
Can our iman be filthy?
Because of the filthy consequences that emanate from
it.
And in our conception, in our claims, in
our slogans, it is the strength of iman.
That in the face of all of the
signs that show us that there's something wrong
with it, we don't budge.
Alhamdulillah.
That's how strong our faith is.
It is unyielding.
Nothing has changed in it for decades.
That's not strength of iman.
That's stubbornness.
That's arrogance.
Walainkanakum udara al-akhiratu inda Allahi khalasatan min
doonin naas Where does that come from?
The ultimate.
When you see all efforts failing, no fruits,
no results, nothing changing.
Numbers deteriorating.
People leaving your folds.
Masajid emptying out.
Your conception's basically not working.
The solutions that you're giving to humanity, falling
back on themselves, not even being enough of
a solution for yourself.
What do you fall back on?
Oh, we have akhira.
He will be rewarded in paradise.
Even Nuh alayhis salaam had to work for
950 years.
Nobody responded to him.
Fair enough.
Sing yourself these lullabies.
Sing yourself these lullabies.
But really, if you are that sure of
your salvific exclusivity, that you are going to
attain salvation to the exclusion of the rest
of humanity, fatha mannamul mawtin kuntum saadateen And
wish for death, if you really are true
in your claim.
Because you are certain, and you think you
are certain, that that should logically mean you're
ready to die.
Your fear of death is betraying that within
you, you know something's deeply wrong.
Just come to terms with that.
Mera nahi bantana ban na punato ban.
Look at the signs inside of you.
Walain yata mannauhu abadam bima qaddam itaydeen They
will never wish for death.
They are horrified, scared of death.
This pathological fear of death, where is that
stemming from?
Because despite all your rationalizations and sermons and
slogans, your own conscience, deep, deep, deep, deep
down inside knows that what you wrought was
no good.
All of what you buried, the ayats that
you saw, it unnerved you, it shook you.
But you saw that, no, no, no, this
is doubt in the face of my strong
iman.
I cannot let this waver me.
It fits inside, it grows as that guilt
and that pathological fear of death.
Walain yata mannauhu abadam bima qaddam itaydeen They
will never wish for death, knowing what they
have sent forward with their deeds.
Wallahu alimum biz zalameen Allah knows fully well
of these zalameen.
These zalameen don't even know themselves.
Allah has them fully psychoanalyzed, unconscious, conscious, the
whole shebang.
Wala tajidannahum ahrasan nasi ala hayatin And you
will find them the greediest of mankind for
life.
SubhanAllah, the irony, the people who have the
best place in paradise reserved for them, like
a resort that they've booked in advance because
of their privileged position, they're the most fearful
of going there.
Mimina allatheen ashraqu Even from the people who
do shirk, the people without scripture, the people
who don't have book of Allah, revelation.
Yawaddu ahaduhum law yu'ammaru alfa sanatin Each
of them wishes to be given a life
of a thousand years.
Wa maa huwa bimuzahzihihi minal azabi an yu
'ammaru And even if they are given the
life of a thousand years, it's not gonna
save them from the hellfire or remove even
a little bit of a punishment from them.
Wallahu basirum bima ya'malun Allah is watching everything
that they do.
Qul man khaana adoof walli jibreel Say, Ya
Rasulullah, whoever is the enemy of Jibreel.
So now again, the irrational twisted manifestations of
their rigidity, what they see as the strength
of their iman, it manifests itself in ridiculous
claims.
It betrays itself in completely nonsensical conflicts that
they pick up.
So there's no other way of making sense
of it.
How could they have been left out?
And there's truth that they see that Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam has brought, and it is
bringing about an effect that the truth would,
and that their own sources said it would,
yet they have to hold on to their
claim that it had to have been within
Bani Israel that this came.
It had to have been within us.
It could not have been from another community.
So they knew the coming of the last
and final messenger, but they always thought it
would be from Bani Israel.
Allah never said that it would be from
Bani Israel.
They just assumed it, but they were so
fixated in that belief that even when Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam coming from a tribe, not
of their own, but from their cousins, when
he's showing all the truth that he's showing,
they can't make sense of it.
So nonsensical rationalizations and nonsensical conflicts ensue.
Jibreel, he got it wrong.
It was the angel's fault.
He got the wrong address.
Allah says, whoever is an enemy of Jibreel,
fa-innahu nazzalahu ala qalbika bi-idhnillahi musaddiqal
lima bayna yaday.
And he definitely revealed this Quran to your
heart with Allah's command to confirm what is
present before it, what is in front of
it.
It is confirming the Torah.
And yet they have this animosity against Jibreel.
And it is precisely these nonsensical arguments that
you will see from people who are the
conspiracy theorists who will go to the nth
degree in their conspiracies and rejecting the other
and everything that may be reflective of truth
in the other.
You will see this nonsense, fa-innahu nazzalahu
ala qalbika bi-idhnillahi wa hudan wa bushra
lil mu'mineen as a guidance and a glad
tiding for the believers.
man kana adoob wa lillah Whoever is the
enemy of Allah wa malaikatihi, His angels wa
rusulihi, His messengers wa Jibreel wa Mika'il
and Jibreel and Mika'il fa-inna Allaha
adoobu lilkaafreen So know that Allah is an
enemy to such disbelievers.
So their belief that God is as they
have perceived Him to be leads for them
to sever away God's angels from God because
God is as they say God is.
Apparently here, there's a different manifestation of who
He is, different from what we hold.
What we hold is the true God.
So whatever manifestation we're seeing is a deception.
It has to be from somewhere else.
Ah, Jibreel has rebelled against God or got
it wrong or made a mistake with the
prophets.
There's something wrong there.
We got it right, the prophet got it
wrong.
fa-inna Allaha adoobu lilkaafreen Allah is an
enemy to such people of Kufr.
And this naturally follows like it seems nonsensical.
It's irrational.
Where's the rationality in it?
The rationality is in understanding that for them,
God had become someone that they were controlling,
that they were using, that they were putting
their own words, desires, vested interests in His
mouth.
And whenever they see somebody else coming in,
reflecting truth, bringing truth, all of a sudden
they feel like their idol is going to
be taken away from them.
walaqad anzalna ilayka ayatin bayjinat And surely we
have sent down to you clear ayat wa
maa yakfuru biha illa al-fasiqun No one
rejects it except the transgressors.
Rejecting it results in transgression.
Transgression necessitates rejecting it.
It's one of the same.
One leads to the other.
awa kulla maa aahadu ahdan Has it not
been so that every time they made a
commitment, nabadahu fariqun minhum A group of them
always threw it away, betrayed it.
balaktharuhum la yu'minun In fact, most of them
don't believe.
walama ja'ahum rasulun min AAindila And whenever
a messenger came from Allah to them, musaddiqun
lima ma'ahum Confirming what was in their
possession.
nabadahu fariqun min allatheena ootu al-kitaba kitaballahi
wara'a dhuhurihim A group of those who
were given the scripture would cast the book
of Allah to their backs.
They were so intent on safeguarding their certainty
of faith, they sacrificed the book of Allah
on the altar of that false sense of
security that it brought.
fa'annahum la ya'lamun As if they
know nothing.
wattaba'u maa tatlush shayateenu ala mulki sulayman
So what happens?
When you lose all of this, when what
scripture is supposed to do, it's not doing,
when the good that it's supposed to bring
in society is not happening, what use is
it then put to?
Then it becomes a source of magic, superstition,
and more magic and more superstition and anti
-magic and anti-superstition.
That's all of what's left in it.
It's some unseen, these mystical, mythological, some true,
some abusive, exploitative practices.
That's all of what it becomes then.
It's about fa'lana ki popi and dadi
and mami and saas ne uske khilaf jadoo
karwaya aur phir usne uske khilaf jadoo karwaya
aur phir waha se taweez nikli aur phir
waha se dum karwaya aur phir udar se
phuke marwayi aur udar se, I don't know
how to say all of that in English.
So you get all of these amulets and
you get into all of this dum durood
therapy and this breaking up of relationships from
people using scripture.
And what is scripture?
It's an antidote to all of these magical
happenings and that's pretty much all that's left
of it.
So people will have a relationship with Quran
as a source of ruqya, which is fine,
but that's all there is to the relationship
with Quran as if there's nothing else to
it.
It's just an anti-jinn weapon that you're
supposed to use, anti-magic.
Does it have anything bigger, greater, more profound
to offer the society?
I don't think so.
They follow the shayateen, what they used to
recite in the kingdom of Sulaiman wa ma
kafara Sulaiman.
Sulaiman did not perform the act of kufr.
So in their rationalization, they would say Sulaiman
used to control jinns, but only following in
his command.
No, it was the shayateen that did kufr.
They were teaching magic to the people.
And they also taught what was sent down
to the two angels Harut and Marut in
the city of Babylon.
And they did not teach anybody anything until
they had said, we are most definitely a
trial.
So do not do kufr.
What they learned from these two angels was
the magic through which they could separate a
man and his wife.
And they do not harm anyone except for
the permission of Allah.
That's the bottom line.
You lose that plot.
You start attributing so much more to the
demonic forces than they actually deserve.
Then they actually do take that control over
you.
And they learn from them, which harms them
and does not benefit them.
So there is truth to all of these
practices.
But most of what these practices are, are
so occult.
They're so hidden.
There is so much that cannot be explained
about them.
There is so much that cannot be understood
about them.
That the more you get into them and
the more you give people who are involved
in these a degree of authority over you,
precisely because it is so occult and it
is so difficult for you to figure out
what they're on and what they're doing, it
opens the doors to exploitation.
So now these supposed practitioners of these occult
sciences, they have an area of knowledge that
is exclusive to them that cannot be tested,
that cannot be affirmed, that cannot be investigated.
And it's just theirs and you have to
take their word for it.
That is far too much authority for any
human being after Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Those doors closed with revelation.
Those doors closed with revelation.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was the last and
final authority on the knowledge of the unseen.
After that, to give anyone that position, it's
setting yourselves up to be exploited by them.
It's setting yourselves up to be abused by
them.
And it is this abuse and exploitation that
we see in this very proliferating business that
the sciences of this occult are representing.
It's not that there's no truth to them.
There are slivers of truth there.
There's these inexplicable happenings that all of us
have stories to tell about.
But do you really make that all of
what scripture is supposed to be for?
What about the good that it's supposed to
do in the real world, in your real
life?
وَلَقَدْ عَلِمُوا لَمَنِ اشْتَرَاهُ مَا لَهُ فِي الْآخِرَةِ
مِنْ خَلَقٍ And they knew very well that
whatsoever, whosoever buys it has nothing, has no
share in the hereafter.
وَلَبِئْسَ مَا شَرَوْا بِهِ أَنفُسَهُمْ And surely they
sold themselves for a very ridiculous price, very
vile price.
لَوْ كَانُوا يَعْلَمُونَ Only if they knew.
وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ عَمُنُوا وَاتَّقَوْا Had they believed and
kept away from these evils لَمَا ثُوبَتُمْ مِنْ
عِندِ اللَّهِ خَيْرٍ They would have been a
better reward from Allah for them.
لَوْ كَانُوا يَعْلَمُونَ Only if they knew.
وَآخِرُوا دَعْوَانَ عن الحمد لله وبالعلم