Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah AnNahl ayah 126 onward
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I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed
Satan.
In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent,
the Most Merciful.
And if you are punished, punish with the
same punishment as you have been punished with.
And if you are patient, it is better
for the patient.
And be patient, and your patience is only
with Allah.
And do not grieve over them.
And do not grieve over them.
And do not be in distress because of
what they plan.
Indeed, Allah is with those who are righteous
and those who do good.
Starting with ayah number 126 tonight, which is
basically the concluding last three verses we are
going to do today of Surah An-Nahl,
where we complete this surah.
According to Hutaib Nihysar, he says that this
surah was all revealed in Makkah.
And right from the very beginning we have
been mentioning that this is a Makkah surah,
and the gist and the content of a
Makkah surah is always Tawheed, the greatness of
Allah SWT, talking about different creations of Allah
SWT, so that people understand His oneness, His
power, and so that they can focus only
and only on His Iman rather than committing
shirk.
That the Arabs were famous for, and what
the Prophet SAW came to denounce.
However, Hutaib Nihysar says that these last three
verses were revealed after Surah Uhud, and they
were revealed in Medina.
And as we know, the first jihad, the
first warfare, it took place in Medina tul
Munawwara.
And these verses, they talk about revenge, they
talk about fighting back, they talk about defending
yourself, and that took place in Medina, so
therefore it makes sense that these verses would
have been revealed there.
And according to this riwayah of Hutaib Nihysar,
he says that the Prophet SAW, after Ghazwat
Uhud, when 70 of the Sahaba were killed,
including the uncle of the Prophet SAW, the
Prophet SAW and the Sahaba were very upset.
And in this mood of being upset and
being vengeful against those people that had done
them so wrong, and had killed their most
prominent Sahaba, including the uncle of the Prophet
SAW, they said things which were contrary to
the ideals of jihad as Allah SWT wanted.
So the Prophet SAW, he said on one
occasion that when we meet them again, we
will kill or we will make mutla of
30 of those people in place of one
of ours.
And the Sahaba, they started saying things of
the nature that they said that we are
going to take them and disfigure these people
until we do it in such a way
that no previous Arab nation, Arabs of the
past have never done this what is called
mutla before.
Mutla means disfiguring somebody, chopping one's nose off,
chopping one's ears off, this is called mutla.
So they were upset at the course of
events that took place in Ghazwat Uhud and
that's why they started saying these things.
So in response to the Prophet SAW and
the Sahaba saying these things, Allah SWT revealed
this verse, the first verse.
What is it?
وَإِنْ عَاقَبْتُمْ فَعَاقِبُوا بِمِثْلِ مَا عُوقِبْتُمْ بِهِ If
you are going to take revenge, if you
are going to fight, then take revenge similar
to how you've been dealt with.
This is the justice of Islam.
So yes, human nature when it becomes angry,
wants to become vengeful, then doesn't care.
So you have all of these people, for
example, a person who gets thrown out of
his job and he wants to take revenge
on his boss.
So he takes a gun and he shoots
out 15-20 people without any reason.
Innocent people are killed because of the anger
of this one person.
And in this situation that what happened in
Ghazwat Uhud was understandable that people would be
angry and they would be upset.
And that's why they said these things.
But Allah SWT calmed them down and said
that if you are going to take revenge,
then you can only take revenge in a
way that people have dealt with you.
If one of yours gets killed, then you
have the right to kill that one person.
If one of them, one of yours gets
injured, then you have the right to injure
the next person.
But the point was that fighting was not
ordained to basically kill people.
It was not ordained to initiate battles.
It was ordained as a means of self
-defense to make sure that people just didn't
lay down their arms and just be attacked
while not fighting back.
So the allowance was given to fight back.
And that's why in another verse of the
Quran, Allah SWT says The people that have
been fought against, they have been given permission
to fight back.
They've been given permission.
The wording is very special.
They've been permitted to fight back.
And when the permission is given, it's usually
after there is prohibition, right?
There's prohibition, you're not allowed to fight, no
arms are to be raised.
And then Allah SWT says, okay, now you
have permission.
And then the ayah goes on to say
Because of the fact that they were, a
dhulm was made against them.
And then it goes on to describe further
the dhulm that was done upon such people.
Those people that were thrown out of their
houses without any right.
Simply because of the fact that they said
Rabbuna Allah.
Our Lord is Allah SWT.
And then after that, Allah says that this
concept of fighting and jihad, it's not something
that was only allowed for the Muslims and
for this ummah.
But this has been going on right from
the very beginning.
The places of worship from the beginning of
time, they would have been destroyed.
Whether they are churches, synagogues, masajid, whichever religion
practiced, there were always people wanting to attack
their religion and wanting them to get away
from the straight path.
And if it wasn't for the fact that
Allah SWT had allowed fighting back, then these
places of worship would have been destroyed.
And this was actually what the disbelievers wanted.
To destroy Islam, to destroy the Muslims, and
to make sure the name of Allah SWT
was not pronounced.
And so that they could continue with their
shirk and their polytheism, their association of partners
with Allah SWT.
They wanted to continue that.
And if they had a choice and the
Muslims had not fought back, then truly the
Muslims would have been destroyed.
And they would not have been able to
save Islam and let it continue and flourish.
So here Allah says, وَإِنَا عَاقَبْتُمْ فَعَاقِبُوا بِمِثْلِ
مَا عُوقِبْتُمْ بِهِ If you are going to
take revenge, then only the way that you
have been dealt with, you are allowed to
take revenge, not more than that.
And there are other verses in the Quran
that say something similar.
فَمَنِ اِعْتَذَا عَلَيْكُمْ فَاعْتَذُوا عَلَيْهِ بِمِثْلِ مَا عَتَذَاتُمْ
بِهِ بِمِثْلِ مَا عَتَذَوْا If people are making
transgression against you, then only make transgression similar
to the transgression that has been done against
you.
Fight back the same way that they are
fighting against you.
But on top of that, Allah says in
the rest of the verse, something very special.
وَلَئِنْ صَبَرْتُمْ لَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لِّصَابِرِينَ If you are
to be patient, then this is the best
thing for the people of Sabr.
And that's amazing.
That on the one hand, Allah SWT is
allowing for people to take revenge.
And then on the other hand, Allah SWT
is saying that if instead of taking revenge,
you make Sabr, and if there's a scope
for making Sabr, then this is even better
for you.
So, why then Allah SWT is telling people
to make Sabr?
There are many verses in the Quran that
talk about this issue.
For example, Allah SWT says, defend yourself in
that way which is the best.
And the result of that will be, فَإِذَا
الَّذِي بَيْنَكَ وَبَيْنَهُ عَدَاوَةٌ كَأَنَّهُ وَلِيٌّ حَمِيمٌ And
suddenly, the enmity that exists between you and
a person, he will become like a very
warm friend of yours.
So, this will happen when a person makes
Sabr.
So, really there are two types of difficulties
that a person faces in one's life.
One type of difficulty is the difficulty that
is what one says are natural occurrences.
A person becomes sick, he slips and falls,
he breaks his foot, he develops an illness.
So, in that case, this is from Allah
SWT, and he has really no option but
to have Sabr.
So, a person in that situation, he has
to, it's easier for him to make Sabr.
However, there are situations that are problems that
occur because of human beings against a person.
A neighbor, he gives you a hard time.
A relative gives you a hard time.
Disbeliever gives you a hard time when you
are trying to give him Dawah.
In all of these situations, a person can
stand up and take revenge, but then the
outcome of that is that it becomes tit
-for-tat and it becomes fighting, arguing, and
it goes round in a circle.
When a person makes Sabr in that type
of situation, what happens is that the situation,
it becomes calm.
It becomes the fighting, the circle of fighting
and the vicious circle, it will stop, it
will calm down, and people can sit down
and have a dialogue and with a cooler
head, with a calm brain, they can decide
to, you know, work things out without having
to fight.
So, this is the outcome of Sabr, and
this is what Allah SWT instructed us in
many places in the Quran that when you
are going through these difficulties, you are going
through challenges, if a person is giving you
a hard time, the best thing for you
is to make Sabr, and to be patient,
and to respond in a way that is
good, and courteous, and polite, and gentlemanly like,
rather than just becoming vicious and vengeful.
This is what we are supposed to do,
and the Prophet SAW demonstrated that, especially when
things were going against him on a personal
level.
People were trying to abuse him on a
personal level.
Individually, the Prophet SAW never used to take
revenge.
Many instances, many stories, that we've all heard
about before in the past, how he used
to make Sabr.
وَلَا إِن صَبَرَتُمْ لَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لِّسَابِنِينَ Indeed, if
you make Sabr, then that is best for
the people who are making Sabr.
Then, in this verse, the next verse, Allah
SWT addresses the Prophet SAW directly.
وَاسْبِرْ وَمَا صَبْرُكَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ Before we go
into this, if you remember last week, we
talked about Allah SWT telling us to make
Dawah with Hikmah, and with a good speech,
and arguing with people in a way that
is good.
And then after that, this next Ayah, Allah
SWT is telling us to take, when a
person has to take revenge, then he has
to take revenge.
So, in that case, when a person is
giving Dawah, he will face all types of
situations.
Sometimes the people will listen, listen and then
maybe not even practice it, but then there
will be other people that will become insulting,
and they will fight, will be ready to
fight you, they will be ready to raise
arms against you, and then, so in that
situation, what is a person supposed to do?
وَإِنْ أَعَقَبْتُمْ فَعَقِبُوا بِمِثْلِ مَا عُقِبْتُمْ بِهِ Then,
if you need to fight back, then you
need to fight back in the way that
they are fighting against you.
So, in the next Ayah, Allah SWT addresses
the Prophet SAW directly, and as I mentioned
before, when the Prophet SAW is being addressed
indirectly, we are also being addressed.
Allah says, وَصْبِرْ وَمَا صَبْرُكَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ Have
sabr, have patience, and your patience is only
through Allah SWT.
So, what that means is that the Prophet
SAW is instructed to have sabr, be patient,
and again, sabr by itself is not just
to be patient, it has a lot of
connotations, a lot of meanings, and all types
of sabr are meant here.
When Allah SWT says, إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الصَّابِرِينَ
Indeed, Allah SWT is with the people who
make sabr.
It means those people that make sabr in
all of its contexts.
Sabr, for example, الصَّبْرُ عَلَى الطَّاعَةِ means to
be steadfast upon good.
الصَّبْرُ عَلَى المُصِيبَةِ That means that a person
is afflicted with a calamity or a problem
and he has sabr on that.
الصَّبْرُ عَنِ الْمَعْصِيَةِ A person, he is staying
away from disobeying Allah SWT.
All of these types of sabr are what
is meant when Allah is telling us to
make sabr.
Okay, so when Allah is saying, وَصْبِرْ Have
sabr, it means be obedient to Allah SWT,
be steadfast.
It means stay away from the معاصي.
It means have sabr and patience when you
are faced with difficulty and adversity.
Then, that is the situation in which Allah
SWT is with you.
And not just the common understanding of sabr
that we have is that if we are
faced with a difficulty, we have sabr.
Yes, that is one aspect of it, but
no, all of the types of sabr are
to be implemented if we want Allah SWT
on our side.
So this is what is meant here.
وَصْبِرْ وَمَا صَبْرُكَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ Have sabr and
Allah SWT himself, he is with those people
that have that type of sabr.
وَمَا صَبْرُكَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ وَلَا تَحْزَنَ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا
تَكُ فِي ضَيِّقٍ مِّمَّا يَمْكُرُونَ Amazing, where the
Prophet SAW is going through difficulty in his
life and he is inviting people, he is
being insulted, he is being called sha'ir,
he is being called kahin, a magician, he
is being called a poet, a sha'ir,
all of these different names he is being
called while he is sincere in inviting people
towards Allah SWT.
In that situation, and on top of that,
he is upset that people are not becoming
Muslim.
Allah SWT is telling him, وَلَا تَحْزَنَ عَلَيْهِمْ
وَلَا تَحْزَنَ عَلَيْهِمْ Do not worry over them.
And his worry was to such a degree
that Allah SWT had to console him so
many times.
لَعَلَّكَ بَاقِعُ النَّفْسَكَ أَلَّا يَكُونُ مُؤْمِنِينَ Maybe you
are going to destroy yourself if they don't
become believers.
لَعَلَّكَ بَاقِعُ النَّفْسَكَ عَلَىٰ آثَارِهِمْ إِلَّمْ يُؤْمِنُوا بِهَٰذَا
الْحَدِيثِ أَسَفَىٰ Maybe you are going to destroy
yourself in following their footsteps if they don't
have iman.
Out of sorrow you are going to destroy
yourself.
So again and again Allah SWT told the
Prophet SAW to calm down, not to be
worried, not to be upset.
That guidance was in the hands of Allah
SWT, not in his hands.
He had to just make the effort.
He even could not guide his beloved uncle
Abu Talib who supported him through thick and
thin, through so many difficulties in his life.
Abu Talib was there by his side but
he did not accept iman.
So obviously in these situations the Prophet SAW
would be worried.
Allah says وَلَا تَحْزَنَ عَلَيْهِمْ And then as
a human being people are out to get
you, they are out to prosecute you, they
are out to persecute you, they are out
to even make plans and plots to kill
you.
At the time of the Hijrah of the
Prophet SAW all the tribes of Quraysh or
the clans of Quraysh had got together and
they had decided that simultaneously they are going
to take spears and swords and kill him
in one go so that the tribe of
the Prophet SAW could not take revenge against
all of them.
So that is why the Prophet SAW migrated
because it got to a point where they
were even willing to kill him.
So Allah is saying here وَلَا تَكُ فِي
ضَيِّقٍ مِّمَّا يَمْكُرُونَ Just imagine that same society
that used to respect you and love you
and call you a Sadiq, call you an
Ameen.
Those same people are sitting and making plans,
evil plans against you.
You know that dichotomy and the variation of
the situations is very difficult for a person
to endure.
On the one hand respect, love, affection so
much so that everyone trusts you and wants
to be with you and takes your advice
and then immediately as soon as you start
calling towards Tawheed you become a Sahib, become
a magician even the plots are made against
you to kill you, na'udhu billah.
So how could a person not be upset
in that very difficult situation?
So Allah SWT is saying وَلَا تَكُ فِي
ضَيِّقٍ مِّمَّا يَمْكُرُونَ Don't be in bayt.
Don't be tight.
Tight means when a person is really feeling
like everything is closing in on him.
He has no means of escape.
So Allah is telling that don't be in
this tightness because of the fact, because of
the makr and the evil plans that they
are making against you O Prophet of Allah.
So again this is indirectly it's addressing us
believers also that when a person stands up
for the good stands up for the right
path then he will have objections from his
closest ones.
He will have objections from the people that
are near and dear to him.
That oh yesterday you were partying with us
and you were doing all of these things
with us and now you want you're giving
fatwas that all of this is suddenly haram.
What happened?
You know how come you just became a
huge Sufi now and you became you know
a sheikh now and you started becoming so
religious now.
So the very people that yesterday were close
to you they're going to make life difficult
for you and this is what the Prophet
said Islam it started off as a very
strange religion.
People regarded it as strange and the Prophet
of Allah said that it will return into
being a strange religion where a person who
wants to become religious he wants to lead
a religious lifestyle people are going to turn
against him and they're going to say that
what kind of a strange person has this
has he become.
He's become strange.
He is not the same person that we
knew yesterday.
He has become completely different.
So in that type of situation what are
we supposed to do?
We're supposed to make sabr and do not
feel that there's difficulty that you are experiencing.
Remember that the Prophet of Allah experienced much
more difficult days than that.
Much more difficulty than we could ever imagine
he had to face.
So we have to make the same type
of sabr inshallah.
Finally Allah says This is the ultimate reward
that a person can get.
And this is the consolation the solace that
a person can get from Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala for making sabr in those situations
that finally Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
that he is with you.
He is with you when you're going through
that difficulty.
Not with the people that are against you
he is with you Indeed Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala he is with the people that
have the taqwa that are aware of him
that express the taqwa of him and the
awareness of him.
and also with those people that are basically
means the people there are many meanings of
ihsan ihsan means perfection so on top of
taqwa they perfect themselves they perfect their faith
they perfect their deeds so they are they
perfect every single thing that is associated with
Islam rather than just limiting themselves to the
rituals they make ihsan perfection in every single
way and can also mean that somebody does
bad to you and you turn around and
you do good to them so in the
context of what is being said here and
what is being mentioned the difficulty that a
person has to endure so instead of doing
bad against the people that are around you
that are doing bad against you you turn
around and do good to them that is
ihsan that is doing a person a favor
and this is what Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala loves another meaning of ihsan is ikhlas
and sincerity so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is with those people that are mukhlisin that
are sincere in doing good means that when
a person is giving dawah sincerely for the
sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then
he will accept all that comes towards him
otherwise if a person is doing it for
his own ulterior motives then the first instance
somebody stands up and says something bad to
him then man, why do I have to
deal with this I didn't start doing this
good work so that people could insult me
I'd rather just stay at home so if
a person is mukhlis if he has real
ihsan and ikhlas in him then he's not
going to give up because of the fact
that people are speaking ill of him or
giving him a hard time he will become
more steadfast and he will do more dawah
and he will engage himself even more when
he goes through these difficulties and that's why
wherever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he talks
about advising and calling people towards Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala there's always the concept of
sabr that is mentioned at the end of
it sabr is mentioned
after tawasi bil haq meaning advising people of
the truth and in surah luqman the same
thing is mentioned over there where luqman is
telling his son to establish the salah order
people to do good and forbid them from
evil and what does he say?
make sabr upon the difficulty that comes to
you when you are giving dawah so whenever
a person is faced with or is doing
dawah he's doing good he's calling people towards
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the natural inclination
of people will be to give him a
hard time so he has to make sabr
at that time so with that inshallah we
finish this surah surah an-nahal and inshallah
we will start a new surah next time
i pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
gives us tawfiq to understand and practice what
has been said and heard