Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah AnNahl ayah 71 onward
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The disparity between people, jobs, and culture is a result of the lack of proper education and work. Visits to achieve completion are a result of the lack of proper education and work, and the negative impact of the trash man is a source of negative behavior. Visits to save people's lives are a result of the lack of proper education and work, and the negative impact of denying the niih of Allah's weight and worshipping the idols is a source of negative behavior. Visits to save people's lives are a result of the lack of proper education and work, and the negative impact of denying the niih of Allah's weight and worshipping the idols is a source of negative behavior. Visits to save people's lives are a result of the lack of proper education and work, and the negative impact of the trash man is a source of negative behavior. Visits to achieve completion are a result of the lack of proper education and work, and the negative impact of the
AI: Summary ©
I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed
Satan.
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the
Merciful.
And Allah has favored some of you over
others in provision.
So who are those who are favored by
the return of their provision over that which
their right hands possess?
Over that which their right hands possess, so
they are equal in it.
Then do they deny the favor of Allah?
And Allah has made for you from among
yourselves wives and has made for you from
among your wives sons and grandchildren and has
provided you with good things.
Then do they believe in falsehood and in
the favor of Allah do they disbelieve?
And Allah has made for you from among
yourselves
wives and has made for you from among
your wives sons and grandchildren and has provided
you with good things.
So this lesson today is no exception.
This lesson will talk about this issue as
a secondary thing, inshallah, we will come to
it when we come to that point, inshallah.
So the first thing that is discussed here
is the issue of the differences in the
amount of sustenance, in the amount of risk
and what kind of risk that we have.
So many people feel that that person is
richer than me, he has more than me,
he has a better job than me, he
has more qualifications than me.
So this disparity that takes place between different
people, different jobs, different occupations, different socioeconomic classes,
why does that take place?
What is the reason behind it and what
is the wisdom behind it?
So today's lesson will cover this very important
point too.
Allah SWT says, وَاللَّهُ فَضَّلَ بَعْضَكُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ
فِي الْرِزْقِ Allah SWT, He gave a status
of some of you over some others in
rizq.
And notice that Allah SWT uses very ambiguous
wording.
Some of you over some others.
Allah SWT has given status.
And again, the understanding that many people have
is that if the person has a better
paying job than me, he has a bigger
house than me, he has an occupation which
is kind of an elite occupation which makes
him lots of money, he is better than
me.
Allah SWT didn't specify who He has given
fadl over somebody else and He uses ambiguous
terms.
He has given status to some of you
over some others.
So what is that status?
Only Allah SWT can define what is better
and what is not.
And on many occasions, for example, a person
who might feel that I have a job
which nobody cares about or nobody wants to
be.
For example, a person who works as a
car mechanic.
Dirty job.
Sometimes the person has to work out in
the cold, has to get his hands dirty,
his clothes dirty.
So he might feel to himself that I
am inferior to somebody else who maybe sits
in an air-conditioned office or a heated
office while I am out in the heat
or cold and having to deal with all
the difficulties that I have to deal with
in terms of hard labor.
But the reality is that that same mechanic
who comes to the assistance of even the
employment of a person who may be elite
and all of his cars that he has,
they are all broken down and he needs
to get from point A to point B
in a hurry.
For example, he is a doctor who works
in an emergency type of environment.
So at that point where the doctor's car
is completely not working and he needs to
get from point A to point B to
save somebody's life in an emergency and the
only person that can fix it is that
mechanic whose hands are dirty, then at that
point who is more important?
That is something to think about.
That this fadl that Allah SWT has given,
the status has given, it varies at different
times, at different times of need, and in
different situations this status will vary.
That is why Allah SWT didn't say who
is better than the other.
Allah SWT has given a status of some
of you over some others in the matter
of rizq, in the matter of sustenance.
And this disparity actually, it makes the world
complete.
In this ikhtilaf, in this disparity, there is
actually a completion of the world.
If everybody in the world became doctors, then
who would become engineers?
If everybody became engineers, who would become doctors?
And if everybody became scholars and basically start
teaching people, then who would do the manual
labor jobs?
So Allah SWT has given people different skills,
different intelligences, different capabilities, so that the world
is completed.
Sheikh Sha'arawi in his tafsir has given
a very good example of how two different
people with different mindsets can come to a
completion in something that seemingly is different.
He gives the example of a person or
two people that go into a restaurant.
And both of them, they order chicken.
So one of them likes the white meat
of the chicken and the other one likes
the red meat of the chicken.
So there is ikhtilaf in between the two.
There is a difference of opinion between the
two.
But in this ikhtilaf, in this difference of
opinion, there is a completion that the whole
chicken is consumed.
And in that ikhtilaf, there is in fact
ittifaq.
There is actually a unity of purpose at
the end.
So again, take that same example.
If everybody in the world just ate white
meat of the chicken and nobody liked the
red meat, what would happen?
And vice versa.
So Allah SWT has made this difference of
status, difference in education, difference in skill set
so that the world becomes complete and all
the responsibilities get fulfilled.
A few years ago, we had a strike
in the UK, in Britain, of people who
we assume are the lowest in the social
rung, if you will.
Rung of the ladder, the social rung of
the ladder.
It is basically the people that collect the
trash every week or twice a week.
When you tell your kids, if you don't
get a good education, what are you going
to be?
You are going to be a trash man.
So for about two or three months, the
trash people, the people that collected garbage, they
were on a strike.
The streets were full of trash.
Rats and mice and all forms of problems
were occurring because of this issue, because they
weren't being paid well enough or whatever.
That was the reason for the strike.
But the importance of the trash man comes
into play when the trash man is no
longer doing his work.
We just had the holiday weekend, right, in
which the trash was not collected because of
the holiday.
So what happened?
The garages were full of trash, and if
we didn't have one day in the middle
where the trash was collected, by now our
garage would have been full and smelling of
trash of two weeks.
So the importance of every single responsibility comes
into play when that person is not doing
his job or her job or that person,
that responsibility goes missing.
Another example that's given is the person, again,
who cleans shoes for a living.
Again, he thinks of himself as inferior to
many others.
Why?
Because he's doing something of a very lowly
job, a job which people think that is
very inferior, cleaning people's shoes.
But the reality is that if you look
at the polishes that he uses, the tins
of polish, to get that polish to him,
there's a whole industry and people making that
polish and putting it into the tins and
then getting it delivered to him that are,
in fact, serving him.
So, again, Allah SWT has given different responsibilities
to different people to complete the world that
we are living in.
Allah SWT says in another verse, The
last point I'll just focus on.
لِيَتَّخِذَ بَعْضُهُم بَعْضًا سُخْرِيًّا That each one can
take the other as being appointed to him.
That Allah SWT, he gave different responsibilities to
different people so that each one can serve
the other and come to each other's need
when the need arises.
So, again, the same example that I gave
of the doctor who needs his car so
that he can fulfill his responsibility of the
emergency.
So, Allah SWT says, Allah SWT has given
some of you a status over some others
in the sustenance, in the rizq.
And then he gets to the point of
how we derive Tawheed from this.
فَمَا الَّذِينَ فُضِّلُوا بِرَادِي رِزْقِهِمَ عَلَىٰ مَا مَلَكَتَ
أَيْمَانُهُمْ فَهُمْ فِيهِ سَوَارٌ The person who has
a higher status, who has the money and
everything, you will never see him that he
will take all of his wealth and make
his subordinates equal to him by giving them
the same amount of wealth.
So, for example, a CEO of a company,
he makes, what, a half a million or
a million a year.
So, is he going to take all of
his wealth and give it to one of
his subordinates so that person becomes equal to
him in wealth?
He's not going to do that.
This is the rule of the world that
the ones who are at a lower level
of income, they will remain so.
And it's very rare that you will find
that a boss or a CEO getting to
this point of giving his wealth so that
his subordinate or his employee becomes equal to
him in rank.
It's not going to happen.
So, Allah SWT says here that those people
that have been given a status, فَمَا الَّذِينَ
فُضِّلُوا۟ They will not, بِرَادِ رِزْقِهِمْ They will
not return their sustenance, their rizq, عَلَىٰ مَا
مَلَكَتَ أَيْمَانُهُمْ upon their slaves.
فَهُمْ فِيهِ سَوَارٌ So, they become equal.
It's not going to happen.
So, what does Allah SWT want to tell
us from giving this example?
The example he's giving us is the statues
and the idol worship.
Allah SWT and his subordinates, basically everything other
than Allah SWT, is the subordinate of Allah
SWT.
So, how is it that the idol worshippers
are making the idols equal to Allah SWT?
When in worldly life, in the worldly life,
we will never see that a person, he
will give somebody who's lower than him, the
status that makes him equal to himself, he
will never do that.
So, why is it that you can do
that for Allah SWT, O idol worshippers?
Why can you do that?
How can you do that?
When you do not accept it for yourself,
then why do you accept it for Allah
SWT?
أَفَبِنِعْمَةِ اللَّهِ يَجْحَدُونَ Are these people who are
doing this, are they denying the ni'mah and
the blessing of Allah SWT?
The blessing of Allah in this sense is
that we should worship only and only Him.
The next verse, it talks about the creation
of the human being, his kids, his progeny
and so on.
So, there are basically two things that makes
life in this world.
One is the sustenance that Allah SWT gives
us and the second thing is the fact
that we have children, grandchildren and so on.
The having of kids and a family tree
is the second point.
So, in the last ayah, Allah SWT mentions
rizq and in this ayah, He mentions the
progeny, procreation and reproduction and so on, so
that both points of the life are covered.
So, Allah says, وَاللَّهُ جَعَلَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ
أَزْوَاجًا Allah SWT has made for you from
amongst yourselves, azwaj, spouses.
So, generally speaking, what happens is that people,
they tend to align towards their own race
and their own background, their own social status
in terms of finding themselves a husband or
a wife.
So, Allah made for you from amongst yourselves,
azwaj and spouses.
And in other verses of the Quran, Allah
SWT mentions why He created لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ
بَيْنَكُم مَّوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً the reason that the wives
were created and the husband is created, so
that you could have peace by being with
each other.
And it is He, Allah SWT, who has
put مَوَدَّة, extreme love.
مَوَدَّة is from the word wood.
مَوَدَّة, wadood, Allah SWT's quality is wadood, He
is extremely loving.
So, He puts this extreme love between husband
and wife.
وَرَحْمَة, He puts the mercy between the husband
and wife.
So, that is the reason that Allah SWT
created the spouses and the wives.
So, Allah says here, Allah created for you
from amongst yourselves, the spouses.
وَجَعَلَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَزْوَاجِكُمْ بَنِينَ And He made
for you from your spouses, بَنِين, children.
So, the fact is that the husband and
wife get together and after that you have
children.
And on top of that, وَحَفَذَ, He created
for you also your grandchildren.
So, as a person is getting old, obviously
everybody wants to have children.
Why?
So those children can become a support for
them as they are growing old.
And then on top of that, they would
like to see their children have grandchildren also,
so they can see that life increasing and
reproducing in front of their eyes, so that
they know that their family tree is going
to get bigger and bigger and their bloodlines
are increasing and they have many, many children
that are being reproduced.
So, this is basically the circle of life,
as they say, that will continue as long
as Allah SWT has the heavens and the
earth.
This is the circle of life that will
continue.
وَرَزَقَكُمْ مِّنَ الطَّيِّبَاتِ So, after He created you
and He allowed you to have children and
grandchildren, He also gave you the sustenance of
pure and clean things.
Allah gave you rizq, He gave you sustenance,
He gave you quality food, so you should
be grateful to Allah SWT for this ni'mah.
أَفَبِالْبَاطِلِ يُؤْمِنُونَ وَبِنِعْمَةِ اللَّهِ هُمْ يَكْفُرُونَ So, again,
the second part of the verse, it denounces
the shirk that people are committing and basically
denying the ni'mah of Allah SWT and instead
of worshipping that Allah who gave them the
sustenance, who gave them the ability to procreate
and have children and grandchildren, denying Him and
worshipping the idols.
So, Allah SWT says that, is it with
batil, with falsehood, they have iman.
They believe in the falsehood, meaning idol worship,
وَبِنِعْمَةِ اللَّهِ هُمْ يَكْفُرُونَ and they are ungrateful
or denying the ni'mah of Allah SWT, the
ni'mah of tawheed, the ni'mah of iman, they
are rejecting that and instead they are focusing
towards shirk and aligning towards shirk, something that
Allah SWT will not forgive.
وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ مَا لَا يَمْلِكُ لَهُمْ
رِزْقًا مِّنَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ شَيْئًا وَلَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ فَلَا
تَضْرِبُوا لِلَّهِ الْأَمْثَالِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لَا
تَعْلَمُونَ Let me just do this briefly and
maybe we will go into detail with this
next week.
And they worship other than Allah SWT that
has no control for them of sustenance from
the heavens on the earth.
Idols, what are they going to do for
you?
And anything other than Allah SWT, how is
it going to benefit you?
It's not going to benefit, cannot give them
any risk from the heavens on the earth.
وَلَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ And they have no capability whatsoever.
And they themselves have no capability of giving
the risk also.
فَلَا تَضْرِبُوا لِلَّهِ الْأَمْثَالِ إِنَّ اللَّهِ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ
لَا تَعْلَمُونَ So do not make examples for
Allah SWT, meaning do not make equals with
Allah SWT.
Indeed, Allah SWT is aware and you are
not aware.
InshaAllah we will cover this in detail next
week.
InshaAllah we will stop right there.
I pray that Allah SWT gives us tawfiq
to understand and practice what has been said
and heard.