Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah AnNahl Ayah 110 onward
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I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the
accursed.
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the
Merciful.
Then, surely, your Lord is to those who
emigrate after they have been persecuted, then strive
and be patient.
Surely, your Lord, after that, is Forgiving, Merciful.
On the Day when every soul will come
to dispute about its own soul, and every
soul will be paid in full for what
it has done, and they will not be
wronged.
And Allah has set forth an example of
a city which was secure, secure, and its
provision came to it in abundance from every
place, but it disbelieved in the favours of
Allah, so Allah made it taste the wear
of hunger and fear for what they were
doing.
And there came to them a Messenger from
among themselves, but they denied him, and the
punishment seized them, and they were wrongdoers.
So eat of that which Allah has provided
for you, lawful and good, and be grateful
for the favour of Allah, if it is
He whom you worship.
Today, inshallah, we are starting from Ayah number
110 of Surah An-Nahl.
Last week, we talked about people who are
tested with their Iman, and maybe a person
threatens them with death, and forces them to
disown Islam, and just say that I am
not a Muslim anymore.
So the ruling of that was mentioned last
week, that as long as a person's heart
is Mutma'in with Iman, then in that
case, that person is not held accountable for
what he says with his tongue.
So, today's Ayah talks along the same lines
of those people that are tested by these
kinds of situations while they are living in
a non-Muslim environment.
And this is actually very very relevant for
us today, that how we could be tested,
and how we could go through difficulty, how
we could go through hardship.
So, if a person falls prey and becomes
weak in that type of situation, what would
be the ruling in that case?
So, this is what this Ayah is talking
about.
Allah SWT says, ثُمَّ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ لِلَّذِينَ هَاجَرُوا
مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا فُتِنُوا ثُمَّ جَاهَدُوا وَصَبَرُوا إِنَّ
رَبَّكَ مِنْ بَعْدِهَا لَغَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ There are many
rules and guidelines we can derive from this
verse.
And one of them is that if a
person cannot practice his Islam in a certain
environment, in a certain locality, he has to
leave that locality.
This is the rule.
And this is again mentioned in Surah An
-Nisa.
Allah SWT describes how the angels come and
collect the soul of a person.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَوَفَّهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ ظَالِمِي أَنفُسِهِمْ قَالُوا فِي
مَا كُنْتُمْ Those people were wrongdoers.
Allah SWT says to them or the angel
of death says to them, فِي مَا كُنْتُمْ
What were you doing?
What were you involved in?
They will say, كُنَّا مُسْتَضَعَفِينَ فِي الْأَرْضِ We
were oppressed on the earth.
We could not do anything.
We could not practice our Islam because of
the fact that we were oppressed.
So, the response will be, أَلَمْ تَكُنْ أَرْضُ
اللَّهِ وَاشِعَةً فَتُهَاجِرُوا فِيهَا Wasn't the earth of
Allah SWT vast so that you could have
migrated in it?
You could have left the environment that you
were in and went to an environment in
which you could freely practice your religion.
So, this is what you should have done.
And then after that Allah says that they
will be punished and then there is an
exception after that.
إِلَّا الْمُسْتَضَعَفِينَ مِنَ الْرِجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ وَالْوُلْدَانِ لَا
يَرْسَطِي وَنَحِيلَ Those people that were oppressed, children,
weak, they could not leave that environment.
فَأُولَئِكَ عَسَى اللَّهُ أَن يَعَفْوَانَهُمْ Allah SWT will
forgive them.
But, the biggest point that we can derive
from that is Hijrah.
So, Allah says here, ثُمَّ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ لِلَّذِينَ
هَاجَرُوا Indeed, those people, for those people, Indeed,
your Lord, for those people, that did Hijrah,
they migrated.
مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا فُتِنُوا After they were tested.
The word Fathan, it is exposure of the
gold to extreme heat, so much so that
the pure gold is separated from the impurity.
This is what that original word was used
for.
So, Fitnah basically, it is a test for
a person.
It tests a person's purity of character, purity
of Iman, purity of his conviction.
His connection with Allah SWT is tested, that's
why it's called Fitnah.
So, after they were tested, meaning the test
that we were mentioning in last week's lesson,
a person comes up to them and puts
a sword to their throat, a gun to
their head, and tells them, you have to
leave Islam.
The person, to save his life, he says,
okay, I leave Islam.
But, after that, obviously his heart is Mutmain,
he has to try to get out of
that environment in which he cannot practice his
Iman, his Islam.
ثُمَّ جَاهَدُوا وَصَبَرُوا Then they strived, meaning they
made Hijrah, and then they strived, they propagated
the Deen of Allah SWT, they strived upon
themselves, correcting their Iman, strengthening their Iman, وَصَبَرُوا
and they remained steadfast.
The word Sabr is misunderstood by many people.
Sabr, it has a very broad meaning.
And the best meaning of Sabr that we
can derive is actually steadfastness.
This is what Sabr truly means.
There are actually four different types of Sabr,
I won't go into that right now, but
they remain steadfast.
ثُمَّ جَاهَدُوا وَصَبَرُوا إِنَّ رَبَّكَ مِن بَعْدِهَا لَغَفُورٌ
رَحِيمٌ Indeed, your Lord, after that, after that
Fitnah, after that trial and tribulation, He is
indeed Ghafoor Rahim, He is forgiving and merciful.
So basically, whatever weakness they had during that
time of turbulence, during that time of problems,
during the time of test, Allah SWT is
forgiving after that.
So, like I said, in an environment where
a person is finding it difficult to practice
Islam, a person can become weak.
He can, you know, lose his character, he
can lose the morals that Islam teaches, but
the encouraging thing that we can get from
this verse is Allah SWT understands our human
weakness.
And after going through that difficulty, we must
become stronger and we must remain steadfast on
our Deen and not just become wishy-washy
about our religion.
And then when we do that, Allah SWT,
He forgives us for the times that we
do slip up.
So this is what this verse is telling
us.
And when do we need the maghfir of
Allah SWT?
The next ayah describes the ahwal and the
horrors of the Day of Judgment.
يوم تأتي كل نفس تجادل عن نفسها On
the day that every soul will fight on
his own behalf.
So, this is again what will happen on
the Day of Judgment is a person is
not going to be worried about his sons,
he is not going to be worried about
his wife, he is not going to be
worried about his parents, he is going to
be worried about himself.
And that's why it says that he is
going to be making excuses on his own
behalf.
He is going to be arguing on his
own behalf with Allah SWT.
And what is the argument?
Allah SWT is going to say to him,
Did you commit shirk?
No, I didn't commit shirk.
Did you commit sins?
No, I didn't commit sins.
There are many many verses in the Quran
that talk about this discussion that will take
place between Allah SWT and the accused when
a person will simply say, No, I didn't
do what you are accusing me of.
So, every soul will argue on his own
behalf.
But what will happen?
وَتُوَفَّى كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّا عَمِلَتْ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ
Every soul will be completely given according to
the deeds that he did.
وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ And nobody is going to
be oppressed and nobody is going to be
shortchanged.
Everybody will get what they deserve by Allah
SWT.
And if a person is under the mercy
of Allah SWT, he will get more than
he actually deserves.
But at the very minimum, the punishment will
be given for those people that did wrong
according to their sin and the people that
did good, they will be given according to
their deeds.
مَا عَمِلَتْ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ Nobody is going
to be wrong on the Day of Judgment.
So on that day, Allah SWT is trying
to paint a picture of when Allah SWT
is going to be Ghafoor Rahim, when he
is going to be forgiving and merciful, when
we actually need it the most.
The horrors of this world or the difficulties
of this world, they are nothing in comparison
to the horrors of the hereafter.
So Allah is actually promising that a person
who remains steadfast on his religion and he
becomes steadfast on his faith, Allah SWT will
reward him immensely on the day that he
actually needs the help of Allah SWT.
So the lesson we learn is that we
must remain steadfast, we must continue to work
on our faith and we should never lose
hope.
After that Allah SWT then describes how he
gives blessings to so many different types of
nations and when the people, they reject those
blessings and they disobey Allah SWT, what happens
to them.
Many scholars they say that this verse which
is going to be recited is about Makkah
al-Mukarramah itself and there will be certain
indications of that.
So let me translate inshallah and explain as
we go along.
وَضَرَبَ اللَّهُ مَثَلًا Allah SWT, he gives an
example.
The word Darada, in this context it refers
to the stamping of a coin.
When the stamp, in the old days they
used to make coins and even today when
a coin is minted, you know there is
a mint.
Mint means the place where specifically coins and
notes are made of currency.
So they are made in such a way
that they cannot be forged.
So the stamp that makes the mould which
makes the actual coins that is, that concept
is known as Darb.
So when Allah SWT uses the word Darb
Allahu Matalan Allah SWT gives an example why
the word Darb is used.
When that example is given to make us
understand something it becomes imprinted on a person's
heart.
So if I give you an example, you
know, if I just tell you something that
doesn't really, might not give you a complete
picture.
But if I give you with an example,
that example makes the actual situation get imprinted
on a person's heart.
That's why the word Darb is used.
Darb Allahu Matalan, Allah SWT basically imprints an
example.
He puts this stamp of an example on
a person.
And Matal basically means to give a similarity
of something so that a person understands better.
So Allah SWT gives an example of a
Qariah.
Qariah literally means village.
But here it refers to any town, any
locality, any city can be called Qariah.
It was in the state of Aman, it
was in the state of peace and Mutmain.
This is one of the biggest blessings that
a person can have.
Safety and security.
If you can imagine that a person lives
in a locality which is always burgled.
People are breaking into people's houses all the
time.
Is a person going to be happy?
Is going to sleep at peace at night
in that kind of situation?
Or if a person, nowadays you have so
many places that are war zones.
Syria, you have Iraq, and you have situations
going on in Palestine.
Can a person sleep at night peacefully thinking
that a bomb might just come through my
window at any minute killing me and my
children?
So the fact that a person has Aman,
this is a huge blessing from Allah SWT.
The Prophet SAW he said in a Hadith
A person who wakes up in the morning
and he is at peace in his family,
he has Aman in his family.
And he is Muatan Fi Jasabi.
He has no sickness in his body.
And he has the sustenance for that day
only.
Only the sustenance for one day.
The Prophet SAW says at the end of
the Hadith It's as if all of the
Dunya and whatever its blessings are have been
accumulated for him and been given to him.
So the first thing that is mentioned in
the Hadith is Aman.
And here Allah SWT mentions the biggest blessing
is Aman and it's Minan.
Minan means peace of heart.
So a person can have all the surroundings
that are supposedly giving him peace of heart
but he still can be without peace in
his heart.
There are so many rich people, they cannot
sleep at night.
They have to still take antidepressants to kind
of get through the day or to get
to sleep at night.
They have all the luxuries that you can
imagine.
So yes, they have the security system.
Nobody can break into their house.
And yes, they would have the security but
still they are not Mutmain in their heart.
So Allah SWT put both of those blessings
together here.
Yes, outward security and inner peace.
These are two different things.
And when both of them are combined, this
is the huge blessing.
The next blessing Allah SWT mentions The city
or this locality or this village, it's rizq
comes from all different locations.
Allah SWT says about Mecca in another ayah.
Arabic Didn't we make haram?
The haram meaning the area, the sanctified area.
Didn't we make it a peaceful place for
them?
Arabic The fruits of every single locality, every
single place comes to the Mecca.
And if you've ever been to Mecca, surrounding
it, all desert.
Nothing there, nothing grows there in Mecca except
maybe those places which are artificially.
They grow grass there and basically, you know,
then they cultivate things.
But other than that, it's impossible for things
to grow there.
But in Mecca, every single kind of fruit,
every single kind of cuisine, every single kind
of thing that you want to eat is
available for you to eat even to this
day.
And this was the case even in the
days of the Prophet SAW.
Because Mecca was a hub for trade.
People used to come and trade there from
the north and the south.
The people of Mecca also used to go
trading north and south.
The Surah Quraish, it actually describes the travel
of the winter and the summer.
In the summer, they used to go north
and trade in Jerusalem, in Palestine, in Bilad
al-Sham.
And in the winter, they used to go
south and trade in Yemen.
So this was what is meant by And
at the end of the Surah, Allah SWT
gave them aman from any kind of khawth,
any kind of fear.
So here, this is one of the proofs
that some people say that Allah SWT is
actually talking about Its rizq and sustenance came
to it from all locations.
It rejected the blessings of Allah SWT.
It rejected, how did it reject?
Rejected or was ungrateful for the blessings of
Allah SWT.
So what happened?
Allah SWT made this village taste the clothing
of hunger and the clothing of fear because
of the fact of what they did.
This actually was a result.
This is actually what happened to Mecca.
The Prophet, after being put through so much
hardship from the people of Mecca, he made
a dua against them.
And he made the dua that Allah give
them the hardship and the years that Yusuf
had to endure.
Meaning in the days of Yusuf, there was
famine, there was drought, and for seven years
there was nothing growing.
So the Prophet made dua for them and
ultimately this is what happened.
They were afflicted with drought and famine.
So Allah says that they rejected or they
were ungrateful for the blessings of Allah SWT.
Allah SWT made them taste the clothing of
hunger and fear.
Allah SWT used the word clothing of hunger.
And where is hunger?
Where do we feel hunger?
We feel it inside our stomach, right?
But when a person becomes more hungry, what
happens?
He starts to starve.
And then what happens?
The body attacks the fat and uses up
the fat that is on the body.
The person loses all the fat.
Then when the fat is finished, then the
hunger starts attacking the meat and the meat
starts to diminish.
And what is left is basically a walking
skeleton which only has skin.
No flesh, nothing.
You have probably seen pictures of starving people.
It is very apparent that the person has
been starving for a long time because his
bones are all showing.
So Allah SWT used the word libaas al
juur, the hunger, the clothing of hunger.
What is libaas?
Libaas is something that you wear on your
whole body.
So libaas al juur, meaning the clothing of
hunger.
He is so hungry that you can see
it all over his body.
Everything is showing, the bones are showing.
So libaas al juur and the clothing of
fear also.
You know, when a person is afraid, it
is in his heart that a person is
afraid or inside that he is afraid.
But when a person is really afraid, you
can see it in his face.
The eyes become wide, the person starts sweating,
the person starts shaking, becomes pale and yellow.
So again, Allah SWT used the word libaas
al khawf, meaning the clothing of fear can
be seen on this person.
So Allah SWT made them taste the hunger,
made them taste the fear, bima kanu yasna
'oon, because of what they did.
So ultimately, like I said, Allah SWT afflicted
them with this hunger and hardship and difficulty
because of what they did to the Prophet
and because of the dua'a that the
Prophet made against them.
Allah says, and like I said also, the
wording is general.
It doesn't really actually mention Mecca and the
rule in the Quran is Allah SWT uses
general terms so that we can understand that
the same thing will apply to any locality
that rejects the message of Islam until the
Day of Judgment.
Allah SWT will give it its blessings, Allah
SWT will give it everything, but ultimately, if
they continue to reject the message of Islam,
then the punishment of Allah SWT can come
at any time.
After that, Allah SWT says, And indeed, a
Prophet from amongst them came to them.
And this description of the Prophet SAW is
mentioned throughout the Quran and in all cases
actually, whenever Allah SWT sent a Prophet, He
sent a Prophet from amongst His own people,
from amongst the same people so that they
knew Him from before, they knew His character,
they knew what He was about, they knew
that He wasn't a liar, and He could
speak exactly the same language as them to
make them understand.
So the same thing applies to the Prophet
SAW.
Forty years, he was As-Sadiq, he's Al
-Amin, he's trusted by everybody, and he's from
amongst them.
He's not like a stranger that came from
outside and claimed to be a Prophet, but
he was from amongst them.
And indeed, a Prophet from amongst them came
to them.
They rejected him.
And the punishment grabbed them.
It's as if, Allah SWT used the word,
as if Adab has been given its own
kind of mind and its own brain that
the punishment itself went to look for those
people and grab them.
Allah SWT says that punishment grabbed them, punished
them, took them.
While they were doing wrong.
So again, this refers back to the starvation
that they had to endure because of the
Dua of the Prophet SAW.
And finally, the last Ayah for today, Allah
SWT is addressing the whole of humanity.
That Allah SWT gave you so much.
Night and day, Allah is giving you.
He's giving you food, He's giving you drink,
He's giving you safety, He's giving you the
air to breathe which is clean so you
can breathe.
So use all of these blessings of Allah
SWT.
But at the same time, be grateful to
Allah.
And gratitude means that be obedient to Him.
Believe in Him.
And believe in the Hereafter.
Work for the Hereafter itself.
So consume, eat from that which Allah SWT
has given you as sustenance.
Eat from the rizq that Allah SWT has
given you.
Eat Halal and Tayyib.
Halal and Tayyib.
Two things Allah SWT mentions here.
Not necessarily everything Halal is also Tayyib.
Remember that.
We have to have Halal and also Tayyib.
We should eat pure things.
Things which are good for us.
If possible, get things which are untainted by
preservatives and all the rest of the colorings
and everything.
The processing that takes place that destroys our
food.
Tayyib.
It has to be pure.
And be grateful for the blessing of Allah
SWT.
Thank Allah SWT for His blessing.
If indeed you worship Him, be grateful to
Him.
And gratitude, like I said, gratitude entails that
we are obedient to Him.
We listen to what He says.
We accept the message of the Prophet SAW.
And we do not deny any of it.
We do not disobey Allah SWT.
That is the true essence of gratitude and
shukr to Allah SWT.
With that, we finish, Inshallah.
And we will continue next week.
I pray that Allah SWT gives us tawfiq
to understand and practice what has been said
and heard.