Zia Sheikh – Ramadan Khatira Day 21
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AI: Transcript ©
Last night we completed the 22nd Juz and
in it we have the completion of Suratul
Ahzab, Surah Saba and also Surah Fatir and
the beginning of Surah Yasin.
I'm just going to focus on Surah Saba
and in it the story of two contrasting
people.
One group of people that is grateful to
Allah SWT and one group of people that
is ungrateful to Allah SWT.
Allah SWT mentions the story of Dawood AS
and Sulaiman AS and the capabilities that they
were given and the blessings that they were
given.
Both kings and both given special attributes, special
qualities, special powers that nobody had before them.
Dawood AS having the power of using metal
for weaponry and for armour and things of
that nature.
So this was something special for Dawood AS.
In addition to that Sulaiman AS, the ability
to control wind and to hear the languages
of the animals and also to control jinns.
So this was something unique that both kings
were given and Allah SWT after mentioning all
of these qualities and attributes that they were
blessed with, Allah SWT addresses the Al of
Dawood, the family of Dawood and tells them
اعملوا آل داوود شكرا وقليل من عبادي الشكور
Allah says اعملوا, اعملوا means put into practice.
Put into practice, O family of Dawood, gratitude.
In Arabic if you tell somebody to be
grateful, you tell them اشكرو Here Allah SWT
uses specific wording, put into practice gratitude.
Meaning it's not just with your tongue that
you say thank you, rather through your actions
is how you express gratitude.
And this is what is required from us
when we are to be grateful to Allah
SWT.
It is not just to say thank you
Allah and the rest of the time we
are disobeying Allah.
But putting into practice gratitude by being obedient
to Allah SWT at all times.
So اعملوا آل داوود شكرا وقليل من عبادي
الشكور And very few of my servants are
grateful.
So we need to be from amongst those
few that are grateful to Allah SWT and
show our gratitude by practicing.
Then there is a kind of ayah which
comes in the middle of the two stories.
I just want to mention this which is
kind of a unique story which you may
not have heard about.
Allah SWT describes here the death of Suleyman
AS, how he passed away.
Now as I have just mentioned, Suleyman AS
used to be able to control jinns.
And he used to go out in the
field and he used to watch the jinns
doing what he commanded them to do.
Building and constructing and so on.
So in the course of doing that one
day, he was standing and leaning on his
stick.
And it was at the time of this
leaning on the stick while standing, death overtook
him.
He died.
But he stood leaning on that stick and
nobody knew that he has passed away.
Until after a certain amount of time, termites
started eating the stick that he was leaning
on.
And once that stick had been consumed, he
fell down because now he doesn't have anything
to lean on anymore.
So that's when people found out that he
had passed away.
So what Allah SWT is trying to put
across to us is, and especially at the
time of the Prophet SAW, there was a
huge belief that the jinns, they had knowledge
of the unseen.
They used to take knowledge by going up
into the heavens, they used to * whatever
they could from the angels and bring it
down and tell the people.
But this was not knowledge of the unseen,
this was stolen knowledge from the angels.
But the people of Mecca used to believe
that they had the knowledge of the unseen.
So this puts to rest that fallacy because
Allah SWT says that if the jinns had
knowledge of the unseen, then they would have
known that Sulaiman had died.
But they continued to work, they continued to
construct, they continued to do the manual labor
as if Sulaiman is watching them all this
time.
And they didn't find out until he fell
down that he passed away.
So Allah SWT says, The
only thing that showed people that he had
died was the fact that worms from the
earth, termites or any kind of wood eating
creature had eaten his stuff.
And when he fell down, the jinns realized,
If they had knowledge of the unseen, then
they would not have been in this disgraceful
punishment.
The disgraceful punishment means continuing the manual labor
that they were doing for many many days
or months or however much time it took
for Sulaiman to actually fall down.
So this is what we derive from this
ayah.
After that Allah SWT describes that town or
village which was told to be grateful to
Allah SWT but wasn't.
So on the one hand you had Dawood
AS, Sulaiman AS, grateful for the blessings that
Allah SWT had given them and completely obedient
to Allah SWT.
And then after that, a group of people
that are ungrateful and what happens to them.
Indeed in the story of Saba there was
a sign.
Now Saba is what this surah is named
after and it was the name of that
town or village and in modern days it
is known as Ma'arib.
It is not known as Saba anymore, it
is known as Ma'arib.
So Allah says indeed in the story of
Saba, in their dwellings there was a sign.
What was that sign, what was that miracle?
Allah SWT used the word ayah which can
mean sign, miracle etc.
They had very very lush and bountiful gardens.
This town of Saba, it was located in
a valley and the whole town was in
a valley and surrounding this valley were gardens
and these gardens were full of fruits and
these fruits were so bountiful that it is
mentioned that if a woman used to start
walking from one side with a basket on
her head, she used to come out of
the other side and the basket was full
without any effort on her part.
The fruit just basically was falling to such
a degree that the basket used to fill
up by itself.
So some scholars say that the sign or
the miracle that Allah SWT is referring to
is this miracle.
Other scholars of Tafseer, they say that this
place of Saba was such that no insect,
no snake, no scorpion, no mosquito, no pest
could actually go there and survive.
Any person that used to bring any kind
of bugs or contamination from outside, even by
accident, it used to result in those bugs
just dying automatically.
So no kind of contamination, no kind of
pest used to be able to enter into
this place of Saba.
This is another understanding or another opinion about
what that miraculous thing was that the people
of Saba were blessed with.
The ayah goes on to say, They had
two gardens on the right and left.
So it was in a valley and on
both sides of the valley, gardens, lush and
bountiful gardens on the right and left.
Some scholars actually go as far as to
say that it wasn't just two gardens, this
is just a figure of speech that if
you say, I looked right, I looked left,
I looked everywhere basically, look everywhere and there's
gardens everywhere.
So there were not just two gardens, but
gardens everywhere, to the right, left, front, back,
everywhere there were gardens.
Allah SWT told them, Consume from the sustenance
of your Lord and be grateful to Him.
Some scholars say that angels are saying this,
some scholars say that this was the prophets
that were telling them, and they were, according
to some tafasir, nine or ten prophets were
sent to them, preaching to them the same
message again and again, but they refused to
listen.
That eat from the sustenance that Allah SWT
has given you and be grateful to Him.
It's a pure land and a merciful Lord.
A merciful and forgiving Lord that Allah SWT
has blessed you with so much despite the
fact that you continue to be disobedient to
Him.
And baldatun tayyiba also indicates that tayyiba is
the opposite of something which is haram and
khabeefa.
So the halal rizq that Allah SWT has
given you without any effort on your part
and without you indulging in any kind of
haram activity, be grateful for that.
baldatun tayyibatun warabbun ghafoor faa'aradu, they turned
their backs, they rejected.
So what happened?
faa'arsalnaa alayhim sayyilal arim We sent upon
them the flood of the dam.
So what used to happen was, their fruits
were watered and irrigated by a dam that
was coming in from the hills.
And Allah SWT basically made that dam burst,
all the flood waters came down, destroyed the
whole village, and all the fruits and everything
that were there, all the fruit gardens, everything
was destroyed.
The word arim, there are different interpretations for
this word al-arim, but most scholars say
that it refers to this dam that burst
and resulted in the destruction of their gardens.
wabaddalnaahum bi jannatayhim jannatayn We exchanged their gardens
that they had before with two other gardens.
So it was the same place, but it
was so different that it seemed like it
was a completely different garden.
You've probably seen pictures of what happens after
tornadoes, right?
On the one hand, or Google pictures, Google
images, you've seen them, that before it was
like this, and immediately after the hurricane or
the tornado, this is what happened, completely flat.
So Allah SWT is saying here that we
exchanged their two gardens, which were lush and
bountiful and full of fruit, with two other
gardens.
What were they?
dhawatay yukulin khamtin wa athlin wa shayin min
sidrin qaleem With a bitter taste.
Khamt, there are again different interpretations of what
khamt means.
Some scholars say that it refers to the
tree which produces the miswak, a rock tree,
and some say that any tree that has
bitterness associated with it that is not consumable,
that is called khamt.
So bitter trees replaced those fruit trees, and
wa athl, tamarisk, was there tamarisk, wa shayin
min sidrin qaleel, and some low trees were
remaining.
Basically, all the fruit was gone, nothing remained,
except for these trees which had no benefit
whatsoever.
So basically, the lesson is that be grateful
to Allah SWT for the blessings that Allah
SWT has given you, you never know when
Allah might change this blessing into something completely
different.
Gratitude is important, and gratitude is not just
saying things with your mouth, rather practicing it
and obeying Allah SWT, this is what gratitude
is truly about, and this is what obedience
is truly about.
I pray that Allah SWT gives us sufiq
to understand and practice what has been said
and heard.