Zakariyya Harnekar – Sacred Sanctuary Series 3 P3 Returning before your Return
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Okay. Extremely sorry about that.
Apparently, it was some problems with Telkom or
something like that. Anyways,
I lost my train of thought thoughts on
my I'm gonna read through those verses again
just to
get my bearings.
Can I just can somebody maybe mention the
comments if that still got stuck or not,
please?
Okay. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said from
the beginning of this passage again till here,
Allah mentioned 2 cases. First time, when hardship,
adversity befalls mankind, they turn to him in
repentance.
But when he allows them to taste the
mercy from him, then they ascribe partners to
their lord.
In so doing, they show ingratitude
and deny what he has given them. And
then Allah says, and he warns him, enjoy
what you have. Soon, you will know. Meaning,
you'll know the reality of things, how things
eventually return to Allah
Then Allah
says asked him the question, did we reveal
to them some sanction? And that sanction speaks
of what they ascribed to him.
Then Allah says first mentioning the the mercy,
he says, when Allah
gives allows mankind to taste a mercy, they
rejoice therein.
And when evil befalls them on account of
what their own hands have sent forth, they
despair and lose hope. Do they not know
that Allah is the one that expands, or
Allah
that gives in abundance provisions to those whom
He wills and he constrains meaning he constrains
for who he wills,
certainly, therein are signs for a people that
believe.
Allah
continues and he says,
so give to the relative
his right, and to the poverty stricken,
and to the wayfarer, the traveler.
That is much better for those who desire
the countenance of Allah,
who want the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
And those, they are the successful ones. This
word
is a very beautiful word.
With
the with the Arabic word
for a farmer, that means a farmer. Because
the farmer is that one that after sowing
his seeds, eventually, he reaps
what he has sown. So if we do
good deeds in this life,
eventually, at the end of the day, in
in the next life, we will reap the
benefits of those deeds
Then Allah
says,
and whatever you give
of
interest.
In order that it may increase in the
wealth of people,
then certainly that does not grow by Allah
Yeah, this is something important to read. If
you,
if you were following the flow of these
verses Allah spoke about,
ingratitude
and denying that favors are coming from Allah
The second
dealt with despair.
Despair in in in terms of adversity.
Then Allah
in this verse
or in the verse just before this, he
commanded the believers to do something.
And it's as if Allah is telling us,
if you want to ensure that
you show the correct form of gratitude for
the favors that Allah
gives you, what must you do? Use that
very favor to please Allah. So if Allah
gives you a lot of an abundance of
rizq
or even just more than you need,
then give of that
to people that themselves are in need. Give
to your relatives.
Give to
the poor people. Give to the travelers.
And Allah says that,
as opposed to denying that it comes from
Allah and opposed to,
despairing in times of adversity and in times
of rejoicing merely on account of of what
Allah has given us, use it to benefit
the creation of
Allah
That is much better for those people who
truly desire Allah, that want Allah's pleasure,
and those are the ones that will truly
be successful.
Then Allah juxtaposes this, so Allah compares this
with with another type of giving.
That type of giving is when you give
a, person a loan,
but you're not giving them a goodly loan.
You're giving them a loan expecting them to
give you back more than what you gave
them.
That's
essentially interest.
Right? So Allah says, whatever you give people
with that mindset, not because you want to
please Allah
through you giving them, but so that you
can get more worldly wealth from it.
That type of wealth, it doesn't increase.
That type of wealth is not a profitable,
that's not a profitable type of giving in
the sight of Allah.
And whatever you give of Zakah you hear
the word Zakah?
Interesting.
This is a is a
and the form in which we give Zakah
today was not legislated in the Makkan period
of Islam.
So this is speaking about the charity.
It's just it it's speaking about any type
of charity, a pure charity that you're giving
for the sake of Allah
Whatever you give of a charity, purely for
the sake of Allah,
seeking thereby the countenance of Allah.
So those
are the ones who will multiply. Meaning, those
people who give that type of charity,
those are the people that will multiply.
What will they multiply? The rewards in the
sight of Allah will multiply.
In,
you give somebody some money,
and you expect him to give you back
more money than that. So in this dunya,
you end up maybe with double the amount
that you initially gave, but you put somebody
else in difficult.
In the sight of Allah or at the
end of the day, when we return to
Allah
you're going to be punished for that, and
that punishment will be many, many times more
than the than the benefit you attained from
that worldly wealth that you took from that
person unjustly.
As for the other type of giving, a
pure charity done for the sake of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah says, if you give
such a charity, those are the people that
will multiply. And Allah doesn't really stick to
the akhirah. No. When you give in this
life, Allah will give you back much more
than what you have given.
It may not be that I give money,
Allah gives you back money, but Allah gives
me benefit in life. Allah gives me contentment
in life. Allah gives me happiness in life.
And aren't those things that money can't buy?
And then in the year after, subhanAllah,
one
piece of reward of the akhirah
is much better. One moment of reward of
the akhirah is much better than this dunya
and whatever it contains.
And one glimpse at Allah
We cannot even compare it to this world.
And Allah
reminds us,
Allah
Allah is the one that created you.
And then Allah is the one that provided
for you and sustained you. You go out
and work.
Many people go out and work, they do
arduous labor, but they get very little in
terms of worldly wealth from that.
Allah says, he is the one that provided
for you.
Then he will cause you to die.
And then he will cause you to live
again.
Allah asks, is there anyone from amongst your
partners, meaning those that you ascribe as partners
to Allah,
That can do any of that.
Perfect is Allah. Free of any imperfections is
Allah.
And exalted is he far beyond whatever the
ascribe has partners to
him. Now, yeah, I want to just take
a pause. I'm gonna pause,
and derive some lessons from these verses and
then go to the very last verse
that actually pertains to the title of this
talk, Returning Before Our Return.
Allah
says Allah spoke about this this concept of
of hard times, difficult times. And why I
specifically chose the the set of verses is
because we find ourselves in a difficult
time. The world over, people are dying from
this virus.
In China, people died. In America, in Italy
is worst case. America is getting extremely bad,
but people are dying here as well.
It's a difficult situation. And even for those
people that, you know, are not afflicted by
it, we have to stay in our homes.
SubhanAllah.
I don't this is probably the longest I
ever stayed in my house in my life.
This is not the norm for the way
most of us live.
Not even if we have holidays do we
stay in our home this much, Subhanahu, we've
probably been out of the house every single
day,
but
there is a test in this time of
difficulty for us.
So how do we respond in this time
of difficulty?
Do we respond
by
by despairing, losing hope?
Do we respond
by
ascribing partners to Allah? Do we respond by
thinking that anything other than Allah has power?
Because that's essentially what it means to ascribe
partners to Allah. Do we believe that the
circumstances in and of itself, they can harm
us? Do we believe that this virus itself
can harm us? Do we believe that other
people themselves can harm us, or do we
believe that whatever comes to us comes to
us from Allah?
And in that recognition,
we have hope in Allah that it's a
situation of goodness for us.
That's what Allah wants from us as believers.
Find yourself in your home, stuck in your
home, find yourself in the moment of poverty.
Yes. Those are your worldly conditions.
But if in that condition you are happy
with Allah, if in that condition you are
looking for ways to please Allah then
you have understood life, then you have understood
the reality of our belief in Allah
Then that very situation that's seemingly bad for
you, it's in reality better than any other
situation could have been for you.
Many a person in their affluence, they gain
nothing from their affluence besides a little bit
of bodily pleasure.
The believer,
even in his material difficulty, defines the pleasure
of connectedness with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
May Allah make us that people. And that
benefit of connectedness with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
it doesn't
stop with us. We give it to other
people.
If it's in moments of affluence, we give
them of the wealth that we have. If
it's in moments of difficulty, we spare them
from sharing in that difficulty.
We spare them from, from us being depressed.
Do you know how difficult it is
for the family of a person that that
cannot see positivity?
May Allah save us from all of that.
And then in this very last verse
that I want to get to, Allah Subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala
wraps up our understanding. Yani says what?
Fassad has become apparent
on the land and in the sea.
What does that mean? What does fassad mean?
Fassad,
it can mean corruption in terms of corruption
in human interactions.
Fassad can also mean natural disasters according to,
Abu Hayyan al Andalusi in Istasir,
and it can encompass viruses and sicknesses and
all of these things that befall the world.
Allah says that this has become apparent
on the land and in the sea.
On account of what the hands of mankind
have earned.
It may not be that some person manufactured
this virus,
That's not what the verse is saying. But
on account of the fact that human beings
live in sin, so,
you know, just the statistics of of of
do you know in South Africa at this
moment in time,
we actually
have less deaths during this lockdown period.
Though many people have died from the coronavirus,
we have less deaths now
than outside of the lockdown
because people less people are dying from murders,
etcetera.
SubhanAllah.
So Allah is saying,
Allah lets that facade become apparent in the
land. We may not see the direct connection
between the two. It may be that somebody
was doing zina, somebody was doing riba, somebody
was doing, you know, people were indulging in
sin, and then Allah allows a calamity to
befall them. That calamity can be a tsunami.
That calamity can be anything.
It can be a virus. It can be
it can be poverty. That calamity can be
anything. Rasulullah waslam, in fact, mentions in one
hadith that when certain things become apparent, you
know, certain types of sins become apparent in
a population,
then Allah causes them to be faced with
sicknesses that people never experienced before.
But whether it's a punishment or not, that's
yet to be seen. And that's what I
want to mention in this verse Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala said.
Has become apparent.
Corruption, calamity,
affliction has become apparent on the land and
in the sea on account of what the
hands of man have earned, meaning on account
of their own actions. Why?
So that they can taste the consequences
of some of the actions.
But it doesn't in
the, Allah says.
Is a word it means perhaps,
but
a connotation or in inbuilt into that word
is hope.
Allah says so that perhaps
they can
return. Return, where to?
They can go from one place and they
return to a place that they were before?
No.
So that perhaps they can return to Allah
Allah allows us to place this calamity. Why?
If we see our own deficiencies, we see
our own inability,
we see our own
deficiencies as human beings. What it allows us
to see is our weakness as human beings
that in in in in the midst or,
in the face of this minute little virus
that can't even be seen with a normal
microscope. You need an electron microscope to see
it. In the face of this little virus,
we can't even protect ourselves.
So Allah says he allows this calamity to
be apparently the land on the sea on
account of what man's own hands have earned,
that they can taste the consequences of their
actions so that perhaps they return.
If we return to Allah
on account of this situation,
if the difficulty that we find ourselves in
here
reduces us or results in us living a
better life in this period of time and
after this period of time, if it results
in us living closer to Allah
if it results in us
living our life in a way that pleases
Allah, then this calamity is a good thing
for us.
And so the lesson in it all is
what?
Return to Allah.
Let the situation be a lesson to us
that, oh, human being,
oh, servant of Allah, you are incapable
on your own.
You require that sustenance of Allah. You require
the help of Allah. You require everything from
Allah
Ta'ala. So turn to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
before you return to Allah.
Because
if you if you leave this life,
having lived distance from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
then we are faced with an eternity of
destruction,
of pain and punishment.
But if on account of these seeming calamities
we live lives that are pleasing to Allah,
we turn back to Allah, we return to
Him,
then this very situation will become one that's
pleasurable to us.
It will become one that's beneficial to us
in this life and in the next life.
And as the verse of Allah
mentioned, that's exactly what Allah
wants from us in this situation.
If it is that we don't return to
Allah on account of these situations,
then it ends at
Then the calamity that we find ourselves ends
at us tasting the consequences of our actions,
and then it is a punishment.
But if after learning our lesson,
we turn back to Allah, then I promise
you this is a blessing.
The lives of believers that are lost in
this time will be martyred by the grace
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and the lives
of those that remain alive will be loved
like martyrs and will attain the reward of
martyrs, and that will be people whom their
life is better than their death.
May Allah grace us with it. May Allah
allow us to take lesson from all of
these verses. I apologize for the technical difficulties.
I think there was a known issue with,
with Telkom lines today, and, unfortunately, I happen
to be on Telkom. But,
I pray that that people are able
to derive lesson here from,
and that it actually affects our action. You
know? One thing is is is is to
learn a rational lesson, but another thing is
to actually put that into practice.
And that's what Allah wants from us. And
that's why in these these very verses Allah
taught us, as opposed to having ingratitude,
do something.
Use what Allah has given you to please
him. Use what Allah has given you give
to the poor. And so the lessons that
I derive from from these verses you know,
I had a lot more to mention, but
I think I don't want to spend too
much time
go too much overtime. But,
what
the lessons that I derive from this is
number 1,
don't despair.
Don't lose hope in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
in Allah's mercy, in that everything that comes
from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is potentially good
depending on how I respond to it.
In fact, elsewhere in the Quran, Allah
mentions,
in the story of Ya'qubha alayhi salam, where
he tells his children,
after they threw their brother in a well
and they got their other brother lost as
well,
he tells him,
don't ever despair in the mercy of Allah.
None despairs in the mercy of Allah except
the disbelieving people.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says also in the
Quran,
tell my servants, tell my slaves, oh Mohammed
salallahu alayhi wa sallam, that have transgressed against
their own selves.
Do not ever lose hope in the mercy
of Allah. Allah forgives all sins, and it's
Allah's nature that He forgives.
Allah subhanahu wa a hundred tells us also
in the Quran the story of Ibrahim alaihi
salam.
May
Allah save us from despair.
And I mentioned before, yeah, I'm speaking of
a of a of a religious despair. I'm
not talking about somebody with clinical depression. They
need to actually seek medical help.
But people who are living distant from Allah,
who feel
constrained in life on account of not making
the adkar, not reciting the Quran, not performing
the salah, I'm telling you, return to those
things so that we don't despair.
2nd action step.
As Allah mentions in this,
despite the fact that you will find yourself
in good times or bad times, use whatever
you have
and give to the poor.
That lesson is specifically pertinent for us now.
How many people that live in townships that
live, you know, day to day
they actually have to go out every day
to seek their sustenance for that day. You
know, many of us may not be able
to relate to that. We have food enough
for the for this lockdown and another lockdown
as well.
And if the stores in our house run
up, we have enough money to go buy
maybe for the for the next year
to eat
and to live.
For me, that's the reality,
but
there's others that don't have it.
It. Let us think less about ourselves and
think about how we can please Allah
by serving his creation.
Not so that we can get out of
it anymore, this dunya. Not I'm feeding the
people so that they can stay in their
homes so that the economy doesn't crash. No.
Inshallah, Allah must preserve our economy as well.
And we take the the the the material
means to ensure that, but I don't give
people so because I want them to stay
in their houses so that,
lockdown can be shorter so that we can
increase now,
so that our economy doesn't fall flat. No.
No. No. No. I give to them because
I recognize giving them will please Allah
in serving the creation of Allah.
That's why we do it. Not so that
we can serve our own self interest. No.
May Allah make us people better than that.
More is required of us as believers than
that.
And perhaps
if that is our state of being, then
even after the lockdown, even after this difficult
period, we'll we'll still be looking for solutions
to help the poverty stricken.
We'll still be looking how we can,
you know, how if we could
create temporary solutions to help people in this
period of time, how we can create solutions
that are more permanent to help people. May
Allah
make us people with that kind of purpose,
not the purpose of of serving myself and
feeding my nafs and more pleasure and more
pleasure and more pleasure. No. No. It's more
Allah, more Allah, more Allah. And And when
it's more Allah, more Allah, more Allah, more
Allah, there is more service, more service, more
service. And that is the reality of what
calamity is supposed to provide us.
Return to Allah.
Return to Allah before you are forcibly returned
to him.
Calamity, affliction has become apparent in the land
and on the sea.
On account of what demands the hands of
men have burned.
That they may taste the consequence
the consequences of some of the actions.
So that perhaps they may return to him
so that perhaps they may return.
May Allah
make us those who return.
In conclusion,
I'm just gonna recite the this page
of verses that we did, and Insha Allahu
that we'll make some dua and conclude.
Oh, Allah, we ask you by your name,
Allah.
That name that belongs solely to you. Oh,
Allah. We ask you by all of your
beautiful names, those that we know of and
those that we do not know of.
Oh, Allah.
We ask you because you are the one
that grants, oh, Allah. We ask you, and
there is none other deserving of us asking
than you, oh, Allah. We ask us because
you are the one that bestows gifts.
Oh, Allah.
We send salutations
and blessings upon our beloved Nabi Muhammad
his family and his companions.
Oh, Allah. Allow the seeming calamity to be
moments of goodness for us. Goodness for us
and goodness for our communities.
Oh, Allah. Let this be moments of us
turning back to you. And for those that
consider that they were living their lives in
a manner that's pleasing to you, Allah. Let
them let this be a means of increased
closeness with you, oh, Allah. Let it be
a means of improvement in all of our
lives. We are deficient, you, oh, Allah. You
are the giver.
You, Allah. We are deficient, you, Allah. You
are perfect. You, Allah. We only strive, you,
Allah. But you are the one that gives
fruition to our striving. You, Allah. Guide us.
Let this be beautiful moment to us. Let
this be times that we learn lessons that
make our lives better after this, you Allah.
Let it be a means of betterment of
the entire world, you Allah. Let us teach
us to change our ways, you Allah. To
change our selfish ways, ways that are more
selfish, you Allah. Let this be part of
our journey to you, you Allah, and let
us love lives in which we come ever
closer to you.