Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah AnNahl ayah 71 onward

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.