Zia Sheikh – Ramadan Khatira Day 11

Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salam wa rasoolillah.

Last night we completed Surah Hud and also

half of Surah Yusuf.

I want to focus on Surah Hud and

the lessons we can learn from it.

First of all, some of the verses that

Hafiz Huseyfa recited in Salat right now, related

to Nuh a.s. and how Allah SWT

told him to build the ship in which

he saved the animals and the believers that

believed in Nuh a.s. There was one

of his sons which was left and he

said that I'm not going to get on

to the boat and I'm just going to

get on to a mountain and I'm going

to be saved by getting on to this

mountain.

But he was also destroyed.

In the course of that destruction, Nuh a

.s. makes dua to him and says, oh

Allah, this is my son and I want

you to save him.

Allah SWT responds, He is not from your

family.

He did things which were inappropriate.

He didn't believe.

So this is the first story which is

basically something that becomes a trend in the

whole Surah.

After that, the story of Hud a.s.

who was sent to the people of Aad.

Allah SWT says, To the people of Aad,

their brother Hud was sent.

And again, he came, gave them the message,

they didn't believe, and then ultimately Allah SWT

punished them and destroyed them.

After that, To Thamud, their brother Salih was

sent.

Brother referring to their own, he must have

been related to them, he must have been

close to them.

So their brother Salih was sent.

Gave them the message, this miraculous she-camel

came according to their demands and then they

killed that she-camel, Allah SWT punished them

and they were destroyed.

Then after that, the story of Ibrahim a

.s. which I'm going to focus on right

now.

And then after that, the people of Shu

'aib.

To Madian, their brother Shu'aib was sent.

Again, referring to him as the brother.

So we have a pattern of relationships, connections

being mentioned.

The son and brothers in this case.

And again, a couple of relationships which I'm

going to talk about right now.

The story of Ibrahim a.s. Now this

story is mentioned 2 or 3 places in

the Quran.

In which angels come in the shape of

handsome young humans to the house of Ibrahim

a.s. Thinking they are humans, he prepares,

he goes and slaughters a cow for them.

And he roasts it, cooks it and puts

it in front of them and they don't

eat.

And he kind of gets suspicious that this

is not right.

And according to the tradition of the time,

if you put food in front of a

guest and he refuses to eat, then he

has come with ill intention.

So he becomes suspicious, they reassure him that

they are actually messengers from Allah SWT.

They are angels in human form and they

have come not for him.

And he is afraid that he kind of

figures it out that they are angels in

human form.

And whenever that happens, there is some trouble

about to happen.

So they reassure him that he is not

in any kind of trouble.

But Lut a.s., the people of Lut

a.s. They are the ones that are

going to be in trouble and they are

going to be punished.

So Lut, he is actually related to Ibrahim

a.s. So this is what happens.

Allah SWT describes this whole episode.

I am just going to briefly translate it.

Indeed our messengers came to Ibrahim a.s.

with good news.

The good news was that he is going

to have a child.

He has already had Ismail a.s. but

he is going to have Ishaq.

So according to biblical references, they were very

old.

He was 100 at the time and his

wife Sara, she was 90 at the time.

So Allah SWT sent these angels to give

them the good news that in this old

age they are going to have a child.

They said Salam.

He said Salam back to them.

And it wasn't long before he brought a

roasted calf.

When he saw their hands was not reaching

out to it, to this food.

He kind of became suspicious of them.

And he was afraid of them.

They said don't be afraid.

Indeed we have been sent to the people

of Lut.

His wife was standing close by.

Meaning everybody was kind of anxious that these

strangers have come.

And including the wife, she is also a

little bit scared.

And when she got the news that they

are not in any kind of trouble, she

became happy.

She laughed.

Some scholars have actually interpreted this as she

started menstruating.

Basically she became fertile in old age.

This is one interpretation.

We gave her the glad news, the good

news that she is going to have Ishaq

as a child.

And in the progeny of Ishaq, Yaqub AS

will be.

Of course she is 90 years old.

She is surprised.

She says, how is it that I am

going to have a child when I am

old?

And this husband of mine, he is also

old.

So this is a human response.

A natural human response to something which is

out of the ordinary.

Something extraordinary.

She responds by giving a human response.

So they respond by saying, Are you being

surprised with the command of Allah SWT?

His Rahma, His Mercy, His Barakat.

They are upon you, O dwellers of the

household.

Meaning this pure household of Ibrahim AS.

Indeed, he is praiseworthy.

And Majeed is Almighty.

Now this surprise that he is being surprised

with, it kind of calms down, it subsides.

Now his natural instinct is, Lut AS's people,

they are going to be punished.

And he starts interceding on their behalf.

He started disputing with us about the issue

of the people of Lut.

Indeed, Ibrahim AS was full of forbearance and

repentant and turning to Allah SWT.

So he basically starts interceding.

And the point here is that he is

interceding on behalf of his nephew or cousin.

Both things are mentioned in Tafasir, his relationship

to Lut AS.

It is his people and they are going

to be destroyed.

They are going to be punished for the

things that they have been doing.

And he starts to intercede on their behalf.

But that intercession is not accepted.

That intercession is not accepted.

And they proceed and they go to Lut

AS.

And now the punishment is going to start

to Lut AS.

What were the people of Lut doing?

What were they involved in?

The biggest sin that they were involved in

was the sin of homosexuality.

And the area which they were found, the

area is known as Sodom and Gomorrah.

And the sin of * is actually derived

from the word Sodom, from where they were.

So this punishment was because of this main

reason.

And in addition to this main reason, they

were doing other things in addition to that.

They come to him, again they are in

the shape of humans.

And they are in the shape of very

handsome humans.

News spreads fast that these very handsome young

men have come into town.

And again, that instinct that they have basically

produced, they have made, kind of they feel

that it is their nature to be inclined

towards men.

It pushes them to go to these men

and try to attack them.

Lut AS says, no, these are my guests.

You cannot, you know, abuse them in this

kind of way.

And he turns around and says to them,

and again this verse, it is of some

kind of, there is some kind of dispute

about this issue, where he says that, هؤلاء

بناتي هن أظهر لكم He tells his people

that here are my daughters, they are more

pure for you.

So, first and foremost, the Biblical understanding, the

Christians and the Jews have the understanding, that

he was basically offering his daughters instead of

these guests that have come.

And he was basically telling them, commit adultery

with my daughters instead.

This is not what the Mufassereen say.

Why?

Because the very wording of the Quran, it

tells us that he couldn't be saying that.

هؤلاء بناتي هن أظهر لكم These are my

daughters, they are purer for you.

So purer, pure, adultery is not something pure,

fornication is not something pure.

So what was he saying?

First and foremost, was it literally his daughters

that he was talking about?

One understanding is that he was talking about

his real daughters.

The other understanding is that being the prophet

of his nation, all of the women of

the community are like his daughters.

So he is basically saying, look, all of

these women are here.

And he is not telling them to commit

adultery, but he is saying, get into a

pure relationship with them by getting married to

them.

Get married to these women and live a

natural lifestyle.

So they refused.

They refused and the wording is very very

powerful, how they respond back to Ibrahim A

.S. with such conviction, and this is again

a huge lesson for us to understand nowadays,

that when a sin is a sin, and

when a person realizes it to be a

sin, there will be a time where he

may turn back to Allah and repent.

But when you accept a sin as being

completely natural and okay, then you will never

make tawbah.

When you think of something, anything, if a

person thinks it's okay to drink alcohol, and

he doesn't believe that Allah SWT would make

something halal, and he justifies it by saying,

well, drinking a glass of wine a day,

it lowers the cholesterol, it's good for the

heart, whatever reasoning that he gives to himself.

As long as he believes that it's okay,

he will continue to justify his actions, and

he will never make tawbah.

And this is exactly what these people were

doing.

And this is exactly what the people who

are committing that same crime today are doing.

They say it's a natural thing, there's a

gay gene, or whatever justification they try to

give, but this is, again, something all scriptures,

the Torah, the Injil, and the Quran, it

condemns in very strong terms.

So they said, قَالُوا لَقَدْ عَلِمْتَ مَا لَنَا

فِي بَنَاتِكَ مِنْ حَقِّ وَإِنَّكَ لَتَعْلَمُ مَا نُرِيدُ

Very, very strong conviction they have on their

behalf.

They said, you know that we have no

right in your daughters, we don't want anything

to do with your daughters, you know what

we want.

You know what we want.

We don't want women, we want these young

men that have come.

نَعَضُوا بِاللَّهِ So in any case, Allah SWT

punishes them, and in the course of the

punishment, the wife of Lut A.S. is

also involved in the punishment, because she was

also involved in some kind of sin, either

she was a disbeliever completely, or she was

kind of complicit in the actions of these

people, what they were doing.

So, now again we have Ibrahim A.S.

interceding for his nephew or cousin.

The wife of Lut A.S., she is

destroyed in this story.

Before that, you have the son of Nuh

A.S., he is destroyed.

And story after story, in which Allah SWT

is mentioning that their brother was sent to

them.

Hud, the brother of Ad was sent to

them.

Salih, the brother of Thamud was sent to

them.

Shu'ayb, the brother of Madian was sent

to them.

So these relationships, Allah SWT is explaining again

and again, they cannot benefit a person if

Allah SWT is being disobeyed, and Allah SWT

wants to bring down the punishment, and it

doesn't matter how close your relationship is, even

to the Prophet, that punishment will come to

you.

And how does it relate to the revelation

of the Quran in the time of the

Prophet A.S.? There was a feeling amongst

the Quraish that we are the descendants of

Ibrahim A.S. And because of this lineage

of ours, if we are committing any sin,

if we are disobeying Allah SWT, our status

of being in the lineage of Ibrahim A

.S. through Ismail A.S., it gives us

some kind of nobility, it gives us some

kind of status, and Ibrahim A.S. would

intercede on our behalf, even if we are

doing something wrong.

So through these repeated stories of Anbiya A

.S. and their own relatives being destroyed right

in front of them, their own son being

destroyed, their own wife being destroyed, the whole

people of one's own nephew being destroyed, this

shows the people of Quraish, and a side

lesson to all of us, that relationships will

not make any difference if the person themselves

does not want to make tawbah and turn

to Allah SWT.

So again, amongst us, if we think that

I am the son of a very pious

person, that's going to be sufficient for me

if he makes dua, possibly, but if I

am not doing what I am supposed to

be doing, and I am continuously in the

disobedience of Allah SWT, and just relying upon

that, it's not going to work.

It's not going to work because even the

Prophet A.S. What did he say to

Fatima A.S.? He gathered all the tribes

of Quraish, each one of them he counted

off, and addressed each one of them, and

told them, that save yourself from the fire

of *, because I will not be able

to benefit you on the Day of Judgment,

and at the end, he addressed his own

daughter, Oh Fatima, save yourself from the hellfire,

I will not be able to help you

in front of Allah SWT in the least

on the Day of Judgment.

So, relationships, they can, I mean, the dua,

yes, all relatives, parents will make dua for

their parents, but that can only go a

certain distance.

If the people themselves, the relatives themselves don't

want to turn to Allah, they don't want

to make tawbah, they don't want to be

obedient, then that dua, that intercession, that pleading

to Allah SWT will not make any difference.

I pray that Allah SWT gives us tawfiq

to understand and practice what has been said

and heard.

Al Fatiha.