Yousuf Raza – Ramadan Nights 2021 Day 9
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the negative consequences of the pandemic and the importance of acknowledging actions and personal experiences. They stress the importance of protecting one's identity and achieving spiritual connection during a weakening or occurring culture, avoiding mistakes, and limiting one's potential for success. They express their desire to be the winner and encourage others to stay true to their promises. The sh]," sh pattern of Allah's shians and the fear of sh anxious sh anxious are discussed, with the choice made by the leader of the group. The speakers also emphasize the importance of achieving spiritual connection during a relationship and avoiding mistakes, and express their desire to be the winner and encourage others to stay true to their promises.
AI: Summary ©
Allahumma anfa'na bima allamtana wa allamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa
aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana wa aallamtana
And again we will see a reflection of
similar themes to Surah Baqarah, the attainment of
piety, righteousness, birr.
So this ruku begins with the exhortation, أَعُضُ
بِاللَّهِ مِنِ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ لَمْ تَنَالُوا الْبِرَّ حَتَّى
تُنفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونَ So this is the tenth
ruku, ayah number 92, that you can never
attain piety, you can never attain righteousness, you
want to be good, you want to be
righteous, you want to be moral, you can
never do so حَتَّى تُنفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونَ until
you are spending from that which is dear
to you, from that which you love.
So what you hold close to your heart,
if you're willing to give from that, that's,
and if you are actually giving from that,
now the doors to piety and righteousness have
opened up.
That's, it's pretty categorical.
بِرْ is very similar to بَرْ, بَرْ as
we know in Arabic and in Urdu, refers
to land.
So the uneasiness that you feel at sea,
you will be more at home on land.
And so giving, self-transcendence, doing something for
somebody else or giving something to somebody else
is so, so human that without this, human
beings are alien to themselves, they're not at
home.
They're more at home, they have greater stability
if they're giving, if they're engaged in others.
And we've spoken about what it is that
انفاق means, money, yes, for sure, giving from
your wealth is important, but your time, your
talent, your abilities, your knowledge, all of that,
to expand yourselves, to put all of those
things out there for the benefit of others,
for other people to grow, to empower others,
that's the pathway to piety.
But even with all of those things, central
to that will remain time and money, because
in a lot of ways time is money,
right?
And so to be giving from that is,
we've spoken about how that's a protection against
hypocrisy, not doing that is breeding this selfishness
which can override, overpower, overtake a human being
completely, and before they know it they're a
zombie that is just living on stimulus response,
and little more than that.
وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ
وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ
وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ
وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ
وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا
مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا
مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا
مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا
مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا
مِنْ شَيْءٍ وَمَا تُنْف of something has to
carry with it for something to be categorized
as haram, you have to have very solid
evidence for it from scripture, from the sources
that are recognized as sources of law from
the whole process, we know where fiqh is
derived from, so scripture, quran, hadith, all of
that and the whole process of jurisprudence that
follows, you need evidence, bottom line, without evidence,
it is not haram until proven otherwise, you
can't say prove to me that it's halal,
the evidence of haram according to most understandings
of fiqh, that has to be reinforced with
evidence and so here we see the quran
asking the bani israel that if it is
haram, if all of these things are haram,
then bring forth the proof, bring the taurah
as evidence that this is as haram as
you've declared for it to be, now again
this is a representation of a degenerate religiosity
in which the تُنْفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونَ element, spending
from what you love that is rarely seen
and the haram element is what religion seems
to be all about, this haram, that haram,
this haram, that haram, it's a bunch of
haram, that the entirety of your relationship with
Allah is about what he doesn't want you
to do and the story ends there, that
it's unsustainable to have that sort of a
relationship, that the entirety of your practice is
focused upon what is not to be done,
the prohibitions more than anything else and all
of what rituals are doing is reinforcing your
strength to, for all the impractical prohibitions you
have placed upon yourself on things that weren't
as haram or as explicitly haram, that everything
which is the slightest bit of grey, slightest
bit, would be treated as if it is
utterly black and utterly unacceptable and then that
would be imposed on others as well, so
the haram police will be out and about
doing their job upon themselves and upon others
and the impression that people get of what
sort of a religion is this, what sort
of a messenger was Muhammad ﷺ, what sort
of a god is the god of the
Quran, the image is one of who dislikes
your pleasure, one who dislikes anything that you
like or you might like or you might
be inclined towards and his entire purpose is
to stifle you more and more and where
is this coming from?
Compensation for not actually living up to social
responsibility, the birr, the infaq, mimma tuhibboon, not
happening, that's like somewhere on the bottom of
the priority list and quite honestly when you
ask somebody and we have this way of
telling our stories right, that when I was
in my zamana-e-jahliyat, right, before I
became consciously practicing, before I became religious-religious,
I was this, I was that, I was
this and then you follow that up with
a second question, okay, what does it mean
for you to start becoming consciously practicing or
exiting that zamana-e-jahliyat to the noorun
ala noor that followed and then there would
be salah thankfully, that there is prayer but
then that is followed by a list of
prohibitions that have been taken upon the person,
you keep going and, and, and, and prohibitions
are all that are there, that I stop
doing this, I stop doing this, I stop
doing this, you know what this is and
that's it and which is fine as some
opinions will hold that to the haramness of
those things, I am not going to dispute
that, who am I to dispute that, I
have, my knowledge of fiqh is worse than
my knowledge of mathematics, which is not saying
much, so I am no one to dispute
that, my only contention is where is the
infaq mimma tuhibboon, where is the social responsibility,
where are the, what's happening for others, for
your social relationships, for your, for what you
can give to the world that you're living
in, where does all of that fall, for
as I see it, whenever the priorities are
enlisted and we will see this again, those
are enlisted first, right after imaniyat, every time
the Quran talks about them, every time, Qul
fa'tu bittawrati fatlooha in kuntum sadiqeen, bring tawrah
and read it if you really are true,
but as we said and it's worth repeating,
you don't do what you really have to
do, the real responsibilities that your iman puts
on you with respect to going out and
really being that person in the society who
is making a change or some positivity that
you're bringing in your household, your immediate society,
some good that is emanating from you, some
gross injustice, evil that you're helping eradicate or
eradicating, whatever it is that you're doing, something
to that effect should be happening, but if
it is not, it is happening in your
face, you're continuing to ignore it, you don't
think it's a religious priority at all, that
there's problems, we have become a religion who
has nothing to offer to the problems of
the world today, 21st century, all we have
is slogans that your problems are going to
be solved if you accept the Quran, I
mean how?
We've accepted the Quran, we're riddled with the
same problems of the 21st century, and with
what face do we go around telling people
accept us and be like us and you
won't have those problems?
There's crises in the world, do we have
anything intelligent to say?
There's people in the world with psychological challenges,
there's an environmental crisis, there's war, there's all
of this thing, do we have anything intelligent
to offer that wasn't on our priority list?
We're looked upon as people who have, who
live this stifled life, and we're okay with
it, we're proud of it, we're proud of
it, we take that as a sign of
being ghoraba, and that's pretty interesting, that's very
interesting, and is that in any way related
to what is being criticized over here?
Or was that just for the Bani Israel
and it applies only to those people of
the other sect?
So who fabricate lies against Allah even after
this?
These are the people who are unjust, again
the process as I was about to allude
to, not fulfilling the social responsibility that hate
should entail upon you, the character, the conduct
that it should inspire, that's not happening but
it's still in your face, it instills necessarily
a guilt, your conscience bites, you don't want
to listen to your conscience, but it's heavy,
the guilt is heavy, what do you do?
You feel like punishing yourself because that's what
neurotic guilt does, when it's not appropriately identified,
recognized, made conscious, translated into appropriate action, what
guilt should do, the best friend that guilt
is to you, it becomes neurotic, how does
it manifest within religiosity?
It takes on the super ego, what is
the super ego?
That's the environmental, the popular representation of what
it means to be righteous, it takes that
on with a rigidity, with an intent to
deprive yourself and to punish yourself, because the
idea behind that at an unconscious level is,
if I punish myself, God won't punish me,
if I make my life harder and harder,
he's watching, I'll be okay, and so harder
and harder and harder, more and more prohibitions
for which there's no explicit evidence or at
least the evidence is contested, but then whoever
contests that evidence is always written off as
being too lenient and deen is all about
difficulty and look at the lives of the
sahaba and all the difficulty that they had
to go through in the ten years in
Mecca and then in Medina, excuse me?
Those were not difficulties because based on the
prohibitions that they had taken upon themselves, those
were not, you're comparing this to that?
The sahaba, Bilal and he had a rock
put on, that wasn't this, he took a
stand, he took a stand, he said la
ilaha illallah in the face of oppression, he
said la ilaha illallah in support of Rasulullah
salallahu alayhi wasalam, when everyone was against him,
he took a stand for social justice, he
took a stand saying pretty much as a
black person in Arabia, as a Habashi, that
I as the makhluq of Allah have equal
rights, that I should be treated as a
human being, that's what he did, he didn't
start off by saying okay everything is haram
upon me now, how does that equate, how
does that, it's funny how those examples are
drawn for to justify a religion of
haramness, it's pretty incredible, it's pretty incredible and
in all of these stories and all of
these arguments and all of these, okay and
then of course the fiqhi battle start, the
opinion in this hadith and this, it means
this and it was taken to be this
and then going into the details and the
details and what is lost in all of
that is important, tunfiqu minma tuhibbun, where is
all of that, where is all of that,
and then this image, qul
sadaqallah, say ya Rasulullah, Allah spoke to the
truth, fatabi'oo millata Ibrahima hanifa, so follow
the legacy of Ibrahim becoming true and sincere,
one of the characteristics of Rasulullah salallahu alayhi
wasalam and this is going to be explicitly
identified as well, it is implied here as
well, is that he relieved the people of
the burden that they had placed upon themselves
unnecessarily, prohibitions that they had taken up which
weren't supposed to be taken up, fatabi'oo
millata Ibrahima hanifa, so follow the legacy of
Ibrahim becoming true and sincere, wa ma kaana
minal mushrikeen, he was not at all of
the mushrikeen, the shirk that is prevalent is
being ignored and what is being espoused arrogantly
and stubbornly too with that is something very
different, inna awwala baytun wudia linnasi allathee bi
bakka, and no doubt the first house ever
designated for humanity is the one at bakka,
mubarakun a blessing and guidance for all the
worlds, feehi ayatun bayjinat, it contains clear signs,
maqam Ibrahim, one of them being the station
of Ibrahim alayhi wasalam, wa man dakhalahu kaana
amina, and whoever enters it attains security, so
as we saw in surah Baqarah the transition
when it happened, it's referred to Ibrahim alayhi
wasalam, it's referred to Makkah hajj, and this
is how the transition takes place in Ali
Imran as well, wa lillahi alannasi hijju albayti
man istata'a ilayhi sabila, and Allah has
a right on the people of resources that
they make hajj to his house, wa man
kafara, and the one who rejects it, fa
inna Allaha ghaniyun AAalil AAalameen, they should know
that Allah is ghani, Allah is free of
all the people, he doesn't need any of
this, this is an expression of how, after
all of this, how could you, then so
be it, I don't need you, fa inna
Allaha ghaniyun AAalil AAalameen, fa inna Allaha ghaniyun
AAalil AAalameen, qul ya ahlul kitab, say people
of the book, lima takfuruna bi aayaatillah, why
do you deny the ayaat of Allah, because
what is the justification, when a justification is
sought for a degenerate religious practice, which is
characterized by how many things are haram, and
how when there is no social good emanating
from that religiosity, it is necessary that ayaat
of Allah are not considered, are not taken
seriously, are ignored or rejected altogether, it is
a necessary part of that package, and that's
going to, for the most part, continue, and
so ask them, ask the people of the
book, why do you deny Allah's ayaat, wallahu
shaheedun AAala ma taAAamilun, Allah himself is watching,
Allah is a witness to all of what
you're doing, qul ya ahlul kitab, say people
of the book, lima tasuddoona AAan sabeelillahi man
aaman, why do you debar from the path
of Allah those who believe, tabghoonaha AAibaja, looking
for crookedness in it, you create this sort
of a representation of religiosity, the people who
genuinely believe and follow in, and they submit
to the authority of the people in whose
hands the hegemony of religious understanding is, they
believe, they submit, they follow, and then they're
confused, they come with this purity of intent,
they come with this purity of heart, they
want to do good, be people of God,
but then the best of what it means
to be religious that they're met with is
actually that which is blocking the path of
Allah, this degenerate manifestation of religiosity, tabghoonaha AAibaja,
looking for crookedness in it, it's simple, it's
straightforward, but these complicated defense mechanisms which have
this neurotic religiosity that's been taken up, ignoring
primary responsibilities, taking up the nitty-gritty and
hair-splitting haramness, going into hair-splitting details
for all the haramness that is imposed, and
then propagating it as the religion, and then
turning people who genuinely would have wanted, do
want, have started on the path, turning them
away, and you are witnesses to it, you
know what this is doing, you see what
is going on around you, you see how
this is affecting people, and then this arrogant
response, we shouldn't care for people, we shouldn't
care for how people respond, and then the
whole Noah's story, people don't respond to him,
people don't respond to any of the prophets,
Okay, that is what it is.
Allah is not ignorant.
Allah is not unaware of what you are
doing.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ هَذَا الَّذِينَ
آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ هَذَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ هَذَا
الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ هَذَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ هَذَا
الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ هَذَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ هَذَا
الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ هَذَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُّهُوَ ه
You'll actively be looking to turn you away,
so listening to them, following in their footsteps.
But then there's those whose reflection of religiosity
is this degenerate religiosity.
This religion of prohibition is all that they
have to represent, all that they have to
show for themselves.
You follow in their footsteps, you take their
understanding of religiosity as your own, you go
down the same lizard's hole.
وَكَيْفَ تَكْفُرُونَ And how can you turn away
from your belief وَأَنْتُمْ تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتُ اللَّهِ
While you are those to whom Allah's ayaat
are recited.
There's two reasons why that degenerate religiosity, that
socially ineffective, that socially destructive, that sort of
religiosity that bars people, obstructs people from Allah
Himself.
There's two reasons where it comes from.
One, تُنفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونَ Not happening, not a
priority, ignored altogether.
Two, ayaat of Allah, rejected, ignored.
Wherever you see ayaat of Allah not being
taken seriously, truth is compromised.
Ilm is compromised.
Chicken or the egg, what happens first?
Do the ayaat of Allah get rejected first?
Or تُنفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونَ Does not take place?
You can go either way.
You can go either way, but it's an
intertwined process.
It is an intertwined process.
One necessitates the other.
How can you disbelieve?
How can you go on that path?
How can you repeat the mistakes of those
before you even after they have been explicitly
reprimanded for it?
How can you be so arrogant to think,
no, this just applies to them because they're
Christians or Jews and not to you because
you're Muslims.
How could you be so idiotic?
That in itself is a rejection of the
ayaat of Allah.
وَأَنْتُمْ تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتُ اللَّهِ وَفِيكُمْ رَسُولُهِ And
among you is His Messenger.
Among you is His Messenger.
Rasulullah ﷺ, don't you see how he's carrying
religion?
Don't you see how he's representing Allah?
Does that in any way, in any way,
does he look like the commander, the military
commander of a dictator who has come only
to make people's lives more and more difficult,
more and more stifled?
Is that what he looks like?
So one thing that I did miss out,
that whenever this sort of a degenerate religiosity
takes place, whenever it, I think that's, yes,
we see this within the pattern, the general
pattern.
The Yahud would be those people who would
characterize that religion of haramness or this prohibited,
that prohibited, this prohibited, that prohibited, this prohibited,
that prohibited.
They would be the characteristic examples of that.
تُنفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونِ Completely missing.
A reactionary religiosity, again, overgeneralizing but something that
you can see more prevalent within Christianity.
A religion where sharia does not exist at
all.
Practically absent.
Again, overgeneralizing, but nevertheless the pattern can be
seen.
No sharia whatsoever.
Everything is halal.
There is no haramness whatsoever.
And you will see both trends within our
society as well, where there is one movement
to have people attain religiosity and promise them
salvation, not relating that to the social good
that they're required to do, or the social
justice that they're required to stand for, but
through, like we said, a checklist of what
is haram.
And that checklist of what is haram is
going to guarantee you that membership of this
cult, or not cult, this exclusive group that
is going to be attaining salvation on the
Day of Judgment and going to paradise.
That's a necessary prerequisite.
This checklist.
It is met with a reaction from another
camp that would say entire, and both of
them will have evidence from tradition, hair-splitting
evidence, but evidence nevertheless, in which they would
be characterizing, oh no no no, this not
haram, this not haram, this not haram, this
not haram, get rid of the entire checklist.
So there's the everything is haram, and then
there's the everything is halal, and then there's
that which is common to both groups, تتنفقوا
مما تحبون, ignored.
If at all, mentioned as a side point,
if at all part of a sermon, definitely
not part of the conduct.
Or the conduct of the followers.
That if we ask what social good, what
problem of humanity, have they been able to
address, on account of the special understanding of
religion that they have, of Allah and Rasulullah,
they come up with zilch.
They come up in either of the two
camps.
Everything is haram camp and everything is halal
camp, you see this fragmentation.
وَفِيكُمْ رَسُولُهُ وَمَنْ يَعْتَصِمْ بِاللَّهِ And whoever holds
on to Allah, so you have the ayat
of Allah, again, characteristic of both camps, not
just rejecting تنفقوا مما تحبون, but also a
good portion of the ayat of Allah.
Or if those ayat of Allah are a
part of their syllabus or curriculum, it's more
of a formality.
They have no practical import.
وَفِيكُمْ رَسُولُهُ وَمَنْ يَعْتَصِمْ بِاللَّهِ And whoever holds
on to Allah, فَقَدْ هُدْيَ إِلَى صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ
He is definitely guided to a straight path.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ
So you who have believed, we thought, we
were under this impression that belief alone is
enough.
The claim should be enough and then the
checklist of membership.
But there's more coming here.
Observe the taqwa of Allah.
حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ And that taqwa, how far do
you take that taqwa as is Allah's haq?
Chew on that.
Because the sahaba couldn't.
They literally gave them indigestion.
And they came to Rasulullah ﷺ, they're like,
we cannot swallow this.
Allah's haq?
Us?
And then surah Taghabun comes in and مَسْتَقَعْتُمْ
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ مَسْتَقَعْتُمْ As
much as you can muster.
What is implicit when you put both of
these together?
The best you can do.
Allah accepts that as His right.
The best of your efforts, Allah says it's
worthy.
I mean how empowering is that?
You're imperfect, inconsistent too at times.
Sin riddled, mistake riddled, but guilt riddled.
Efforts at relating with Him.
He takes it to be worthy of Himself.
He takes you to be worthy of Himself.
So it's not that this ayah sets an
unrealistic bar that no one can ever achieve
and then the subsequent ayah comes and it
lowers the bar altogether.
So what becomes of this ayah?
Does this become abrogated?
No, we take them together.
And the beauty that it reflects of Allah
and a human being's personal relationship.
Allah says you try your best, that is
worthy of me, that is my right that
you're fulfilling.
وَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنْتُمْ مُسْلِمُونَ And do not
die, don't let death come except you are,
this conduct of Islam is a part of
your personality.
It's a personality trait.
How about we put it that way?
وَأَنْتُمْ مُسْلِمُونَ Except as Islam being your characteristic
trait.
وَأَتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعًۭ And you know what?
All of you come together and hold on
to the rope of Allah.
To the rope of Allah.
What is that rope of Allah?
Allah's ayat extending to you from Him relating
all of you together to Him.
وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا And do not be divided among
yourselves.
وَاذْكُرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ And remember the favor
of Allah on you إِذْ كُنْتُمْ أَعْدَاءً When
you were enemies to one another.
فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ Then He joined your hearts.
See, when you make religion out to be
a religion of haramness I keep falling back
to it, I'm hung up on it.
Necessarily, what that results in is difference on
this, difference on that, difference and there's fine,
differences are bound to happen but then there
is distinctions drawn upon those differences or distinction
too is not a strong enough word completely
separated.
We have nothing to do with each other.
Our masajid are going to be separated.
Our fatawa are going to now be based
on those differences against the iman of the
other.
Personal judgments of another person's fate in the
hereafter.
Individual judgments.
Taking, tafriq takes place.
Ikhtilaf is inevitable.
Tafriq is irreprehensible.
Holding on to the rope of Allah Somebody
is holding on to a different part of
the rope of Allah.
The rope of Allah is huge.
And there is, it is impossible for a
single person or a single group to have
the entirety of the rope.
That's not what is being expected.
That all of you do take up all
of what the rope entails.
We're different people, different individuals with different talents,
with different opportunities, with different problems.
You cannot expect a fruit vendor who is
barely making ends meet and feeding his family.
You can't go and condemn him.
What have you done for the political system
of Islam?
Give him a break.
Give him a break.
You can't go and paint everyone in the
same brush.
You're asking a mother of 5 children or
4 or 3 or 2.
However, the children are a full-time occupation.
You're going and beating down, Oh, but what
have you done for the religion of Allah?
Give her a break.
Give her the part of the rope that
she's holding on to.
Let her.
But the strands of the rope that have
fallen in your hand or that you have
hung on to, that you're obsessed with, literally,
neurotically obsessed with, to just say that this
is all there is to the rope and
every other part of the rope and everyone
else, wherever they are, they're messed up or
they got a lesser part of the rope.
They got, that's not really the rope.
This looks like the rope.
We got the real rope.
That's where the tafriq starts.
Ikhtilaf?
Inevitable.
I got one part, you got the other
part, they got the other part.
But then, judging, personal judgments.
وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا وَاتْقُرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ Remember the
favor of Allah on you إِذْ كُنْتُمْ أَعْدَى
when you were enemies to one another.
One of the miracles of Rasulullah ﷺ.
And this miracle is nothing short of the
miracle of Isa ﷺ's birth.
Again, consistent with the theme of of Surat
Ali Imran.
Humanity was at that stage, at the time
that Maryam ﷺ was engaged in her dedication
and commitment to Allah in that temple, under
the care of Zakariya, humanity needed Isa ﷺ.
And that need of humanity was fulfilled by
the amr of kun of Allah.
Which otherwise we can't imagine what would have
happened.
We can't imagine.
So all of what we see and we
spoke about the regularity, the cause and effect,
the predictability of nature, of reality around us.
Husband, wife get together.
Husband, wife have sexual *.
Wife gets pregnant.
Wife has child.
That's the usual regularity with how things work
and that's necessary.
Not as something within itself but for what
it leads to.
In terms of the benefits that come from
that relationship.
It's fulfilling purposes.
It's fulfilling ends.
It's meaningful in so many different ways.
And it was precisely that meaning of humanity
that was at stake that Isa ﷺ became
necessary.
And so the amr of Allah made it
happen.
Just like that, Rasulullah ﷺ came to Medina
or Yathrib at that time.
The Aus and Khazraj had tore each other
apart.
They were enemies.
They had some sort of semblance of peace
that was coming up.
But it was another desperate attempt to a
superficial attempt to resolve what was inevitably going
to devolve in another battle.
Literally the entire hierarchy, the elder, the elders
of Aus and Khazraj had been wiped out.
It was a very young leadership because all
the elders had been killed.
It was very * for a very long
time.
And it was a very desperate effort at
peace that they were just putting up and
Abdullah ibn Ubayy was about to become the
king for that.
But it wasn't gonna last.
Allah identifies that.
You were enemies.
فألف بين قلوبكم He joined your hearts.
Rasulullah ﷺ, the tawheed that he brought was
so beautiful.
It's sworn enemies.
You can well imagine that within the Aus
are people who had murdered the fathers of
people of Khazraj and vice versa.
Well imagine.
And Quran was able to bring those hearts
together.
Rasulullah ﷺ was able to bring those hearts
together making them willing to die for each
other.
فألف بين قلوبكم This was the social power,
the social effect the beauty of what Quran
engendered.
And what do we have today?
What do we have today?
Before I start being all negative about what
we have today what happened at that point?
It wasn't just the Aus and Khazraj that
you can look at this ayah for.
For in the aftermath of the success of
Rasulullah ﷺ when he became the
uncrowned king of Arabia but he wasn't really
a king, a king-king the way kings
are.
He was a political leader.
That was right around that time that humanity
was Humanity were enemies to each other.
The two of the greatest empires the Persian
and the Roman Empire were at each other's
throats.
Not very dissimilar to Aus and Khazraj Only
dissimilar in the extent that the scale to
which they were literally chopping each other's heads
off was incredible because they're empires fighting not
two tribes.
And they were They were on the brink
of the pit of fire.
Historians talk about this.
Allama Iqbal, rahimahullah, in his reconstruction identifies historian
who is talking about the coming of Rasulullah
ﷺ not identifying him as Rasulullah but identifying
that particular part of human history to be
the darkest hour.
And that civilization could have ended.
It was that bad.
Really, whatever juice there was whatever ethic, morality
there was within the Roman or the Persian
Empire was ineffective.
It wasn't working.
It was a jungle.
It was a jungle.
And for whatever was prevalent humanity as we
know it may not have happened.
It was necessary for survival.
It was necessary for human survival.
It was necessary for human society to continue
its progress that something like this spring from
Arabia.
And Rasulullah ﷺ was precisely that.
That what Islam gave to humanity at that
time at that desperate time literally made enemies
into brothers again.
In becoming that empire that Islam became in
the aftermath of Rasulullah ﷺ in the decade
that followed rescued humanity from suicide.
It was a social suicide.
It was a global suicide that was taking
place.
And the Amr of Allah in the form
of the Quran this time and completed by
not one person but a whole group of
human beings following in the footsteps of that
person rescued humanity.
And that miracle was achieved.
A miracle again that was nothing less than
the miracle of Isa ﷺ's birth.
إِذْ كُنْتُمْ أَعْدَاءٌ When you were enemies to
one another فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ And then he
joined your hearts فَأَصْبَحْتُمْ بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا And thus
with his favor you became brothers وَكُنْتُمْ عَلَى
شَفَى حُفَّرَةٍ مِّنَ النَّارِ And you were on
the brink of the pit of a fire
فَأَنقَذَكُم مِّنْهَا He saved you from it.
كَذَلِكَ يُبَيِّنُوا اللَّهُ لَكُمْ آيَاتِهِ That's how Allah
makes his ayaat clear to you لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ
So that you may find the way.
This is what Allah's ayaat are capable of
doing.
This is what Allah's ayaat can do, should
be doing.
And if they're not doing that for us
we're missing them somewhere.
We're missing the plot somewhere.
وَلْتَكُمْ مِنْكُمْ أُمَّةٌ And let there rise from
you a group of people.
It is incredibly important to note how the
words that are being used in this passage
and how when we take those words from
the same passage how we use them.
The words in this passage are general.
The words in this particular ayah are very
open.
So let any group of people rise from
among you.
It doesn't specify that that group is THE
group.
And that there is only one group like
that that can come out.
يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ This group is going to
be inviting towards good.
وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ And they're going to be advocating
good.
خَيْر, left open.
معروف, left open.
Within its own structure معروف carries the understanding
of عُرف what is known to be good.
وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ And they are prohibiting or
forbidding stopping people from منكر from that which
is bad, evil.
Again, left open.
There is so much which when you go
through the Qur'an which could be categorized
under خير under معروف, under منكر.
So much.
There is so much today that we would
identify as the خير that is necessary for
the society today.
The معروف that is important for society today
that is منكر that is, that should be
on our agendas on our priority list.
That wasn't there before.
So for example, the environmental crisis that wasn't
that wasn't a crisis in the time of
رسول الله ﷺ But will that fall under
the يَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ today?
Is that, will that be can that be
seen, should that be seen as a منكر
that requires genuine attention of the people of
scripture that we can bring something something on
the table that's not already there and help
solve problems that the people without scripture have
not been able to solve.
Is there anything that comes under that category?
The idea being that there is so much
that is منكر and it goes with the
complexity of the world that we're living in.
To make a prophetic claim in this day
and age that this is دي خير that
we advocate this is دي معروف that we
are advocating this is دي منكر that we're
working against and everything else is not خير
enough not معروف enough, that منكر enough that's
messed up.
That is messed up.
We can have our biases and it's completely
natural to have biases.
I will be biased towards a particular category
of خير to a particular category of معروف
to a particular category of منكر completely.
My biases have been evident from day one
for those of you who have been following.
Very clear.
Very clear.
It's insane to imagine that you don't have
biases.
That's dangerous.
I don't have biases, this is the Qur
'an.
Okay.
That's dangerous.
Because when you think you're not coming with
any bias and that you are the voice
of God or the voice of reason or
the voice of science and your understanding is
the understanding then yeah, you're gonna be knocking
people off the منهج as you go.
That's messed up.
That's messed up.
The idea being that there is so much,
so much scope for contribution in the world
today that we're needed for.
That we're desperately needed for.
There's academic contributions.
You will see and there are people in
academia, Jews and Christians who you can cite,
reference straight out, who have explicitly written that
we need the struggle that we have within
the Western University we need a Muslim presence.
We need Muslim voices.
There is something unique that the Muslims have
to offer on account of them being the
people of the Qur'an.
I'm paraphrasing, but something of a similar effect.
That they have, from their tradition that they
have a scholarly tradition that they can bring
something to the table that we desperately need.
There's those contributions to make.
They're not the only contributions to make.
There's so many others.
There's so many others.
But to identify your contributions as the only
contributions take this as a confession of a
spiritual hitman I've done this.
I've done this.
Taken these ayaat and represented them such that
this and only this is the way forward.
Whoever's, we wouldn't say it, but that would
be the implicit spiritual blackmail.
That the only people really doing this is
us.
That this, the ultimate khair, the ultimate ma
'roof, the ultimate munkar.
We would and the ultimate way of doing
that it has to come from the Prophet
and this is how it comes from the
Prophet and go and see who's doing that.
We've described it in a way that it
would only apply to us.
That breeds cults.
That breeds cults.
That breeds not just ikhtilaf.
It breeds afriq.
We can't have that anymore.
We can have differences of opinion.
We can be passionate about those differences.
But when those differences devolve to personal attacks,
personal judgments, judgments of hereafter and throwing
someone completely off to carry the humility that
all I'm doing is one part of the
huge amount of work that is necessary to
be done.
That's what we need.
That's what the Qur'an engenders.
None of us are prophets.
None of us are God.
There is no one khair.
There is no one ma'roof.
There is no one munkar.
But necessarily there is some munkar, there is
some ma'roof, there is some khair.
Where is all of that?
There is some organized effort in this.
Some ummah that you're a part of.
You can do so much more collectively.
There is so much more fitna collectively as
well.
There is so much more that can go
wrong but then of course the degree, the
scale to which your contributions grow with institutions,
with organizations and understanding how those are to
work.
How are they going to work best?
What is going to make them more effective
and efficient?
To struggle to in your own in your
own areas struggling towards that.
Solo warriors, it's a very dangerous place to
be.
Solo.
I've seen people, I'm actively engaged with people,
therapeutically engaged with people who are leading very
meaningful lives but for the most part solo.
And for most of us it's unsustainable.
For most of us it's unsustainable.
They would come around and repeatedly one of
the people who are doing genuine good for
society but they're doing it alone.
But they're doing it alone.
There is so much self-doubt.
They constantly bring this one question up in
their sessions.
I wonder why I made this choice.
I gave up all of what I had
and I thought I could do some good
for humanity or a few people.
Because there are so many challenges, there is
so much opposition.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
As we say that when you go to
serve Pakistan, Pakistan serves you.
That's not just true for Pakistan.
When you go to serve humanity, humanity will
serve you first.
You start doing good for humanity, humanity is
going to do you good in the sense
of putting you through a lot of difficulties.
And you want to do that alone?
Okay, let's see how far you get.
But the recommendation here, وَلْتَكُمْ مِنْكُمْ أُمْنَةٌ Organized.
It's about being, again, shaitaan operates alone.
Not to say that those who are working
alone are shayateen.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
But there is a barakah in an
organized effort.
It's harder.
It's more challenging.
It reminds...
See, there is so much growth that an
individual cannot get unless and until they're with
people.
Some of them might hate them.
Some of them, they won't get along.
Some of them, they would be resentful towards.
There is so much in these dynamics that
your personality needs, your spirituality needs.
And if you don't have that, you're missing
out.
وَلَا تَكُونُكَ الَّذِينَ تَفَرَّقُوا And do not be
of those who got divided.
وَاخْتَلَفُوا مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا جَاءَهُمُ الْبَيِّنَاتِ And they
disagreed even after having received clear ayat.
They may have started off alright, but then
اختلاف turned into تفريخ وَأُولَئِكَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ
For such people, there is a huge punishment.
يَوْمَ تَبْيَضُوا وُجُوهُمُ وَتَسْوَدُوا وُجُوَةٍ A day when
some faces will be bright and some faces
will be dark.
فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ اسْوَدَّتْ وُجُوهُمَا As for those with
darkened faces, أَكَفَرَتُمْ بَعْدَ إِيمَانِكُمْ They're going to
be asked, did you disbelieve after belief?
What holds you together on a meaningful course?
What holds you together when you're doing معروف،
منكر، خير for society?
The people you're with, there's mutual reinforcement.
There's mutual reinforcement.
And your spiritual connection to them but to,
most importantly, Allah.
There's a lot of people who would go
out in the field and talk about meaning
in life.
Okay, I'm going to do something good for
society.
And exclude the importance of that personal spirituality.
Exclude the importance of what ritual does, meaningful
rituals do for that personal spirituality.
And how that social good intent becomes social
evil before you know it.
That person who went out to do good
for society at some point because that consistent
meaningful engagement with Allah, in salah, in scripture,
wasn't taking place.
Before you know it, your urge to dominate
or for the attainment of pleasure, accumulation of
wealth for the sake of it, at some
point that became the ultimate end.
It became the practical result of all efforts.
Everything else to a side.
Everyone starts off their career looking to serve
humanity.
Or at least we used to.
It's getting worse and worse now.
But that's what it is.
فذوقوا العذاب بما كنتم تكفرون So, أكفرتم بعد
إيمانكم Did you disbelieve after belief?
We can't take our iman for granted.
وأما الذين بيضط وجوههم As for those whose
faces will be bright ففي رحمة الله They
are going to be in the mercy of
Allah من فيها خالدون They will live therein
forever.
تِلْكَ آيَاتُ اللَّهِ These are the ayat of
Allah.
نَثْلُوهَا عَلَيْكَ بِالْحَقِّ That we're reciting to you
in truth.
It's with consequence.
These have to be taken seriously.
Again, we avoid individual judgments.
We avoid group judgments even completely.
Not our place at all.
But we do reflect to put ourselves within
that possibility.
Does this not apply to anyone at all?
It has to apply to someone.
Is it possible that I might fall in
that group?
I just want to be clear there.
وَمَا اللَّهُ يُرِيدُ ظُلْمًا لِّلْعَالَمِينَ Allah intends no
injustice for people.
وَلِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ And
to Allah alone belongs what is in the
heavens and the earth.
وَإِلَى اللَّهِ تُرْجَعُ الْأُمُورِ And to Allah all
matters will be returned.
أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ
أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ You are the best community raised
for humanity.
That can be embarrassing translated.
كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ Raised for humanity.
تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ Promoting good.
وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ And forbidding evil.
وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ Believing in Allah.
I mean, we have examples from our glorious
past.
Talk about how we've done all of that.
And how we've contributed to humanity.
And the good that has emanated from our
forefathers.
The evil that they have been able to
that they successfully averted.
But do we have anything anything to show
for today?
In this day and age?
Glimmers here and there.
Flashes here and there.
Something substantial?
وَلَوْ أَمَنَ أَهْلُ الْكِتَابِ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَّهُمْ Had
the people of the book believed it would
have been better for them.
منهم المؤمنون Some of them are believers.
وَأَكْثَرُهُمْ الْفَاسِقُونَ But most of them are defiantly
disobedient.
Again, when scripture loses its social value there
are still individuals who bring the best or
are the best representation of that scripture.
Despite how the scripture is popularly carried or
interpreted.
Despite being neutralized for the the good that
it can bring.
Despite all of those, there are exceptions small
factions perhaps that have that are still carrying
it.
They're rare, they're difficult to find but they're
there nevertheless and the Qur'an acknowledges them
in its own at the time of its
own revelation.
But despite those exceptions despite those مؤمنون that
are there in the people of the book
because the predominant trend is that of فسق
The Qur'anic message is called war.
Rasulullah ﷺ is necessitated.
A revival is important.
لَن يَضُرُّوكُمْ إِلَّا أَذَى They will never harm
you except a little.
مَن يُقَاتِلُكُمْ And if they fight against you
يُوَلُّوكُمُ الْأَدْبَار They will turn their backs on
you تُمَلَا يُنصَرُون Running away and they will
not be helped.
They will not attain any help.
They're so impotent socially as human beings that
even if they take a stand against you
they have no strength to persist, to persevere.
This sort of a degenerate religiosity has taken
away from them some very basic human values
that of bravery, that of steadfastness that you
will probably find in mushrikeen in people who
don't have scripture they'll have some of those
values for which they will be more worthy
contenders but when a people of scripture goes
bad it's a sickening how
bad or how much they forsake with respect
to those values ثُرْبَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ الْذِلَّةُ أَيْنَ مَا
ثُقَفُوا Thrust on them is humiliation wherever they
go wherever they may be they're a humiliated
bunch إِلَّا بِحَبْلٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَحَبْلٍ مِّنَ النَّاسِ
except through some support that they have from
Allah Allah is holding them up that really
it's a wonder that they're they're surviving in
any way or that they're surviving on support,
on life support from other people from other
stronger segments of humanity that's how despicable
it becomes and we are very inclined to
read these ayat and talk about how they're
talking about a Jewish people or all the
Jews fair enough what about us as Muslims
are we any less humiliated are we any
less dependent on grace Allah's grace or
on life support on other stronger
countries utterly dependent utterly dependent Allah's
intent or one of the aspects of His
Riduliya is for human beings as individuals and
then of course as communities to develop this
self-sufficiency that self-sufficiency is never absolute
that there is no interdependence that there is
no relationships with other people nevertheless there is
it should be in some degree in some
istighna that when you relate with others then
you are in a position to put some
terms on the table that you can tell
that it is an individual related that it
is somebody with dignity, with integrity, with values
coming on their terms وَبَأُوا بِالْغَضَبِ مِنَ اللَّهِ
and they drew on themselves the wrath of
Allah وَضُرِبَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ الْمَسْكَرَ and thrust on them
is misery, dependency ذَلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ كَانُوا يَكْفُرُونَ بِآيَاتِ
اللَّهِ that is because they continue to reject
the ayaat of Allah وَيَقْتُلُونَ الْأَنبِيَاءَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ
and kill the prophets without right what would
be the manifestation of killing prophets for the
Ummah of Islam, for the Muslims after Rasool
Allah because obviously there are no prophets after
Rasool Allah anyone who stands for the cause
looking to revive the message of scripture or
the effectiveness of scripture or what tawheed should
look like and the opposition that is going
to be faced the struggle that is going
to be necessitated and a lot of times
culminating in the person being killed off ذَلِكَ
بِمَا أَصَوْا that is because they disobey why
do they have to reject the ayaat of
Allah holding on to their version of religiosity
with such vigor and zeal that even if
it means sacrificing the ayaat of Allah they
will give that sacrifice twisted logic protect that
belligerent certainty at all costs even if it
is at the cost of your own source
ذَلِكَ بِمَا أَصَوْا that is because they disobeyed
وَكَانُوا يَعْتَدُونَ and continued exceeding limits لَيْسُوا السَّوَّاء
yet all of them are not the same
cannot paint all of them in the same
brush مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ أُمَّةٌ قَائِمَةٌ يَتْلُونَ آيَاتِ
اللَّهِ أَنَا أَنَي there are some people from
among the people of the book who stand
all night reciting from Allah's revelation وَهُمْ يَسْجُدُونَ
and they fall in prostration so just like
even as humiliating as destitute as the situation
was at the time of the revelation of
these ayaats for the people of the book
the Jews and the Christians and as we're
talking about these ayaats and reflecting over them
to whatever we're worth and we look at
the destitution and humiliation of the people of
the Quran لا يسوء سوا none that's not
the entire picture there are beautiful exceptions and
it is because of those beautiful successes the
beautiful exceptions that we're here to begin with
to be able to talk about we learn
from people before us an entire tradition of
people and then there are so many others
that we don't know who are doing wonderful
work that we may not have had the
opportunity to learn from or benefit from or
were simply too caught up to do that
there are definitely some very amazing people and
they belong to all kinds of movements and
denominations and organizations and sects they're all there
they manifest this humility before Allah they manifest
this commitment to Allah's ayaats they may be
obscure they may not be famous they may
not be on YouTube or maybe some of
them are وهم يسجدون يؤمنون بالله واليوم الآخر
they believe in Allah in the last day
ويأمرون بالمعروف and they promote good وينهون عن
المنكر and they forbid منكر ويسارعون في الخيرات
and they're competing with each other in good
despite everything they continue to do good as
much as they can وَأُولَٰئِكَ مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ and
they are, these people are righteous they are
from the ranks of the righteous وَمَا يَفْعَلُوا
مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَلَيْنْ يُقْفَعُوا and whatever good they
do the reward is not going to be
denied to them وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ بِالْمُتَّقِينَ Allah is
knowledge Allah knows the people of taqwa He's
not going to let their efforts go to
waste إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَّرُوا definitely those who refuse
to believe لَن تُغْنِئَنْهُمْ أَمْوَالُهُمْ وَلَا أَوْلَادُهُمْ مِنَ
اللَّهِ شَيْئًا their properties and their children will
be of no use to them against Allah
again, that is what their entire lives are
revolving around the maximum outside of themselves that
they could possibly go is their children and
their properties those were their idols وَأُولَٰئِكَ أَوْصْحَابُ
النَّارِ and those are the companions of the
fire هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ they will live in
it forever مَثَلُ مَا يُنفِقُونَ فِي هَذِهِ الْحَيَاةِ
الدُّنْيَا كَمَثَلِ رِيحٍ فِيهَا سِرٌ example of what
they spend in the life of this world
is like a freezing wind أَصْعَبَتْ حَرْثَ قَوْمٍ
وَلَمُوا أَنْتُوا سَوْمِجْ smites the harvest of those
who oppress themselves those who were unjust those
who did not live up to their own
potential the goodness that they were endowed with
they did not live up to it and
so whatever they did spend on whatever they
spent freezing wind no good فَأَهْلَكَتْ that destroys
it وَمَا ظَلَمَهُمُ اللَّهُ Allah was not unjust
to them Allah did not oppress them وَلَكِنْ
أَنفُسَهُمْ يَظْلِمُونَ rather they sold themselves cheap they
oppressed themselves they were unjust to themselves as
far as the potential was concerned the potential
was there Allah will not be scapegoated Allah
refuses to fall for these these demonic strategies
I don't know what his name is خُدَا
فَرَيْبِي or خُد فَرَيْبِي he got rid of
the deed he made the excuse of fate
that Allah did it Allah didn't want us
to it's just the way things were there
was no other choice giving that choice is
the one thing that Allah prides himself over
and honors human beings with and having done
that and having given that but you blame
destiny you blame God and so our blame
games we don't let God go Shaytan is
a scapegoat Allah is a scapegoat the others
the other sects the other denominations other religions
Jews, Americans their scapegoating never ends bunch of
victims bunch of self-victimizing powerless destitute humiliated
utterly dependent whining babies all of these the
words that I use there's so much else
that can so many other words that can
be used in that place not so appropriate
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا you who have believed
لا تَتَخِذُوا بِطَانَةً مِن دُونِكُمْ do not take
them as intimate friends from other than each
other in this in this context with this
picture being painted your commitments your affiliations with
those who harbor for the most part this
sort of an attitude you're gonna have to
make choices you're gonna have to make very
hard choices لا يَأْلُونَكُمْ خَبَالًا they will spare
no effort to ruin you we'll be in
the name of good وَدُّوا مَا عَنِدْتُمْ they
desire that you be in distress قَدْ بَدَتِ
الْبَغْضَاءُ مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ their hatred is obvious from
what they say وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَكُ and
what their hearts conceal is worse قَدْ بَيِّنَّا
لَكُمُ الْآيَاتُ we have made these ayaat clear
for you إِن كُنْتُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ if you are
at all reasonable you're gonna have to make
these discernments for yourself you can't paint them
all with the same brush but those who
are showing the obvious signs that you're fraternizing
with them whatever good that you're capable of
doing they might just take that away from
you there is a cost for associating with
them you're gonna be infected with whatever it
is that they're carrying although you don't wanna
make personal judgments about their akhira at all
but you do wanna make personal judgments about
your own akhira not definitive ones but definitely
enough to take precautions هَأَنْفُمُ لَا يُحِبُّونَهُمْ here
you are loving them وَلَا يُحِبُّونَكُمْ they don't
love you وَيُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْكِتَابِ كُلِّهِ you believe in
the book all of it وَإِذَا لَقُوكُمْ قَالُوا
أَمَنَّا they say when they meet you we
also believe but they don't they have outrightly
rejected a portion so they have accepted a
portion you accept that portion too so if
there's good there that's your good as much
your legacy and you shouldn't shy away from
owning up to it learning from it but
then there has to be something that is
to be said about the good in your
scripture the ayats that you profess what about
that وَإِذَا خَلَوْا and when they are alone
أَضُّوا عَلَيْكُمُ الْأَنَامِلَ مِنَ الْغَيْظِ and they bite
their fingertips out of rage against you قُلْ
مُوتُوا بِغَيْظِكُمْ they perish in your rage إِنَّ
اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ بِذَاتِ سُدُورِ Allah is fully aware
of what is concealed of what is unconscious
إِن تَمْسَسْكُمْ حَسَنَةٌ if something good befalls you
تَسُؤْهُمْ it grieves them وَإِن تُصِبْكُمْ سَجِئَتُمْ but
if a misfortune strikes you يَفْرَحُوا بِهَا they
rejoice at it وَإِن تَصْبِرُوا وَتَتَّقُوا but if
you persevere and have Taqwa لَا يَضُرُّكُمْ كَيْدُهُمْ
شَيْئًا their designs will not harm you one
bit إِنَّ اللَّهَ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ مُحِيطٌ without a
doubt Allah encompasses all of what they do
وَإِذْ غَدَوْتَ مِنْ أَهْلِكَ and when you left
your residence in the early hours of the
day so this is now a commentary on
the battle of Uhud when Uhud was to
take place again it's in the aftermath of
Badr Badr has happened Rasulullah ﷺ and the
Sahaba رضي الله تعالى عنهم had a resounding
victory miraculous it was unprecedented how could a
small branch of desert Arabs who really did
not have much resources as far as the
Quraish were concerned they were renegades that they're
runaway slaves and the part of their society
that they wouldn't look at seriously how could
they rise up to the level of even
standing in front of them as contenders and
not only did they do that they defeated
them humiliated them and so Um Uhud the
Quraish are riled up they're they want revenge
the enough is enough this is a matter
of honor they're they have to there's a
lot of face-saving that needs to be
done so they're coming in with three thousand
strong and Rasulullah ﷺ and the Sahaba are
there's a consultation going on Rasulullah ﷺ wants
to remain within the city and defend Abdullah
bin Ubayy is of the same opinion but
there's a group from among the Sahaba especially
those who weren't part of Badr we're like
no no no no we want to go
out there and face them we want to
go all out as far as Rasulullah ﷺ
own strategic opinion was concerned this was against
him but then he takes the group's opinion
very seriously overrides his own and decides let's
go and when he's made that decision some
of those Sahaba are like okay did we
just make him change his mind and he
wanted to do something else and he's the
Rasulullah maybe we should ask him to reconsider
and you know tell him that it's okay
whatever he wanted to do we'll do that
Rasulullah is like no now the decision has
been made whatever mine was now the the
consensus your opinion was approved I may have
different ideas but none of that is important
anymore now we've made a decision now we
go all out now there's no room for
putting the same thing back on the table
because indecisiveness is going to destroy us more
than anything else Abdullah bin Ubaid is like
what the * you're listening to these babies
and not me I'm not playing now who's
acting like a baby he's like I'm not
going so he takes 300 of his people
and now the army that was 1000 is
short by 300 there's two other groups two
other small tribe sub-tribes of the Ansar
who are also considering should we go should
we not go is this a good idea
and they do end up eventually going we
know the story Rasulullah ﷺ was pretty firm
especially with the group of archers that he
positioned in a particular place you are not
going to move even if you see them
eating or even if you see vultures eating
off of our dead bodies stay put when
the Muslims are victorious there is a disagreement
in these 50 archers around 50 give or
take a few they're like we're not supposed
to move like no no no no Rasulullah
ﷺ said if there's defeat don't move they
take the example very literally there's a difference
of opinion and that's perfectly fine difference of
opinion in reading a text or in this
case what Rasulullah ﷺ said is understandable but
the leader he was of the opinion no
we stay put that was what was important
35 of them still left around about a
small portion 15 or so they remained Khalid
bin Walid sees the opening Khalid bin Walid
he attacks and Badr is avenged there is
panic there is frenzy the Muslims are they
have no idea what just happened Rasulullah ﷺ
loses a tooth or two I'm not mistaken
bleeds profusely loses consciousness rumors go around that
he's passed away he's been martyred the Sahaba
are dumbstruck shocked some of them drop their
arms what's the point now others think okay
it's over let's run away no point and
then there was Musab bin Umair وَإِذْ غَدَوْتَ
مِنْ أَهْلِكَ and when you left your residence
in the early hours of the day تُبَوِّئُوا
الْمُؤْمِنِينَ مَقَاعِدًا لِلْقِتَالِ you posted the believers at
the battle stations وَاللَّهُ السَّمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ Allah was
ever listening ever allowing Allah is part of
that battle He's seeing everything that you're doing
hearing everything that you're doing إِذْ هَمَّتْ طَائِفَتَانِ
مِنْكُمْ أَنْ تَفْشَلَ when two groups among you
who were about to lose courage they were
gonna respond they weren't gonna come وَاللَّهُ وَلِيهُمْ
and Allah was their protector Allah was their
wali see you would say that this is
these were the hours Allah says no no
no no I am their wali don't you
dare don't you dare if they were harboring
any doubts if they were considering to do
something that the hypocrites did do that consideration
is perfectly human that doubt that reconsideration that
harboring of the fear perfectly normal no problem
with that Allah was their wali throughout that
and the wilayah came through despite the fear
they showed the bravery that's what real bravery
is and they came وَعَلَى اللَّهِ فَلْيَتَوَكَّلِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ
and on Allah let the believers put their
trust what is this representing that as far
as those two groups were concerned the Banu
Haritha and Banu Salma for them they're weighing
out options okay 300 we're 1000 they're 3000
plus minus 300 Abdullah bin Ubaid people just
ran out on us is it the wisest
idea to go out now Rasulullah wanted to
fight from within Medina he must have had
he's the prophet of Allah he's the smartest
person from among us he was probably right
this doesn't seem right odds don't seem to
every reason a doubt but then why would
you go وَعَلَى اللَّهِ فَلْيَتَوَكَّلِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَعَلَى اللَّهِ
فَلْيَتَوَكَّلِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ they're like no no no توكل
الله let's go let's go Rasulullah ﷺ is
going what is the manifestation of توكل in
that state follow him وَلَقَدْ نَصَرَكُمُ اللَّهُ بِبَدْرٍ
Allah has already helped you at Badr وَأَنْتُمْ
أَذِلَّا when you were weak you didn't have
a lot of resources you were for all
practical purposes sitting ducks فَاتَّقُوا اللَّهُ so observe
the Taqwa of Allah لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ that you
may be grateful إِذْ تَقُولُ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ when you
told the believers يا رسول الله أَلَيْنْ يَكْفِيَكُمْ
would it not be enough for you أَنْ
يُمِدَّكُمْ رَبُّكُمْ that your Rabb helps you بِثَلَاثَةِ
آلَافٍ مِّنَ الْمَلَائِكَةِ with three thousand angels منزلين
specially sent down بَلَا of course إِنْ تَسْبِرُوا
وَتَتَّقُوا if you patiently persevere and have Taqwa
angelic help is conditional on you putting in
your best you putting in your best in
terms of consistent effort you putting in your
best in taking all the precautions that you
can وَإِن تَسْبِرُوا وَتَتَّقُوا وَيَأْتُوكُم مِّن فَوْرِهِمْ هَذَا
and your enemies attack you thus يُمْدِدُكُمْ رَبُّكُمْ
your Rabb will help you بِخَمْسَةِ آلَافٍ مِّنَ
الْمَلَائِكَةِ مُسَوِّمِين with five thousand angels designated marked
out especially for that purpose وَمَا جَعَلَهُ اللَّهُ
إِلَّا بُشْرَالَكُمْ Allah made it not but as
a sign of good news for you وَلِتَطْمَئِنَّ
خُلُوبُكُمْ بِهِ so that your hearts are put
to ease this is something you can relate
with this is something that you can compute
this is something you can okay five thousand
three thousand angelic help there is something that
you understand it is a language that will
encourage you and so it is by all
means employed it is by all means put
in front of you as such and literally
carried out but more abstract but important as
far as Iman is concerned to understand وَمَا
النَّصْرُ إِلَّا مِنْ عَنْدِ اللَّهِ that help and
victory is not except from Allah there is
no victory except from Allah whether it's the
three thousand angels or the five thousand angels
or one thousand soldiers or swords and all
of the resources all important in their own
place but with all of these and through
all of these is the strength and help
of Allah العزيز الحكيم the ever mighty the
ever wise لِيَقْطَعَ طَرَفًا مِنَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا that
he may cut down a section of the
disbelievers أو يَقْبِطَهُمْ or overpower them فَيَنْقَلِبُوا خَائِبِينَ
and they return frustrated and now the Allah's
feedback after the battle starts what went wrong
he starts with رسول الله صلى الله عليه
وسلم he is the most beloved he is
the most blessed and so he is the
most responsible so before the bigger atrocities or
the bigger mistakes errors wrongs that were done
before they're highlighted this one takes priority because
it comes from رسول الله صلى الله عليه
وسلم so it was in the in that
time when he was injured رسول الله صلى
الله عليه وسلم said كيف يهدي الله قوم
خذب وجه النبي لهم بالدم how can Allah
ever guide a people who have covered their
prophet's face with blood how can these people
be guided and it's it's the sort of
thing you would say in the midst of
the battlefield in the the frenzy and chaos
that's taking place you've lost a lot of
blood he's the بوت all unconscious and so
if there is a moment a moment of
weakness it's understandable for most of us for
all of us except him he's just at
that status and so Allah says لَيْسَ لَكَ
مِنَ الْأَمْرِ شَيْءٍ the decision is not yours
أَوْ يَتُوبَ عَلَيْهِمَا وَيُعَذِّبَهُمْ if Allah wants to
accept them if Allah wants to turn towards
them or punish them فَإِنَّهُمْ ظَالِمُونَ they are
they were oppressors they were unjust but the
decision is not yours to even in that
place the possibility maintain a possibility of goodness
from an opposition maybe not now but at
a later time to maintain that to maintain
that as an understanding of how they're Allah's
people and if Allah wants to turn to
them he very well can you don't contain
him you don't وَلِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا
فِي الَّتُوبِ Allah alone belongs the heavens whatever
is in the heavens and whatever is in
the earth يَغْفِرُ لِمَن يَشَىٰ he forgives whoever
he wants وَيُعَذِّبُ مَن يَشَىٰ and he punishes
whoever he wants وَاللَّهُ غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ and Allah
is extremely forgiving and ever merciful so the
one individual that you can hold responsible for
that chaos the first tragedy that the Muslims
experienced in Medina the one person if you
were to single out out of all the
Quraish who did this who was responsible for
whatever the Muslims went through Khalid bin Walid
it was his strategy it was his he
was the leader of the cavalry it was
his sense he was able to see that
opening he had his wits about him and
he pulled it off who would have thought
who would have thought because it was in
that frenzy that Mus'ab Hamza so many
others perhaps even Jalayb 70 lost their lives
martyred Medina was in chaos shock how could
this happen after Badr Rasulullah was there he
almost died Khalid bin Walid was responsible Allah
brings him back Allah accepts him he becomes
Saifullah how does that work O you
who have believed do not devour double and
multiply and the question arises why in the
world is we're talking about Uhud there's commentary
on Uhud going on Rasulullah ﷺ is being
you know there's a sentence that he uttered
in that frenzy in that chaos in that
frustration and Allah just pointed that out and
he's why where does Riba come from all
of a sudden we read into it and
we like we get to see that the
analogy that Rasulullah ﷺ gives that or actually
it was in Baqarah it was in Baqarah
the ayah that we read a couple of
days ago that it is an announcement Riba
is an announcement of war against Allah and
His Messenger so if what the Quraysh did
at Uhud them being the relatives of Rasulullah
ﷺ how could they I mean who was
who was that person how could he strike
Rasulullah ﷺ how can you muster that that
gall that audacity that evil how vile do
you have to be to pick up arms
against Rasulullah ﷺ after all he's done for
you is sacrificed pretty much everything he has
and so Allah flips this in there that
your engagement in Riba is no different it
is an announcement of war against Allah and
His Messenger so believe it or not you're
part of that army of Abu Sufyan if
you're implicit in this even the further ahead
that we are in that army the more
power the more authority we have or the
more potential we have the further ahead we
are لا تأكلوا الربا أضعاف مضاعف do not
devour ربا doubled and multiplied واتقوا الله and
observe the Taqwa والله عليكم تفلحون so that
perhaps you may succeed واتقوا واتقوا النار and
save yourself from the fire التي أعدت للكافرين
it starts with يَا يُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا it
starts with يَا يُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا and culminates
with beware of that fire save yourselves from
that fire your claim to Iman is not
enough there's something that needs to be done
if you've been prepared for disbelievers you'll be
bunched up with them وَأَطِعُوا اللَّهَ وَالرَّسُولَ and
obey Allah and His Messenger obey Allah and
the Messenger لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ so that you are
perhaps you may be treated with mercy وَثَارِعُوا
إِلَى مَغْفِرَةٍ مِن رَبِّكُمْ and race to attain
the forgiveness from your Rabb وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا السَّمَاوَاتُ
وَالْأَرْضُ and a paradise as expansive as the
heavens and the earth وَعِدَّتْ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ prepared for
the people of Taqwa الَّذِينَ يُنْفِقُونَ who are
these people the people who spend فِي السَّرَّاءِ
وَالضَّرَّاءِ in prosperity and adversity وَالْكَعْضِمِينَ الْغَيْزِ and
they contain their anger they suppress their anger
that when they're taking a stand for Allah
it is not emotional reaction because when it
is an emotional reaction then you're not going
to be able to contain it it is
going to be excessive it is going to
be excessive it's not that you're not going
to experience anger anger is but natural كَعْضِمِينَ
الْغَيْزِ contain that anger contain that anger وَالْعَافِينَ
عَنِ النَّاسِ and their predominant predisposition is to
be forgiving towards people وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنِينَ and
Allah loves the people of Ihsan this is
the status of excellence of Ihsan this is
the beautiful conduct that is being manifested that
no one no one can identify Rasulullah ﷺ
and Sahaba's efforts in their seerah to be
an act of resentment reactionary angry people and
a mob a suppressed group from Makkah that
because of the atrocities that were hurled against
them they could not stay silent and they
had to retaliate against their oppressors you can't
say that about Rasulullah ﷺ and the Sahaba
the way they carried themselves the effort the
opportunities that they extended towards the people of
Quraish for relationship for genuine ties all of
Makkah is an evidence for that even when
war breaks out the conduct, the values that
are upheld in that in the state of
war they testify to how this was not
a reactionary movement of resentful mob of a
resentful oppressed mob why?
because they have gone through that process as
individuals and as a group of really getting
to that or at least the people who
are in charge are at that place of
ihsan they're at that place of ihsan they
manifest these they experience anger but they're able
to ensure that their actions are not dictated
by anger those who even when they commit
an act of fahisha they're not sinless people
not pure never sin the moment they entered
Islam, Jahiliyyah is left behind even when they
do it's a given that they will or
they sell themselves cheap in any way they
don't live up to their goodness inside the
potential that they have they do ghulm against
themselves it's a given that they will it
doesn't even say if they commit it says
when they commit that's going to happen these
are people of ihsan we're talking about we're
not people of ihsan but when we look
back at our own selves reflect individually do
we identify our sepahs our fahisha our ghulm
against ourselves they do do they remember Allah
as that happens when it inevitably happens and
so they seek forgiveness for their dhunooq for
their sins who can forgive sins except Allah
and they do not intentionally persist in what
they did knowingly keep at it, keep at
it it's not bad there's nothing wrong with
this they're persistently trying to resolve to
refrain to repair to improve these
are the people their reward is forgiveness from
their Rabb what an excellent award
for the people who constantly work they're laborers
they're people of action proactive people there have
passed many examples before you so travel through
the earth and see for yourself what was
the end of those who denied this is
a clear declaration for humanity and a guidance
and admonition for the people of taqwa and
do not weaken nor grieve and you will
be victorious when do you see when does
a leader or a commander say these things
when the signs of this weakening or grieving
are apparent they were after Uhud looking within
themselves and identifying their weaknesses and they were
dwindling in their resolve and they were afflicted
with huzzah grief it was apparent they were
crying about it so this is not a
command that don't you dare be sad how
dare you be sad that's not how it
is this is the way you would encourage
don't worry about it when you tell someone
don't worry about it you're not forbidding them
from worrying about it and that's this crooked
lens with which we look at the Quran
and how Allah talks to us that when
he's being encouraging when he's motivating it's looked
at as a command the huzzah is apparent
the books of seerah are filled with how
the sahaba were mourning the loss where when
Hamza was martyred Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam went
as far as saying that there is Hamza
doesn't even have anyone to cry for him
and there are others wailing for their martyrs
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam the closeness that he
had with Hamza that he doesn't even have
anyone to cry for him So when these
exhortations these motivations they come in they can't
be inferred as commandments no grief no sadness
no fear that's sign of no iman relax
so do not weaken do not be sad
don't grieve and you will be victorious you
will prevail provided you really are believers If
you have faced an injury then a similar
injury has also been received by those people
before but that has happened hasn't it so
yes Uhud happened it's tragic but do not
get so sucked up into it that you
forget the bigger picture this was a battle
the war is not over and you you've
drawn first blood in the first battle one
all pick yourselves up pick yourselves up and
it was an incredible injury I mean the
70 sahaba 70 this is Rasulullah ﷺ worked
on each and every one of them individually
for his sin Mecca all this time in
Medina for the most part of these this
decade decade and a half 70 wasn't even
the total number of believers the total number
was much less than that for most of
Mecca most of Mecca and to lose 70
and of the Musab the one person responsible
for Medina being home for Rasulullah ﷺ and
sahaba one person Hamza Rasulullah ﷺ has at
least three relationships with him it's not just
uncle nephew he's they were nursed by the
same wet nurse they were nursed their milk
mom is the same so they're brothers they're
milky brothers they're cousins he's his uncle from
his dad's side he's Abdullah's brother but he's
his cousin from Amina's side there's at least
three relationships that Rasulullah ﷺ and Hamza have
they're pretty much the same age they've grown
up together the relief the happiness of Rasulullah
ﷺ when Hamza became Muslim the strength that
that gave the believers this is no small
Qarh Allah says look at the bigger picture
such are the days we all commit among
the people life is a process it's a
journey it's a marathon and there's gonna be
ups yes but there's gonna be a lot
of downs too in every way this is
you were promised this the fruits of your
labor you see them getting lost in front
of your very eyes so Allah really sees
who has believed your strength of faith is
being tested here you come back from this
or when you're down you stay down so
that he takes martyrs from among you people
who with their lives are bearing witness to
la ilaha illallah with their sacrifice their level
of infaq fee sabeelillah went to the point
of life itself they've given their testimony
Allah does not like the oppressors do not
take this cross section of history or this
one incident to infer that oh Allah likes
the Quraish Allah's on their side no the
journey it's a process and there's there's laws
that Allah has put in place and strategies
and how they work and the sword that
it cuts and there's not going to be
exceptions to that even if it is a
prophet even if it is a Muslim arm
you have to take discipline seriously you have
to take strategy seriously you have to put
in your best what it is material conditions
are regarded very significantly by Allah that's how
it's going to be from now Allah so
Allah may purge the believers and he will
annihilate the disbelievers you think you'll just enter
paradise and Allah has not even seen which
of you are ready to struggle who are
who struggle in his cause were actually struggling
not just ready actually struggling in his cause
they've struggled in his cause and he knows
the steadfast ones you're going to find out
who's made of what who's ready to do
what and you used to desire death martyrdom
was an aspiration for you before you'd seen
it and now you've seen it and you
have very own eyes we're on the 15th
Ruku the commentary on the battle of Uhud
is still going on the particular incident that
took place with Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wasalam falling
unconscious and rumor going around that he has
been martyred and the effect that it had
on the the best group of mu'mineen that's
those are the people around Rasulullah salallahu alayhi
wasalam it is their faltering that is being
exemplified to us as to how much of
a process Iman is as to how much
of a process how much of a journey
this is and how all of this faltering
is that's those perfect imperfections that you have
to expect negotiate come to terms with and
struggle to overcome an utter denial from the
get go that they're never there that they
shouldn't be there from day one it's ridiculous
doesn't make sense it is something that you
learn on the job and they're on the
job and they're responding in so many different
ways that this process of purification where religiosity
spirituality it is it becomes that source of
goodness and it is purified of the very
strong potential for injustice because it is a
source of strength and a source of power
there is power in spirituality there is power
in religiosity individual as well as social and
wherever there is power there is a possibility
of exploitation so this purification of the community
that is taking place that the community is
open to because the community is open to
the ayats of Allah and the community is
not *-bent on its certainty it's not
rigid in what it's holding on to it
is open to reformation it is open to
criticism it is open to knowledge it is
open to improvement for all of these reasons
and so there is a continuous growth that
you see in this community and so in
this particular incident Rasulullah the possibility of exalting
a prophet to far beyond what Allah would
have you exalt him to that Rasulullah see
part of the process of connecting people to
Allah especially for the prophet but for anyone
who is looking to help connect people to
Allah is that they end up connecting to
you to end up connecting with Rasulullah ﷺ
is mandatory it is necessary but then to
understand that that connection is for the connection
with Allah it is a necessary connection but
it cannot be an end in and of
itself to the exclusion of connecting with Allah
part of the greatness of Rasulullah ﷺ one
of his immediate concerns and tasks is that
he does connect people to himself and the
respect that they have to show him and
the love that they have to show him
all of what they should do but that
they are inspired to do and that they
do from the bottom of their hearts and
like no other person is loved Rasulullah ﷺ
is loved now there is cultish potential right
there to cleanse the community of that to
make sure that it remains a community and
not a cult the leader of the community
has to prepare them such that they can
survive without him that they can live without
him that they are independent of him that
when they have to say goodbye then they
are strong enough to stand on their own
they don't need him to water them to
to hold them up they don't have to
be propped against him his legacy suffices his
teachings suffice his presence is no longer necessary
any parent who is unable to cut the
umbilical cord for their children such that they
are never able to live without them that
there is this over dependency any teacher whose
students cannot perform or function without the teacher
any mentor any therapist you name it any
position in which you're helping you're mentoring you're
empowering if you fail to empower and rather
than empowering you increase the dependency you enable
the dependency although there is a stage in
which there will be utter dependency the umbilical
cord will be necessary but if there is
if development is halted in that stage it's
a serious problem and so one of the
greatest achievements of Rasulullah ﷺ is that he
was able to raise a community that was
able to function not just function but thrive
and continue his legacy after they didn't have
the privilege of his physical presence Rasulullah ﷺ
was able to and this is highlighted towards
the end of Surah Fatah the analogy of
the gardener looking at his at what he's
been able to do the farmer the garden
the plants that required constant attention constant nurturing
constant support now they're able to stand on
their own and they're bearing fruit and you
can just look from a distance and be
proud and be pleased at what they're doing
and how strong they are and this incident
in Uhud was essential in teaching the Sahaba
giving them sort of a trailer what they
thought was the real experience only to find
out ok it was just a it was
just a rumor but they such is the
personality of Rasulullah ﷺ it was necessary that
they had the closest experience to the real
thing to be prepared for when the real
thing was going to happen and this is
the test that is your emotional connection as
necessary as that is in a relationship there
comes a stage where it should be more
of a spiritual connection even if the emotional
presence or what emotional what the presence of
an individual does for the emotional provision or
the emotional support of an individual when that's
no longer available that they're able to do
that for how strong the spiritual connection that
ends up being so وَمَا مُحَمَّدٌ إِلَّا الرَّسُولُ
and Muhammad is no more than a messenger
ﷺ قَدْ خَلَطْ مِنْ قَبْلِهِ الرُّسُلُ there have
been messengers before him فَإِمَّا آتَ وَقُتِلَ so
if he passes away or he's killed أَنْ
قَلَبْتُمْ عَلَىٰ عَقَابِكُمْ are you going to turn
back on your heels وَمَنْ يَنْقَلِبْ عَلَىٰ عَقِبَيْهِ
and whoever turns back on his heels فَلَنْ
يَضُرُوا اللَّهَ شَيْئًا he's not doing Allah any
harm if that's what you want to do
then the sternness highlighting the importance of achieving
this stage in the relationship the relationship with
Allah and the relationship with Rasulullah ﷺ and
as it is said that when the rumor
went about these were the words that Mus
'ab bin Umair was repeating to motivate himself
to continue going he was distraught you can
imagine the grief of Mus'ab that he
has to say these words out loud to
make sure that he keeps going and he
did keep going until he fell to the
swords or the arrows or whatever he kept
going and his words were eternalized picked up
by Allah وَسَيَجِزِ اللَّهُ الشَّاكِرِينَ Allah will reward
the grateful ones Abu Bakr رضي الله تعالى
عنه standing up and reciting these ayat at
the time of the passing away of Rasulullah
ﷺ because that was another time that that
became necessary Muhammad ﷺ cannot be deity cannot
be deity if anyone deserved it it was
him but no one deserves it وَمَا كَانَ
لِنَفْسِنَ and it is not for an individual
أن تَمُوتَ that they pass away إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ
اللَّهِ except with the permission of Allah the
greatest protection for your life is your death
كِتَابًا مُؤَجَّلًا as per a written appointment وَمَن
يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ الدُّنْيَا نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا so whoever wants
the good or the reward in this world
we will give him from it وَمَن يُرِدْ
ثَوَابَ الْآخِرَةِ نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا and whoever wants the
good or the reward in the hereafter we
will give him from that وَسَنَجِزِ الشَّاكِرِينَ and
soon we will reward the people who are
grateful but what death does in setting up
this limitation to your life is it creates
this urgency to act to do more and
more good and the consequences of that good
fruits of that good see them in this
world see them in the hereafter وَكَأَيْجَ مِنْ
نَبِيٍّ قَاتَلَ مَعَهُ الْرِبِّيُّونَ كَثِيرًا and how many
prophets have there been that there have been
that there have been people who devoted to
their Rabb have fought alongside them فَمَا وَهَنُوا
لِمَا أَصَابَهُمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ they did not
give up courage no matter what they confronted
in the cause of Allah وَمَا بَعُفُوا وَمَا
اسْتَكَانُوا neither did they weaken nor did they
submit وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الصَّابِرِينَ and Allah loves the
people of sabr this is sabr that in
the face of defeat you keep going you
get up you reassess where did we go
wrong get back in there another round and
the other round the next round is where
all the difference is the extra round makes
all the difference the last round after which
you think that's it I can't move on
then you get up for the next one
that's the difference between successful people and unsuccessful
people وَمَا كَانَ قَوْلَهُمْ إِلَّا أَنْ قَالُوا their
their cry was nothing except that they said
رَبَّ نَغْفِرْ لَنَا ذُنُوبَنَا our Rabb forgive us
our zunub وَإِسْرَافَنَا فِي أَمْرِنَا and our transgressions
in our action وَثَبِّتْ أَقْضَامَنَا and establish our
feet firm that in this process that we've
taken up upon ourselves voluntarily for your sake
for the goodness that we need to encourage
in this world we step out of bounds
we make mistakes we do things that are
wrong let those go this constant reflection to
see where they can improve to identify their
excesses to see where they need to limit
them and to ask Allah that the effects
of my wrongs my excesses don't let them
harm my prospects of the reward here and
the reward there and keep me going ثَبِّتْ
أَقْضَامَنَا وَإِنصِرْنَا عَلَى الْقَوْمِ الْكَافِرِينَ and help us
against the disbelieving people فَأَتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ so Allah
granted them ثَوَابَ الدُّنْيَا وَحُسْنَ ثَوَابِ الْآخِرَةِ good
in this the reward in this world the
reward in this dunya and again one of
the attitudes that we've developed as a people
that the reward in this dunya is no
longer a measure of our progress we haven't
had it in so long that we have
written it off altogether no, we shouldn't look
at results we should just continue doing efforts
no, we shouldn't look at results we should
just continue making efforts no, we shouldn't look
at results we should just continue at what
point does that become stubbornness and arrogance and
a refusal to accept knowledge when it is
offered to you that you may be doing
something wrong in the efforts there is ثَوَابَ
الدُّنْيَا why do you want to continue to
neglect that and brush that under the carpet
using your dualistic lenses cooking up this absolute
greatness of Ākhirah and undermining absolute rejection or
denigration of dunya just to justify simply to
justify your refusal to reanalyze reassess maybe you
stepped wrong maybe you understood wrong maybe your
strategy was mistaken maybe your reading was incorrect
maybe your interpretation was faulty maybe the results
of your efforts are evidence to how you
are wrong you not the Qur'an not
Allah not Rasulullah you in how you represented
and understood Allah, Rasulullah because if you had
understood them correctly or represented them as you
were supposed to then the ثَوَابَ الدُّنْيَا should
have resulted but no, no, no the 950
years okay keep banging your heads against the
wall expecting different results وَحُسْنَ ثَوَابَ الْآخِرَ an
excellent reward of the hereafter the beautiful reward
of the hereafter وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسَنِينَ and Allah
loves the people of excellence يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ
آمَنُوا You who have believed in تُطِيعُوا الَّذِينَ
كَفَرُوا If you follow those who disbelieve يَرُدُّوكُمْ
عَلَاءَ عَقَابِكُمْ They will cause you to turn
back on your heels فَتَنْقَلِبُوا خَاسِرٍ You will
become losers بَلِّ اللَّهُ مَوْلَاكُمْ But Allah is
your Mawla your friend, your guardian وَهُوَ خَيْرٌ
نَاصِرٍ He is the best of helpers Allah
is going to help you سَنُلْقِي فِي قُلُوبِ
الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا الرُّعْبِ And we will soon cast
terror and intimidation in the hearts of those
who refuse to believe بِمَا أَشْرَكُوا بِاللَّهِ Because
they did shirk with Allah The disease of
shirk is such that when they engage in
it there is this unrelenting intimidation that they
feel in themselves that they can't do anything
about that weakens them from within مَا لَمْ
يُنَزِّلْ بِهِ سُلطَانًا Why?
Because they kept on doing shirk with Allah
without evidence without any authority that Allah had
sent down وَمَأْوَاهُمُ النَّارُ And their abode will
be the hellfire سَمَثْوَ الظَّالِمِينَ And how disgusting
is the home of the oppressors those who
did dhulm وَلَقَدْ صَدَقَكُمُ اللَّهُ وَعْدَهُ And Allah
did fulfill His promise to you اِذْ تَحُسُّونَهُمْ
بِإِذْنِهِ When you were killing them with His
permission Part of Allah fulfilling His promise is
that you do your best You live up
to what is expected of you And when
you don't and you see the the bad
results for that It's part of the process
learning curve Pick yourself up Get back on
the saddle حَتَّى إِذَا فَشِلْتُمْ Until you lose
heart وَتَنَازَعْتُمْ فِي الْأَمْرِ And you disputed about
the command So this فَشِلْتُمْ The frenzy And
prior to that The commander of the archers
saying Stay And the followers like Nah, we
disagree We think the Prophet meant this That's
fair enough But he's the commander You have
your right to disagree But The discipline stays
And the dispute resulted وَعَصَيْتُمْ And you finally
disobeyed مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا أَرَاكُمْ مَا تُحِبُّونَ After
Allah had shown you what you love There's
like all this Victory is nigh So yeah,
there's victory And there's victory for Uhud And
there's victory for Rasulullah ﷺ and Islam And
there's War booty That is representative of that
victory And to go in there and claim
that And do your victory chants It's what
you love And that's fine Only that should
not have come at the cost of discipline
It should not have come at the cost
of What Allah and his men This is
where These are the kinds of situations where
it becomes one or the other These are
the kinds of situations where the choice has
to be made وَمِنْكُمْ مَنْ يُرِيدُ الدُّنْيَا There
are of you who desire the world Achievement
here وَمِنْكُمْ مَنْ يُرِيدُ الْآخِرَةِ And from you
are those who desire the hereafter At that
particular point The distinction The preference Should have
been given That you contain that What you
desire immediately Because the only reason for you
to Not jump at what's in front of
you Is that it's the command of the
leader And the command of the leader Is
the command of Rasool Allah ﷺ And he
is the Rasool of Allah ثُمَّ صَرَفَكُمْ عَنْهَمْ
And he turned you away from them You
lost the battle لِيَ بَتَلِيَكُمْ So that he
might test you وَلَقَدْ عَفَى عَنْكُمْ But he
has already forgiven you We can't be sitting
in judgment Who the * are we to
judge?
They're better than us a thousand times over
Even the ones The 35 who Who didn't
listen to the commander There is so much
that we That we are indebted to To
them for وَاللَّهُ ذُو فَضْلٍ عَلَىٰ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ Allah
is most bountiful to the believers إِذْ تُسْعِدُونَ
When you ascended This is after This is
when they're trying to Defend themselves Against the
advance of Khalid bin Walid and The mushrikeen
from Mecca وَلَا تَلْبُونَ عَلَىٰ أَحْدَنَا And you
paid no attention to anyone Everyone's like Every
man for himself وَالرَّسُولُ يَدْعُوكُمْ فِي أُخْرَاكُمْ And
the messenger was calling out to you from
behind فَأَثَابَكُمْ غَمَّن بِغَمَّن And he gave you
distress after distress لِكَيْ لَا تَحْزَنُوا عَلَىٰ مَا
فَاتَكُمْ And this is for you to learn
To not grieve at what has passed away
from you As to what you've lost وَلَا
مَا أَصَابَكُمْ Neither at what has struck you
Befallen you وَاللَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ And Allah
is aware of all of what you do
To look at this failure As wisdom and
lessons That you would otherwise not have been
able to learn ثُمَ أَنزَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِن بَعْدِ
الْغَمِّ أَمَنَتَنَّ عَسَنَ And then after the distress
He bestowed upon you a relaxing contentment You
were still able to come to terms with
it يَغْشَ طَائِفَةَ مِنْكُمْ Which completely overcame some
of you وَطَائِفَةٌ قَدْ أَهَمَّتْهُمْ أَنفُسُهُمْ While a
group were merely worried about themselves يَظُنُّونَ بِاللَّهِ
غَيْرَ الْحَقِّ And they started entertaining suspicions about
Allah We thought we were on the victory
side We thought we were going to be
like the undefeated champions What just happened?
Are we vulnerable?
Are we going to die?
Are we going to be defeated?
That's not what we signed up for ظَنَّ
الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ Entertaining suspicions of the time of ignorance
يَقُولُنَ هَلْ لَنَا مِنَ الْأَمْرِ مِنْ شَيْءٍ And
they asked, do we have any say in
the matter?
If our opinion had been heard This wouldn't
have happened We have no say?
قُلْ إِنَّ الْأَمْرَ كُلُّهُ لِلَّهِ Tell them the
matter is entirely Allah's discretion This is in
response to their audacity Whereas practically when the
affairs are being carried out Rasulullah ﷺ is
asking for everybody's opinion Giving it weightage even
above his own And then they have the
audacity to say Why didn't you listen to
me?
It's Allah's If He has honored you Why
do you not look at it as such?
Why do you look at it as some
inherent entitlement?
يُخْفُونَ فِي أَنفُسِ مَا لَا يُبْدُونَ لَكُ They
hide within themselves what they don't reveal to
you يَقُولُنَ لَوْ كَانَ لَنَا مِنَ الْأَمْرِ شَيْءٍ
They said, if we had a say in
the decision ما قُتِلْنَهَا هُنَا This would not
have happened We would not have been killed
here قُلْ لَوْ كُنْتُمْ فِي بُيُوتُكُمْ Tell them,
even if you had been at your homes
لَبَرَضَ الَّذِينَ كُتِبَ عَلَيْهِمُ الْقَتْلُ إِلَىٰ مَضَاجِعِهِمْ Even
then, those for whom death had been decreed
would have gone to their place of death
وَلِيَبْطَلِيَ اللَّهُ مَا فِي صُدُورِكُمْ And for Allah
to test what was hidden in your hearts
To see, is it true?
The claim that you've made وَلِيَبْطَلِيَ اللَّهُ مَا
فِي صُدُورِكُمْ وَلِي مَحْيصَ مَا فِي قُلُوبِكَ And
to purge, to purify what is in your
heart وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ بِذَاتِ السُّدُورِ And Allah is
fully aware of all that is unconscious And
all these experiences, these ups and downs that
you go through These are opportunities of purification
For that which is within yourself that even
you don't know what it is إِنَّ الَّذِينَ
تَوَلَّوْ مِنْكُمْ Surely those of you who turned
back يَوْمَ الْتَقَى الْجَمْعَانِ The day the two
armies encountered each other إِنَّمَا اسْتَزَلْ لَهُمُ الشَّيْطَانِ
For sure it was Shaytan who seduced them
Because of what their hands had done, some
of their own deeds And how some of
our own deeds allowed for this demonic interpolation
And control within ourselves وَلَقَدْ عَفَى اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ
But Allah has forgiven you for it For
when the attack did happen at that time
The recourse for some of the members of
the army was run away We've lost this,
save yourself Allah calls that to account as
well No, shouldn't have happened But it did
happen Why did it happen?
Why was your instinctive response that?
It's what you carry to the battlefield of
your personalities In which some of your actions
have a whole lot to do with it
And Shaytan overwhelmed you But it's okay, Allah
forgives you As long as you learn the
lesson Allah forgives you إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ حَلِيمٌ
Allah is extremely forgiving, ever forbearing, very tolerant
وآخر دعوانا أن الحمد لله رب العالمين