Zia Sheikh – Ramadan Khatira Day 13
AI: Summary ©
The Surah An-Nahl title given to Islam is a title given to the Westerners and is a title given to the Westerners. The history of animal nutrition and nutrition, including the use of animal waste products and alcohol andmes'am drink, is discussed, along with the use of animals for food and drink preparation. The episode also touches on w scrutiny and its potential consequences in medicine and science. The segment concludes with a promise to protect the world from the danger of An-Nahl.
AI: Summary ©
In the name of Allah the Merciful, the
Compassionate, the Compassionate.
In the
name
of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Compassionate.
Last night we completed the 14th Juz' which
includes Surah An-Nahl and the Surah which
is before that, Surah Al-Hijr.
We have discussed before the issue of Surahs
being Makki and Madani.
When a Surah is Makki, the general trend
of that Surah is to talk about the
greatness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, His
power, Tawheed, the Hereafter, basically instilling into people
Iman, complete Iman, stronger Iman and getting rid
of Shirk from within them.
And this particular Surah right from the very
beginning, it talks a lot about animals and
the way that these animals have been created
for the servitude of humanity and indirectly Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying that we
as humans are Ashraful Khalk, we are the
best of the creation and all of these
big animals, they are under our control.
Even an animal as big as an elephant,
an animal as big as a camel, we
can control it and it serves us and
even though it has the power, if it
wants to, to just take us and crush
us and break every bone in our body
but we as humans are able to control
it.
So this should show us that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala has made the creation for
us so in turn we should be grateful
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So the verses that I am going to
talk about today are the verses about the
bee about which this Surah is named after,
Surah An-Nahl.
Prior to talking about the bee however, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, He talks a little
bit about the milk that He gives us.
Allah says that in these animals refers to
the livestock that you have like the cow,
the camel, the sheep, the goat etc.
This is known as Anaam and Allah says
that in these Anaam there is an Ibra
for you, there is a lesson for you,
you should take a lesson from it.
What is the lesson?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that, What
does it do?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that we
feed you from it, from its stomach a
pure liquid milk which is refreshing for the
person who is drinking it.
But how does it come?
So the nutrition that the cow or the
goat has, it is split up into three
things.
One is the nutrition that goes to the
body and the building, the strength etc.
The second is it goes into making of
the milk and the third, the waste product
that comes out and even that we know
is beneficial for humans, we use it as
fertilizer.
So basically this animal is beneficial from so
many ways, from the meat that we use,
the milk that we consume and even its
waste product, it is beneficial for humans so
we should be grateful to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
And this is one of the miracles of
Allah that He provides for us, this pure
milk which is beneficial for humans, full of
nutrition and the Prophet is reported that whenever
he used to drink milk, he used to
say, Allah give us barakah in this milk
and make us increase it.
So this shows that this is something which
is nutritious for us, the Prophet used to
like it and we should also try to
drink as much as we can, simply because
of what the Qur'an tells us that
it is actually beneficial for us.
After that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
وَمِن ثَمَرَاتِ النَّخِيلِ وَالْأَعْنَابِ تَتَّخِذُونَ مِنْهُ سَكَرًا وَرِزْقًا
حَسَنًا إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ الْآيَةَ لِقَوْمِ يَعْقِنُونَ You
take from the fruits of the date palm
and the grapes, you take it and make
it into intoxicants and you also make rizq
and hasana, good rizq from it, a good
sustenance.
So we know this is a Makki surah
and it's one of the beginning surahs and
at that point alcohol and intoxicants had not
been prohibited at that time.
So in this ayah Allah is saying that
the fruits that we've given you, you use
them in two ways.
You use them into making alcohol and here
specifically Allah mentions النَّخِيل meaning dates.
So there's something, there's a drink which is
made even to this day which is known
as Nabith amongst the Arabs.
And what you do is you take dates,
crush them up, put them in water and
you leave that in the heat outside.
And this creates something which is known as
Nabith.
Now the problem with this is that if
you leave it for too long, if you
leave it till after midday then the sugar
in these dates actually ferments and it turns
to alcohol.
So after midday you cannot drink it anymore
because it's now prohibited for you.
But obviously in the old days this is
what they used to do.
They used to leave the dates outside in
the heat and it used to turn into
alcohol and they used to drink it as
a form of wine.
And then the same thing is mentioned here
about the grapes.
Obviously from grapes wine is made, it is
put into caskets and special containers.
In those days actually they used to use
gourd.
You know the gourd, the loki, the squash.
They used to actually fill those containers up
and use them for fermentation of alcohol.
So at the very beginning of Islam when
the prohibition of alcohol took place, the Prophet
ﷺ also forbade the usage of those utensils
that were made out of gourd.
Why?
Because he didn't want people to think back
and have flashbacks of why these utensils were
used.
And basically relapse into starting drinking alcohol again.
So even the utensils were forbidden at a
certain point just for preventative measures.
But obviously as time went on and people
forgot about alcohol, then the use of those
utensils became permissible.
So Allah says here that from these date
palms, the fruits of the date palm and
the grapes, you make intoxicants and also you
derive rizq and hasana, a good sustenance.
Indeed there is a sign for the people
that have understanding.
And then Allah ﷻ then goes and talks
about the bee.
Now this bee is a wonderful creature.
It has so many miraculous properties and miraculous
habits associated with it.
And in fact one of the statistics that
is given to us is that two-thirds
of the plants in any given country, in
the US even, two-thirds of the plants
are pollinated by bees.
Two-thirds of the plants in this country,
they are pollinated by bees.
So if you got rid of bees altogether,
they died out, which is actually happening now.
Because of the increased usage of pesticides and
so on, bees are dying in great numbers.
So if they were to die out, then
we would be facing huge difficulties and food
shortages because the bees are not pollinating the
plants anymore.
So this is again a miraculous animal that
Allah ﷻ describes about it.
وَأَوْحَىٰ رَبُّكَ إِلَىٰ النَّحَلَ Allah ﷻ gives wahi
to the nahl.
What does this wahi mean?
What is this inspiration that Allah ﷻ is
talking about?
See, every single human and every single animal,
they have been created with things that Allah
ﷻ taught them.
So as soon as a baby is born
and you attach it to the breast of
its mother, it immediately starts suckling.
Who taught it that?
Allah ﷻ taught him.
We didn't have to take the baby into
our classroom and say, well, this is how
you drink milk.
Similarly, animals, lions, tigers, they know that they
have to hunt meat and they know they
have to consume meat.
Cows, they know they have to eat grass
and so on and so forth.
So this is what is known as wahi,
the innate nature of an animal or a
human to know what they're supposed to do.
And the bee knows what it's supposed to
do.
Allah ﷻ commands it to do that and
the bee has been taught to do certain
things.
What has it been taught to do?
Go and make houses in the mountains, in
the trees, in the vines.
Go and make houses there, make hives there.
And the hive, if you look at it,
if you look inside a hive, the formation
of the honeycomb, that in itself is so
miraculous in nature.
It is a perfect hexagon and the honeycomb,
it's put together with all bunches of hexagons.
It's just an amazing thing that the bees
are creating, which is again, they don't have
any concept of geometry or anything like that,
but it's made in perfect formation where the
cells are all joined together in perfect hexagonal
shapes.
And even the reason for it to be
hexagon, there's a scientific reason behind it.
Then Allah says, ثُمَّ كُلِي مِن كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ
فَسْلُكِ سُبُلَ رَبِّكِ ذُلُولًا Then consume from all
the fruits and adopt the path of your
Lord, ذُلُولًا, in the state of humility.
So now, the bee actually, when it leaves
its hive, it goes and then it comes
back.
There's a particular route it takes.
So if, for example, the bee is setting
out to go towards roses, it's not going
to go to a rose and then a
violet and then a sunflower.
It is only going to go to roses.
If it goes to violets, then it will
only go to violets.
This is again a miraculous thing about the
bee that has baffled scientists that how does
it know what to do.
And then after that, once it's gone and
hunted for the nectar, it comes back and
it informs its partners in the hive where
to go to hunt for this nectar.
And the scientists, they give it a funny
name, they call it a waggle dance.
It comes and it moves its tail in
such a way towards the direction in which
it came.
So the frequency of the moving of the
tail, if it's moving very very fast in
a very excited way, it is an indication
for the other hive members that go in
that direction because there are a lot of
flowers over there.
They're blossoming, they're blooming, go over there and
take the nectar from there.
Now what scientists did, there was an experiment
that was done.
What they did, they attached a dead bee
to one of the flowers where these bees
were going to.
And the bee when it came, it saw
a dead bee and it went back into
the hive.
The frequency and the urgency of the moving
of the tail was completely diminished.
Basically trying to tell its co-workers that
don't go in that direction because there's a
danger over there.
I saw a dead bee and there is
some kind of danger.
If you go in that direction, then you're
going to be in trouble.
So it's an amazing thing that scientists are
uncovering day after day after day about these
wonderful creatures.
So the mention of An-Nahl in the
Quran, it is basically for us to pay
attention to, learn about it, and through learning
about it, to learn about the greatness of
Allah SWT.
Then it goes on to say, يَخُجُ مِن
بُطُونِهَا شُرَابٌ مُخْتَلِفٌ أَلْوَانُهُ فِيهِ شِفَاءٌ لِلنَّاسِ From
its stomachs, a liquid emerges which has different
colours.
So you can find all different types of
honey, different colours of honey.
From the dark black to white, pure white
honey.
And all the different colours in between.
The darker the colour, the stronger the taste.
The lighter the colour, the lighter the taste.
And again, it's the wonderful creation of Allah
SWT.
شَرَابٌ مُخْتَلِفٌ أَلْوَانُهُ It has different colours and
obviously those different colours indicate different strengths and
different potencies, etc.
And in it, Allah says, فِيهِ شِفَاءٌ لِلنَّاسِ
There is a cure in it for humanity.
So again, scientifically, a lot of things have
been researched about this.
Liquid honey, that it cures the sick, it
cures many illnesses.
If you put it on a wound, it
will heal the wound.
Honey is something that it doesn't collect bacteria.
It never goes bad.
Why?
Because bacteria cannot breed in honey.
So if you were to put it, and
you were to put it on a wound,
you would actually prevent more bacteria from getting
into the wound.
Because the honey would make a special seal
over the wound, and it would cover it,
and therefore it would speeden up, it would
make the recovery from that wound much, much
easier.
So, فِيهِ شِفَاءٌ لِلنَّاسِ There is a cure
in it for humanity.
إِنَّ فِي ذَٰرِكَ لَآيَةً لِلقَوْمِ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ And then
after that, Allah SWT, after describing these wonderful
and miraculous creatures, miracles, Allah SWT then turns
around and tells humans, that this is that
same Creator who created you.
And then He is going to give you
death again.
There is a reality to all of this.
The Creator who creates these things, He has
a power to give you life, He created
you already, and He is going to give
you death, and then He is going to
raise you up again.
وَاللَّهُ خَلَقَكُمْ ثُمَّ يَتَوَفَّاكُمْ Allah SWT, He created
you, and then He is going to raise
you up, meaning He is going to give
you death.
But some of you, وَمِنْكُمْ مَنْ يُرَدُّ إِلَىٰ
أَرْذَلِ الْعُمُرِ Some of you will be taken
back to something which is known as أَرْذَلُ
الْعُمُرِ أَرْذَل, from the word رَزِيل, in Urdu
we use this word too, رَزِيل, رَزِيل means
something which is not appreciated, something which is
not liked, something which is down-trodden.
أَرْذَل means the worst and most despicable of
ages.
أَرْذَلِ الْعُمُرِ Some of you go back to
this old age, which really nobody wants to.
And what is that old age?
When dementia sets in, Alzheimer's sets in, difficulty
walking, difficulty getting around, you rely upon your
kids to take you to the bathroom.
This is something that no parent would wish
upon their children for them to happen.
So Allah says, some of you are actually
returned back.
Returned back, meaning you become just like a
baby again.
Just like in the state of being a
baby, you needed your parents to help you,
and to change you, and wash you, and
feed you and everything, you become like that
again.
You are returned to this age, لِكَيْ لَا
يَعْلَمَ بَعْدَ عِلْمٍ شَيْئًا So that the person
who had knowledge, he doesn't know anything after
that.
So he could have been the biggest scientist,
and the most intelligent person in the world,
but when that old age sets in, everything
is forgotten, and a person just becomes like
a newborn baby again, completely helpless.
And this is something that we should ask
Allah to protect us from, that Allah keeps
us healthy until our last breath, so that
we don't become a burden upon other people.
Indeed, Allah is All-Knowing and All-Powerful.
I pray that Allah gives us the ability
to understand and practice what has been said
and heard.
Al-Fatiha.